How To Make Money Selling Soap

Have you been wondering how to make money selling soap? Then, you are not alone. Many creative people think about quitting their corporate jobs to sell handmade soaps.

The impressive financials of some soap makers would compel you to take the plunge.

Soap-making is a great way to connect with people and earn a livelihood.

If you have been skeptical about the question – is soap making profitable? Then, read further to understand how to make money selling soap.

How To Make Money Selling Soap

1. Sell to friends, family, craft fairs, and organic/handmade- markets

Consider this as the first stage of how to make money selling soap. It is essential to start with this stage to test your soap-making skills.

Since this is the beginning stage of creation, you can afford to commit mistakes. Also, the customers can give honest and direct feedback.

Thus, you can try as many recipes as possible and distribute your products to your acquaintances. You can give away the soaps free of cost. Or, you can charge a minimum amount that is enough to cover your expenses. Either way, you should focus more on getting feedback than the earnings.

From there, you can open a kiosk at a craft fair or an organic handmade market. This is an automatic progression from giving away soaps for free. 

Selling at fairs helps you understand the competition and the audience. That will help you learn both your soap crafting and business skills. 

2. Sell at online marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon Handmade

Selling online is a natural progression from selling soaps to people in person.

Every creative person considers the Etsy platform. But there are several others that you can ponder.

Gumroad is a beautiful platform. Its alternatives are great as well.

3. Sell your creations to other soap businesses

Suppose you are looking forward to a full year of business. The key is selling to other soap businesses. If you have a few tie-ups, this setup lets you stay worry-free about scouting for business.  

This is the B2B, or business-to-business, model. It involves entering into agreements with other businesses to become their outsourcing partner.

That way, you can create soaps in bulk and fulfill them according to the order requirements. This is definitely a steady source of income. But it would be best to consider that this model will have the lowest margins per bar/unit of soap.

4. Sell to hotels and chains of hotels

The hospitality industry requires soaps and toiletries on a regular basis. Hence, they are a target customer for selling handmade soaps. 

Most boutique hotels prefer to introduce their guests to hand-crafted products. It makes good business sense to identify them and work out a long-term business deal.

The good part of tying up with a hospitality chain is that you get recurring business. Predictability in the business helps you manage the costs of bath soap ingredients.

5. Sell through your store

It is one of the best ways to have a successful soap-making business on your terms. 

Through a self-hosted online shop, you can sell soaps and toiletries. You can also sell related digital products.

When you open an online store, you have several options to serve your customer base. The best one is to identify a soap business niche and then scale up from there. For instance, you can sell soaps with fan-based themes like Lego and Game of Thrones.

Along with soaps, you can try innovative products that will help you boost your earnings.

Two such unique ideas are as follows:

Soap-making kits

You can consider this as a soap business in a box. Meaning, you package the ingredients to make soap and sell it to customers. This makes a great product for DIY enthusiasts. You can try various permutations and combinations with this product model.

Also, people appreciate the process of making soap without lye.  

Digital downloads

This is my favorite way to run a business. If you have been following my journey. Then, you must have come across my best-selling digital product – a soap business planner.

6. Sell your expertise in making soaps to others

For obvious reasons, this works when you have considerable experience in selling soaps.

With your years of experience, you can teach others to start their handmade business.

Teaching has no barriers. Therefore, there are many ways you can use to impart your knowledge to others.

The best part about the transaction of knowledge is that it is two-way. Thus, interaction with novices will improve your understanding of the soap business. But of course, the monetary gain will always be a part of the deal.

Workshops

Watching someone learn how to make soap from scratch can be a big help to a novice to know how to make money selling soap.

Once you attain proficiency in soap-making skills, you can give workshops, which can be conducted online or offline.

You can even offer a how to make soap step by step experience through Airbnb. 

Online courses

Creating and selling an online course is one of the best ways to spread knowledge. The best part is that it also becomes one of the best ways to make money through soaps.

You can create helpful videos to show the various nuances of soap making. The work required to create videos is once, but it keeps reaping benefits for a long time.

7. Get into a complete bath and body business selling everything related to toiletries.

This segment is akin to reaching a soap business’s top of the pyramid. 

This stage of earning can come after grasping the know-how of every aspect of a soap business. From there, the progress is up the ladder by getting full throttle into the bath and body business.

A complete bath and body business could include many products apart from soaps. Following is the list of products that you can consider:

• Bath bombs
• Body wash
• Shampoo and Conditioner
• Body Lotion
• Sanitizers
• Soap Dish
• Loofah
• Bath mittens
• Body scrubs
• Body Oil
• Body mist
• Scented candles (soap and candle business go hand in hand)

Looking at the list above, you can get an idea of how vast the soap business can get. If you understand that, then it is easy to know how to make money selling soaps.

This post may contain affiliate links. That means if you purchase any of the products mentioned in this article through routing via the links in this post. Then, I may end up receiving a certain monetary percentage from the sale. Though the one who purchases through the link does not end up paying anything extra apart from the mentioned MRP on the product. Full disclosures on the Affiliate Page. 

Conclusion

There are several soap and toiletries brands in the market. But the charm of organic handmade soaps never seems to die down.

That is the reason one Lush brand is not enough. You will always end up purchasing a few handmade soaps during your travels. Or it gets difficult to say no to buying the beautiful smelling exotic soaps in a local handmade market.

There is more to the soap-making business than creating soaps and selling them. This article enlists all the details. So, share it with friends wishing to turn their hobby into a thriving business.

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