Thursday, September 6, 2012

Wholesale Orders Know How

I did a little homework when it comes to selling wholesale to clients and ultimately, you have to come up with a structure that YOU are comfortable with.  It's always a good idea to take the time to calculate how much it actually costs you to make a bar of soap.  Everyone will vary in cost because we all use our own vendors for the oils, butters, fragrances, botanicals, colorants, labeling, packaging, etc.  So that's a given.  But as in all things relative to profit & loss, it's a good idea to have a baseline from which to work.  So after you figure how much it costs you to make a bar of soap, then you are ready to start designing a wholesale structure.  For me, I went one step further and created a line sheet.  Am I a super duper big soap company?  NO!  Do I have so many types of soaps that I need to have them catalogued?  NO!  This is something I did because it was the way I wanted to present my soaps to potential clients for wholesale ordering. 

I'm sure this is all a very simple in comparison to other's methods, but I'll share anyway.  This is just works for me.  I purchased a spiral bound presentation folder that had about 25 clear protective sheets inside.  On the outside cover, I put a sheet that has the name of my soap company along with my basic contact information.  On the first sheet inside the book I put a brief description of my soaps labeling the section "About our product".  I then put a photo & name of each soap I carry, usually fitting three soaps on each page, along with a description, ingredients, and MSRP.  You can (if you wish) stay true a linesheet format and also give the wholesale price next to MSRP, but since my structure bases the # of pieces purchased to a wholesale percentaage, I opted not to add wholesale pricing.  This makes a fine way for a customer to peruse their options.  [aside, arrange your wholesale line sheet in sections by soap type or scent or type (ex. cp versus m&p)]

One blogger article in particular jump started me on the idea of selling wholesale.  Here is a link to that article: Sell Big With 6 Tips for Product Materials  Be sure to read all the way to the bottom because she gives several nice links to material tracking worksheets that are free to download.