# Launching Our New Soap Biz and Website Questions



## DopeSoap (Mar 2, 2010)

Hi everyone,

My girlfriend and I are almost ready to launch our handmade hemp soap business and website within the next month. 

I would like to know if anyone that has already passed this milestone has any good tips or information for us, maybe some pitfalls to avoid and things like that. I will give you a short list of what we have covered but please feel free to leave replies on these topics as well.

Thanks in advance and I can't wait to hear from all of you.

so far we have:

-Fairly deep product line of 6 natural organic hemp soap varieties, 4 hemp bath bomb varieties, 4 bath salt varieties, 4 natural organic beeswax lip balm varieties, and a few other interesting items.
-Filed LLC
-EIN number
-Tax ID Number
-Tackled packaging
-Appropriate business contact information (phones,voicemail,fax)
-Website (I am a web developer so I feel that this aspect is complete)
-Almost have the best shipping options figured out.

Items in limbo I could use help with:
-liability insurance
-cheap place to buy small-ish shipping boxes or envelopes (for single bars or single bath bomb orders... larger orders will use small flate rate USPS boxes)
-collecting Michigan sales tax (do we need to for sales to MI residents online?)

And any other pointers you may have. 

Thanks,
Kevin
http://dopesoap.com


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## Tabitha (Mar 2, 2010)

> -cheap place to buy small-ish shipping boxes or envelopes (for single bars or single bath bomb orders... larger orders will use small flate rate USPS boxes)



If you are going for the whole organic, hemp, responsible thing... I would not purchase shiping materials. I would recycle. Use the boxes & bags that come to you or go around to other local shops & get their waste packaging to keep it out of landfills. You can post in your mission statement or on your about me page that you value recycling & reuse boxes & bags when you can. Your specific customer base will appreciate that.


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## donniej (Mar 2, 2010)

For insurance you can join the handcrafted soap makers guild.

What did you have to do to get a EIN?  I was just looking into it last night, it looks easy... "too" easy for the IRS   

For packaging, I reccomend you look at U-Line's website.  They have virtually everything.


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## DopeSoap (Mar 2, 2010)

donniej said:
			
		

> For insurance you can join the handcrafted soap makers guild.
> 
> What did you have to do to get a EIN?  I was just looking into it last night, it looks easy... "too" easy for the IRS
> 
> For packaging, I reccomend you look at U-Line's website.  They have virtually everything.



Here is the link: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/art ... 67,00.html

At the bottom of the page there is an apply now button. They only let you file for one online during their work hours, and yes... it was really too easy for the IRS. You have to have one of these before you can file for an LLC. (by the way, you can save about $450 filing the LLC yourself rather than use something like legalzoom, that also was way too easy.)


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## Rob K (Mar 11, 2010)

Hi Kevin,

Yes, you need to collect sales tax for sales to MI residents that purchase online.  But not for online sales to out-of-state customers.  Your shopping cart software should be able to handle this for you automatically.

Good luck!

Rob


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