Am I ready to sell???

[cerelife]

I'm sure you all have heard this story before...so I'll try to make it short.
I started making soap a little over 6 months ago after 3 months of research. I decided to learn how to make my own soap because I was spending a ridiculous amount of money on the handmade soap the DH and I had become addicted to...but NOT with the intention to sell it...just to save some bucks by doing it myself. Needless to say, the soaping addiction set it! We became overrun with soap, so I keep 4 bars from each batch, and give the rest away to my friends and co-workers. I asked them to be brutally honest with their opinions, and I've received great feedback that helped me tweak my recipes. I have successfully re-created our favorites, and so far, all my held-back bars still look/feel/smell good. I test each and every batch on myself (after curing) for at least two weeks before I give it away. At this moment I have about 300 bars of soap in various stages of curing/storage!
Word has spread, and I have people requesting my soap. My friends/co-workers, and the DH along with HIS friends and co-workers think I'm insane for not selling it. I'm not naive...people love it when it's free...but is it good enough to actually PAY for?? So I started telling everyone that IF I decided to sell, I would charge $5 a bar. Would they still be so enthusiastic about my soap? I was surprised that they had no problem with that price at all.
Sooo...I'm thinking of contacting RLI about liablity insurance, and selling my soap to friends/co-workers and maybe at our local farmer's market.
Am I too much of a newbie to even be THINKING this???

 

[nattynoo]

IMO... the ONLY person who knows that is you. No forum will give you the answer to that correctly. No one person knows how much you soap at home, how many batches you've made or the quality.
Is it that you feel like you need the approval of the people on the forum to sell???? or in all honesty do you not know if your ready???
Look inside yourself and ask you...Am I ready.....????
You know the answer.

 

[Guest]

IMO... the ONLY person who knows that is you. No forum will give you the answer to that correctly. No one person knows how much you soap at home, how many batches you've made or the quality.
Is it that you feel like you need the approval of the people on the forum to sell???? or in all honesty do you not know if your ready???
Look inside yourself and ask you...Am I ready.....????
You know the answer.

Yup, just ask yourself.

 

[holly99]

I'm kind of in that same situation except I've been making soap for about 3 years. Everyone thinks I'm crazy for not selling. If it were me, I'd wait longer, see how my recipe works after a year, see what more you learn to tweak, etc. But that's just me.

 

[ikindred]

One suggestion to help make your decision......research all of the costs associated with opening up your business if that is what you decide to do. Check prices from each of your vendors. Create yourself a couple of spreadsheets to find out what vendors you are dealing with and the prices in which you are paying for your supplies, liceneses or insurance costs, packaging costs, printing cost, website hosting, etc. It took me almost 7 months just to truly get the full picture of what is costs me to make the soaps and other products (oils, additives, molds, etc) and to figure out what profit I was making on each bar or batch.

It is great to own your own business, especially one that you love so much but it does come with some obstacles as you can imagine (record keeping, taxes, etc.). In the end, the decision is yours....have fun!

 

[dagmar88]

Personally, I'm all for testing and think it's important to be able to guarantee a consistent quality over time.

I want to be absolutely sure the chance of DOS in all situations (different humidity and temps) is minimal and the scents last for at least one year.

 

[nattynoo]

cerelife - hope I didn't sound harsh... I wrote with a soft voice..lol.
I too struggle with the selling thing. I have ALOT of pressure to do so. Just from the parcels I send out to friends and family I get calls from strangers wanting soaps. Even a few shops have called me about wholesale. :shock: :shock:
Its always been my intent to sell. I don't hide that fact. I've owned several small busineses over my time, my very first a hairdressing salon at 21. So I'm in no way afraid of the running of a business fulltime or part time. In fact my dream is to have a shop.
Its hard to decide WHEN you're ready isn't it. Lately I've been working on perfecting my soaps. My recipes are working pretty good and I'm getting consistant results. I'm a bit anal in that I need everything to be just right. I can't do something half way. I don't want to just make soap and hope to god someone buys it. I need to know who I'm going to sell to and how I'm going to do it...marketing, branding etc. I'm an over thinker.
For me I know I'll perfect all angles of the art but I also need to know if I'm ready for the hard slog of pumping out soap. & I know it will get to that stage. Every business does. Starts out with a love of something and then it becomes just down right hard work. I've heard people on here talk about being ready for the actual production of masses of soap. If you start with something you love then it certainly makes it easier to go to work everyday doesn't it.

