Could Selling Soap, Maybe Even Organic, Be A Good Idea?

Could a person really make any money trying to sell soap? And in particular, is selling organic

soap likely to be a money maker? Those are the questions under consideration in this article.

Let's talk about organics.

My family grows quite a bit of food. We raise cattle, poultry, dairy goats and garden quite

seriously. We are part of a long-running local organic food co-op. We have friends/neighbors

who are serious organic, though not certified, farmers. We eat as much organic stuff as we can

get our hands on. The ladies in my family use mostly organic skin care stuff and we use mostly

organic soap products.

With that said, the organic market for soap is a tough nut to crack.

In general the public does not much care whether soap is organic or not.

What mostly sells is smell and looks but the people who come back to buy more are the people

who like the way soap performs. They like the way it feels and lathers and what it does for skin.

Those people are the volume purchasers and will love you if you make it organic but there may

not be enough of them to make it so you can make a business of it, at least around my part of

the country.

Whether you can make a soap business lucrative depends on whether you can sell in volume

and whether you can make a quality product at a reasonable cost. Selling organic products

sounds like a great idea but I personally question whether you can sell enough at what will have

to be a premium price to make it pay.

Consider this though...

I just did a cost calculation on current prices to make Lavender soap using normal oils, not

organic, and using essential oils for scent.

What I get is a cost of about $1.10 for a bar of soap. That is buying in 50 pound batches of the

soap oils and 16 ounce bottles of essential oils.

By the way, well over half that cost is the scent oil, the Lavender essential oil.

Now I happen to know that the going rate around here for soap at craft fairs is between $5 and

$6 per bar.

So these folks selling soap at those rates are getting a gross profit of about $4 per bar.

It could be with some smart buying you could sell "organic" soap at the same price as the

competition sells regular soap and therein lies a huge advantage, maybe...

My better shows I have sold about 500 bars at a show.

More typical is to sell 300 bars in a weekend.

I talked to a crafter a few weeks ago.

He said his wife and daughter sell 15,000 bars of soap in a year.

OK...

My recommended way to sell soap is to find craft events and start there.

Follow up with customers with a brochure you give them and then send a bigger catalog to

those that reorder.

From time to time you can mail a catalog to your list you will build and a great percentage will

reorder.

Then you can use a website for another way to keep in touch with customers.

There are many ways to move some soap. I just happen to believe there is no better way to get

started moving soap in volume than getting in front of a lot of people.

Trying to sell soap just on the Internet is a disaster. There is too much competition and some

are selling soap really cheap. Just do a search on Amazon for organic soap. It is all but

impossible to get any attention for soap on the Internet.

Lots of folks want to sell soap.

Few make it work.

You need an edge. You need something unique.

Organic could be it. Outstanding colors could be it. A unique ingredient could be it. But in any

case what will make people come back to you and buy in volume is soap that really is a joy to

use and is indeed exceptionally good.

That's what I think we came up with and that's what it takes to get anywhere much.

Now I don't know what anybody will do when it comes to selling soap.

It does have to be sold and marketed.

People have such different backgrounds and desires and just plain old drive and work ethic that

it is hard to guess whether anybody could make a go of making money with soap.

People are making money with soap, some probably a lot of money.

Most people who try to sell soap will probably not ever make any.

They won't focus and make it happen.

They could but probably won't.

I've made quite a bit of money with soap.

What I know about doing it is mostly in my material. I haven't purposefully left anything out.

What I have for sale is a shortcut to a soap business, but making a business go, any kind of

venture, takes determination and just dogged persistence.

I hope this helps some.

It may not sound all that encouraging, but selling soap is no walk in the park, even if you are

selling organic soap, but it can be a money maker. The start-up costs are so low that it's easy

to get going and then can be grown at whatever rate somebody wants to go.

You can download a free ebook about getting a soap making business started on our site. It's

called Best Way to Make and Sell Soap. Check out the SoapBizKit on our site too.