Gift baskets have been a popular method of giving a thoughtful gift on a range of occasions - from birthdays and anniversaries to appreciation of a colleague at work. Today, gift baskets are available at both mass merchandisers and supermarkets, as well as at specialty stores. Interestingly though, customized gift baskets, produced by independent home-based gift basket businesses, remain popular amongst both individuals as well as corporations. The reasons for this range from the ability to give a personal touch to the gift basket, to the home delivery that these home-based gift basket businesses offer. But what kind of income do these businesses throw off - especially since every item in that gift basket has to be purchased by the creator of the gift basket? Can you seek to be a millionaire by operating a gift basket business?

A gift basket business is labor intensive - since every gift basket has to be manually created, arranged and delivered. Thus if you are the only person operating this business, risk of burn-out is high - and all the work around creating the basket will leave you too exhausted to do the marketing, accounting and other myriad works that are needed to succeed in the business. Moreover, the average margins in this business stand at around 22% - which is much better than your average retail business (where margins range around 1-5%), but is not as good as say, a software business, where margins are in the 80% range.

Gift basket businesses tend to average annual revenues in the range of $50,000 with a few topping the $200,000 mark. This implies net income is in the range of $11,000 to $44,000 - not the kind of income you would associate with a strong wealth building tool. However, there is a caveat that must be added. Most individuals involved in this business tend be those who are willing to work hard, but do not have a strong sense of how to really succeed in business.

As serious students of wealth building know, gift basket business, like any other business, must be approached such that the business itself does not depend on your hands-on participation. In other words, you need to find employees who will do their assigned jobs with a precision and interest that you would bring to the business yourself. And this can only be achieved if their tasks are clearly laid out and provided the training necessary to excel at their jobs. This is the franchise type model advocated by authors of E-Myth.

This model is what the owners of Yankee Candle followed which has resulted in a very successful business. Approaching the gift basket business with that mind-set and working hard to continuously raise margins by being efficient and focusing on the high-end market (corporations and wealthy individuals), you can indeed raise your business revenue north of $1 million - and build your wealth through this fine business.

To get started in this business today, visit the two top sites - Gift Basket Review and GiftBasketBusiness.com, and pick up the book on this topic.