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Do you want to sell wholesale? Be prepared!

Filed Under: Business Musings

We’ve been getting copious amounts of questions recently on the Soap Queen Blog, Facebook Fan Page and in customer service requesting wholesale advice. It’s been so long (over a decade now!) since I’ve sold my soaps wholesale, I thought I would reach out to some of my successful soaping friends to share some current best practices and advice with the Soap Queen readers. Today’s wholesale guest blog is by Debbie Chialtas from Soapylove (you’ll soon be addicted to her website)! Thanks for the tips, Debbie!

Anne-Marie

Guest Post by Debbie Chialtas

When I first started Soapylove I was just selling to support my hobby.  I came up with my prices pretty randomly and didn’t have any real business plan or structure.  Eventually, though, shop owners asked if I sold wholesale.

Having experience in apparel development and production, I was able to quickly get my information together and start taking wholesale orders.  Now Soapylove is 99% wholesale and it’s an extremely efficient and profitable way to go.  If you would like to work with shop owners here are some unusual terms you may never have heard and what information they will want:

What are your wholesale prices?

To determine this, the rule of thumb is add up your cost of materials and labor and double it.  Add a few cents for shipping supplies and transaction costs.  Over time you will get a feel for whether your pricing is adequate and you can always adjust.

What is the minimum order to get wholesale prices (or “what’s your minimum”)?

This is up to you, but you can either base this on number of items or a total value.  Starting with $100 might be a good ball park for soap and b&b orders.  I used to require 24 soaps as a minimum order.

What is your return policy?

Make sure you establish your return policies right away, and be extremely specific!  Mine is: “Soapylove is responsible for getting your order to you safely.  If any items arrive damaged, please notify us within 5 days of arrival for replacements or a credit.  After this time, Soapylove cannot be held responsible for the items.  To preserve the color and quality of the soaps and bath bombs, keep out of heat and direct sun.  Thank you!”  I put this on all of my invoices and packing lists so there are no misunderstandings.

What forms of payment do you accept?  Do you accept terms?

If you only take orders through a website, like your own eCommerce site, then your customers will likely use their credit cards which is very convenient.  Paypal is great since they accept all major credit cards.  Paypal Pro is great since you can manually enter credit cards if you take orders via email.  Some companies may ask for “terms” which means they have time after the order ships before they need to pay you.  Common terms are Net7 or Net30 (7 or 30 days to pay after the ship date).  It’s completely up to you if you want to work this way, but it is a small risk and takes more administrative time on your part to follow up and bill customers.  Soapylove does not offer terms, fyi.

What’s your leadtime (or TAT)?

“TAT” is not a permanent picture on your arm (har har).  It means “turn around time” or how long it takes to get a wholesale order shipped.  Most customers expect there to be some wait time before a wholesale or “bulk” order is ready.  This depends on you and what you’re making, so just be honest and give yourself adequate time – don’t stress out and rush!

Do you have a wholesale catalog?

This may sound daunting but it does not have to be!  You will be asked for the above information over and over, so creating a simple catalog (also called “line sheet”) is a worthwhile investment of your time.  A great way to do this is in Word.  You can import product photos, list the product names and prices, and add a final page that lists your minimums, payment requirements, leadtime, and contact info.  Now you can just email it to people as an attachment and they can reference all of your information easily and efficiently (if you can save it as a pdf then your formatting won’t shift when they open it, so that would be best).

Once you have the above ready, tell people you are interested in taking wholesale orders.  List this somewhere on your site or post a sign at your table where you sell – just let people know it’s okay to ask and you are ready to take their order!

You can do it!
Best,
Debbie Chialtas (aka “Soapylove”)

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27 Comments

    • Good morning, Elizabeth!

      Unfortunately, Bramble Berry does not have a catalog as we get new items so often we could not keep up with one. If you are interested in seeing what sort of products we carry, you can go to Bramble Berry’s website here:

      https://www.brambleberry.com

      Let us know if you have any questions about soapmaking and we will be more than happy to help out! 🙂

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

  4. How does one handle retailers concerns over the customer coming straight to me for purchases. I am just starting out, do not have a website and started selling wholesale to several vendors at local markets. One is afraid of making one sale and then the customer contacting me directly for more purchases. One option we came up with is that we remove my email address (the street addy will remain) and attach a seperate “distributor” label with her info. Is this a good solution?

    • Hi HollyAnn!

      That’s a great solution to that little conundrum. Bramble Berry actually owns a brick and mortar store called Otion, and when we sell our products there, they go under Otion’s label even though they are our products. I hope that helps! 🙂

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

      • That does… And it’s nice to know I’m on the right track. Thanks Becky! Btw I love the B&M name since my tag line contains a few ‘otions”! 😉

  5. I read a few articles online after being asked if I do wholesale on my jewellery by a shop owner. I had no idea of how to put a wholesale catalogue together – your article was the best! You explained the ins and outs and I love that you have experienced it yourself with your own business.
    Thank you!!! Kim x

  6. Great blog and wonderful information as my goal is to establish wholesales accounts as much as I can. I am hoping to do it the way you have advised. The simple catalog idea is wonderful. I think I will have to do that soon! Thank you, Debbie!

  10. I recently had a company create a wholesale catalog for me, and my sales have literally skyrocketed. If any bath/beauty person ever wants to really make good money, I highly recommend a nicely designed wholesale catalog (emailed in either PDF format, or printed..even better). This is purely based on my own experience. I had my wholesale catalogs designed and printed by Voiceleaf. ( http://www.Voiceleaf.com ) , as they were referred by a colleague of mine.

    Happy Wholesaling!

  13. Great post! I love the idea of a wholesale catalog. It seems small companies set themselves up for trouble when they do not create a wholesale policy, a catalog would not only list the products available, it would also include the terms, etc… (covering the policy issues).

  14. Great article, and timely for me as well. As for setting price I have heard 2.5x cost, or half retail price. Do you expect all wholesale buyers to retail your soap the same price?

    • Hi SarahJ,
      everyone has their own formula, but if a shop owner sees your shop and what you sell them for at retail, they’ll expect your wholesale prices to be half that.

      I do not expect all shops to retail them at the same price I do since they may have to mark up more to cover shipping (especially overseas). I hope that helps!

  15. Awesome information, Debbie. Thank you for sharing. It sounds funny, but I had no idea what a TAT was. Thanks for that important nugget of info.

  16. Thank You to sharing this information, this has been really useful for me, thanks again.

  17. I just went through all of this when I recently decided to start doing wholesale. I am glad that I was able out almost everything you addressed on my own, but this is a great article! It is difficult to find all this useful information in one place. 🙂