Sellers - expensive scents?

[dixiedragon]

Do you price soaps differently if they have expensive scents? Some FOs (buying by the pound) are about $1 per oz. But some are as high as $4 oz. So if you made a 1 lb batch (4 bars) scented generously (1 oz of F), one bar has .25 of FO and the other has $1 of FO. That's a pretty big jump. Do you just assume it will all "come out in the wash"? I thought a solution MIGHT be to have the bars be the same price, but the ones with the pricier FO be a bit smaller, like 3.5 oz vs 4 oz.

 

[soaring1]

I had thought about this also. Lavender is so expensive and it makes the cost go up in that batch. Around here people tend to frown on different prices for soap the same size. I decided to just leave the price the same and recoup it on the other soaps I have. Now if I was selling wholesale or on line, which I don't, I would consider the different price.

 

[dibbles]

I don't sell now, but I used to sell M&P. I priced all soaps the same, even though some FOs were more expensive. A possible way around would be to have a 'luxury' or 'specialty' line to differentiate the soaps. Use a butter, a special oil or anything, really, with good label appeal and use the more expensive FOs for those. If you do lotion, that takes so much less to scent it wouldn't be such a huge difference.

As a consumer, if all things were equal and I didn't understand the differences in cost of EO/FO, I might be put off by some soaps being $1 more (or whatever) per bar when everything appears to be the same. But, again, that may just be my feelings and not of the feelings of others.

 

[WeaversPort]

I'll second that customers generally don't understand the price difference between an expensive vs inexpensive fragrance. The one place I saw it work was when I saw someone selling lotions, salves, etc. One part of her line was made with rose essential oil.

The seller did have to some extra work to educate the customers, so it wasn't just as simple as pricing differently.. It was a process.

 

[cmzaha]

Most of my bars are cut the same and priced the same, including the Camel's milk soaps I make periodically, with the exception of my facial bars which are poured in a multi cavity silicone in squares. I do think my next round of Camel's milk soaps are going to be poured in the squares. I find customers like consistency, which is why 90% of my soaps are poured in the same molds. All my bars are priced at $7 and average 5.5 oz after curing. My square soaps average 4 oz

 

[wetshavingproducts]

Unless it's packaged more fancily, consumers won't get it. So either use 1/4 as much, price everything higher, or just don't sell the expensive one unless you're able to sell 8x as much in quantity to justify taking the 4x cost hit.