 

[holly99]

I just remembered this blog post that I found helpful.

http://soaperstar.blogspot.com/2011/01/ ... break.html

 

[busymakinsoap!]

Cerelife,
Firstly I think the decision is yours and really only you will know. No one can put a time limit on it; we dont know how often you soap, how good your recipe is, how high your presentation standards are - perhaps your just a natural at it? Or maybe like me, you get in as much 'practice' as you can.

I think you have to break it down: there is the soap side of it, and the business side of it. If your confident with both then go for it, if not then study or practice some more.

As far as waiting a year to see the quality of the soap, its prob gonna take you a few months plus to get things up and running anyway.

I'm certainly no expert and have only been soaping for a few months, but my growth has been huge and every day I learn (I run another business from home so can juggle my time to fit in lots of soaping sessions.)
I have run several businesses before including a cafe, and have a huge amount of retail management experience, so I'm confident with the business side of things and once my soaping side of things is up to scratch I would love to start selling it, and although I'm no where near ready yet - I don't think its going to take me years to get there.

Everyone is different.

 

[carebear]

Two main things.
Can you make a consistently good product.
Are you confident your soaps are stable for at least a year in the bathroom? Wrapped the way you intend to sell, or unwrapped? Fragrance sticks, not too much shrinkage/warping, and NO DOS!!!

Add in can you handle the investment, do you have insurance, and stuff like that.

 

[cerelife]

Thanks for all the replies! And no, Nattynoo, you didn't sound harsh, LOL!
To clarify things a bit, I guess I need to add some details.

The main reason I posted this was because I had seen some pretty harsh posts about newbies wanting to sell. These posts had some good reasons not to sell...but I really feel like I'm ready. I was playing devil's advocate to see if there were any reasons why I shouldn't make this leap.

I'm confident of the quality of my soap (in fact, I think it's far better than the soap we originally got addicted to), and the people I share it with adore it...I've created new "soap junkies", YAY!, of people who, at first, were hesitant to try "home-made" soap. But the fact remains, that as a soap junkie...I would buy my soap!!

I can consistantly reproduce my recipes, no problem. I keep spreading my wings to try new things, but that's just who I am. If it works, great...if not, it's a learning experience. I'm going to make soap whether anyone is paying me for it or not.

I'm not looking to quit my job and start soaping for my main source of income...I'm just just thinking maybe I'll get some insurance (our society being what it is), and accept money from the people who are already trying to give it to me. And maybe even set up a table at our local weekend farmer's market. They don't require any kind of permit or business license. I live in a tiny little southern town, and our farmer's market is kind of a yard-sale/fresh produce/baked-goods type thing.
So when I say I'm thinking of selling, I don't mean a supply/demand type business. I'm not trying to set up a shop or a website to make soap to fill orders...although I don't mind requests, I think it's fun to try to fulfill them, LOL!

And as for making sure that my soaps can survive in the bathroom for a year without developing DOS or losing their scent...good point. BUT, I always tell people that this is soap, not an air-freshener or a decoration...just USE it!! If it sits in your bathroom for a year without being used for what it was intended for...then I feel no regret if you don't like it...why on earth would you buy a bar of soap and not use it???

 

[dagmar88]

And as for making sure that my soaps can survive in the bathroom for a year without developing DOS or losing their scent...good point. BUT, I always tell people that this is soap, not an air-freshener or a decoration...just USE it!! If it sits in your bathroom for a year without being used for what it was intended for...then I feel no regret if you don't like it...why on earth would you buy a bar of soap and not use it???

Cause that is what people do... They don't do what you tell them, tend to stock up and take a loooong time to use every piece of soap.
Some disappear into sock drawers, others are used as decoration in the bathroom.

When I ask for feedback, at least 50% of the time I hear 'but it's just too pretty to use, I've been sniffling it daily though'.

When me and my ex were still together, we had one normal sized piece of soap on the toilet sink that was used at least 12 to 15 times a day and it lasted well over a year...

I would regret not selling the best possible product and not getting repeat orders when customers find their soap get DOS spots in time, or when scent has totally faded after less then a year.
Insurance doesn't pay itself.

