Wholesaling Question

[MysPhoenix]

Hey everyone sorry it's been so long!

So there is a salon who would like to purchase wholesale soap from me and I'm trying to come up with a minimum quantity. My thought was that if they want to buy whole loaves, then a minimum of either 3 or 5 loaves at $25/loaf plus a $3 per loaf cutting fee if they want some of them pre-cut. If they want to mix and match scents, then maybe an order minimum of 25 at $3? I think for wholesaling that maybe 25 isn't an ideal number but also it's a salon not a store. Idk, I was hoping those with more experience could share their thoughts, recommendations, etc.

Hey everyone sorry it's been so long!

So there is a salon who would like to purchase wholesale soap from me and I'm trying to come up with a minimum quantity. My thought was that if they want to buy whole loaves, then a minimum of either 3 or 5 loaves at $25/loaf plus a $3 per loaf cutting fee if they want some of them pre-cut. If they want to mix and match scents, then maybe an order minimum of 25 at $3? I think for wholesaling that maybe 25 isn't an ideal number but also it's a salon not a store. Idk, I was hoping those with more experience could share their thoughts, recommendations, etc.

Should add my loaves yield ten bars.

 

[Marsi]

Hi MysPhoenix,

Pricing - the old rule of thumb was to take the cost and double it for wholesale, triple (or double it again) for retail. I can't comment further than that, as I don't have any information on your personal recipe and costings.

A comment I can make is that I would not leave cutting the bars to your wholesale client.
Retain quality control over the cut of your soaps.

The reason for this is that the quality of the soap is partially judged by the look of the soap,
Soap loaves get hard and more brittle after the cure - any left for "cutting later" (even left for only a few days, for some recipes) will be a problem for your salon, and potentially give a rough look to your soap.

Selling in multiples of 10 (your loaf size) with a minimum order value is easy to calculate on the fly.
If you need to add a cost, delivery fees are one to consider.
Consider setup and packdown time when setting the minimum order value.

This topic has good information for selling: Are you ready to sell your soap?

 

[MysPhoenix]

Hi MysPhoenix,

Pricing - the old rule of thumb was to take the cost and double it for wholesale, triple (or double it again) for retail. I can't comment further than that, as I don't have any information on your personal recipe and costings.

A comment I can make is that I would not leave cutting the bars to your wholesale client.
Retain quality control over the cut of your soaps.

The reason for this is that the quality of the soap is partially judged by the look of the soap,
Soap loaves get hard and more brittle after the cure - any left for "cutting later" (even left for only a few days, for some recipes) will be a problem for your salon, and potentially give a rough look to your soap.

Selling in multiples of 10 (your loaf size) with a minimum order value is easy to calculate on the fly.
If you need to add a cost, delivery fees are one to consider.
Consider setup and packdown time when setting the minimum order value.

This topic has good information for selling: Are you ready to sell your soap?

Thank you so much! I was on the fence about allowing then to cut themselves for the same reasons you listed, but have seen other businesses do it so I was looking for opinions, I appreciate yours.

I sell at retail (website, farmers market, etc) at x4 my cost average, so the wholesale pricing is x2.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I wouldn't be keen on letting them cut it at all - if it's wholesale and not private label then you want to have control of that. Or are you just going to give them a fresh loaf with a stack of labels and hope that they do a good job and leave it to cure before selling it?