 

[carebear]

The main reason I posted this was because I had seen some pretty harsh posts about newbies wanting to sell. These posts had some good reasons not to sell...but I really feel like I'm ready. I was playing devil's advocate to see if there were any reasons why I shouldn't

Sounds more like you posted was to stir up trouble. You posted to attempt to elicit these so called harsh responses.

Consider yourself warned.

Btw,
Even if your venue doesn't require paperwork doesn't mean you don't have a legal responsibility to collect taxes (depending on the state) and an ethical responsibility to be insured not only to protect yourself and your family but to provide some recourse if you do injure someone.

 

[Tabitha]

You were looking for a harsh response & did not get one so you then felt the need to tell on yourself & admit you were trolling for a harsh response? Really?

 

[Harlow]

The question is not so much are YOU ready to sell soap, but is your soap ready to be sold and you can not answer that question until you have tested it 1 year after the date that it was made- IMHO.

 

[cerelife]

This was actually the kind of feedback I was looking for...I honestly didn't mean to make anyone mad, nor was I trolling for a beating, LOL! When I said I was playing the devil's advocate, I just meant that I was looking to see if I were missing any needed info about selling this soon.

We've always been soap hogs, so I didn't realize the number of folks who might actually have a bar sitting around so long. The people I give it away to are apparently soap hogs as well, so this was very useful to me...AND it makes me think that I will forego the farmer's market idea (selling to people I don't know) for at least another six months.

This was exactly the kind of info I was looking for when I posted...something outside of my mind-set and frame of knowledge.

I sincerely apologize to anyone I may have offended...this was never my intention.

 

[Tabitha]

http://soapmakingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17621

 

[cerelife]

Thanks for the link. A lot of food for thought there, so much in fact, that I printed it out as a reference as I work toward "getting my ducks in a row"!

 

[mandolyn]

Weighing in a little late on this post, but Tabitha posted the link, so I don't have to. LOL!

I still maintain that 6 months isn't long enough to know what your soaps will be like. I recommend a year minimum.

It will be a year or more before you recoup what you invest in a business. That's if you know what you're doing from a sales perspective.

Insurance for 1 year alone, is at least $400, & if you go with insurance geared specifically for B&B (which you should in my opinion), it's $500/yr. Add to that the cost of any licensing you need, a table to display on, a cover of some type for your table, something to put your soaps on to get them up high enough for people to see them properly, packaging, business cards, bags with your business name or logo, a pop-up or some type of covering for you, your table & your merchandise if you do outside shows, etc. Many venues require you, the vendor to carry liability insurance in case someone falls in your space & gets hurt, so without insurance you are limiting where you can sell.

So, all that said, how much soap will you have to sell to recoup your investment? Are all those friends who love your soap going to buy enough of your soap to do that?

Are you willing to invest time into bookkeeping & paying taxes on your sales?

 

[mandolyn]

snip

And as for making sure that my soaps can survive in the bathroom for a year without developing DOS or losing their scent...good point. BUT, I always tell people that this is soap, not an air-freshener or a decoration...just USE it!! If it sits in your bathroom for a year without being used for what it was intended for...then I feel no regret if you don't like it...why on earth would you buy a bar of soap and not use it???

You can tell your customers whatever you like, but it doesn't mean they're going to use your soap right away.

I have a customer who buys a bar of my soap to put in her car to deodorize it. Who am I to argue with her? She pays for it, she can do with it whatever she wants!!! She buys a new bar for her car once a year. That soap better hold up to heat & cold & hold it's scent if I want her as a return customer.

I have another customer who purchases soap in Jan to give as gifts in Dec. If I want that sale (& it's a large sale), my soaps better be good & still have scent come Dec 25th!! That's my responsibility as a reputable soapmaker.

People often buy soap to give as gifts & end up putting them away & forgetting about them. When they finally run across that soap, I don't want it to have DOS, or rancid oils, or it to be without scent.

If you're out in the soaping community selling soap that goes rancid or develops DOS at month 8, I'm not ok with that. I want you to get out of sales, & continue to develop your soap to a higher standard.

As for playing Devil's advocate, I would've appreciated a straightforward approach much more, for what it's worth. Just saying...8