How we scaled our handmade soap business: Ideas on how to find wholesale stockists for your products

Today is the second part of our videos on selling products wholesale to retail stockists. In part one we covered what wholesale is and the different wholesale options available.
In today's video we discuss how to find stockists for your products. We talk through the different approaches we took to finding stockists when we first decided to sell wholesale. We tell you what worked well for us and what didn't work so well. We also cover how to prepare for meetings with potential stockists, what to do and what not to do!
The content within this video is all based on our own opinions and findings. Remeber, what works for us may not work for you and vice versa, so please, take this as a guide but read up on everything and research for yourself as well!
We have tried to break the information down into easy to understand sections, but if there is anything else you would like to know, do pop a comment down below!
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We will be uploading new soap making videos on a more regular basis now as we have decided we want to focus more time on KZbin as we really enjoy making these videos! We will post every alternate Friday but will also be popping in more midweek videos whenever we have the time!
You can also follow us and find our soaps here:
www.sussexsoap.co.uk
sussexhandmadesoap
sussex_handmade_soap
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[@rorykeegan1895]

Good stuff Miss ...

[@TheSussexHandmadeSoapCompany]

Thank you :-)

[@zoe8620]

That is a great advise video. Thank tou for this. I found that a few friends are very keen on stocking soaps. A flower shop owner wanted a range of flower fragrance and flower design inspired soaps were a good addition to her range and a friend with a network of beauty saloons wanted to have all natural soaps with skin benefits ( mainly clay coloured and activated coal soaps as well as hand balm range found it beneficial as her offering. I even accommodated a branded range with a stamp of her beauty saloon branded stamp, which I had manufactured with her permission and template -worked perfectly. Very popular and keeps me busy in addition to online sales.what was helpful : my business background and the fact that I had work relationships with both of the friends I mention prior to becoming friends, so credibiity and trust as well as loyalty was not an issue-there was no need to break the ice. Phew...as for familiarisation with a product what helped was that my friends were on a journey with me developing the recipe and design whilst they were in the audience of friends and family receiving soaps as presents and samples before the hobby turned into some sort of business. I was encouraged by them, they gave me feedback and shared ideas. So, interestingly enough they feel part of my success and development because they contributed with ideas and practically took personal interest and involvement in developing product range together with me. A Blessing.

[@rippleeffectnz5520]

Thank you from NZ. Looking to start own business so appreciate all of your videos 🥰

[@alisoncrawford1181]

Great advice, thank you for another brilliant video.

[@ikechukwuadekemi5055]

Nice one 👍

[@nilzagarcia6341]

Thank you for sharing, great info.🌺

[@TheSussexHandmadeSoapCompany]

You are welcome Nilza

[@wago6144]

Great Info and timely! I always step out with my soaps on a weekend. You might just never know who you'll meet or just spontaneous pitching to potential large clients.

[@TheSussexHandmadeSoapCompany]

Exactly! Always be prepared! We had a customer find us at an event a couple of weeks back. She had specifically come to the event to find us and talk about wholesale, so it was good to know our pitch and prices inside out!

[@Hilary_ClarbySoaps]

Really interesting video Anne, not sure how I missed it months ago! I’m just starting to dip my toe into wholesale accounts. I’ve got just a couple at the moment but my best customer is a local visitor attraction, which is great. I think stock control is a big consideration as you don’t really know how big the orders will be, and I agree that when people place an order they want it straight away and not have to wait. I tend to find local gift shops order quite a small quantities. It would be good to know whether you find most of your sales are wholesale, online, fairs or in person visitors?

[@TheGiddyStitcher]

Interesting topic as always! I'm quite curious how it works in practise walking into small shops, I live in a small town and even here the staff working in the local bookshop etc at any given time don't tend to be the actual owner / decision maker, so how does that work? I'm imagining you two on stakeout, parked outside your target business making notes on who works when so you can time it right. But that's probably not actually the case 😆

[@topafkar]

Nice video

[@TheSussexHandmadeSoapCompany]

Thank you

[@zahir_0094]

Great video thank you so much for all the information. Just a quick question. Would hair salon, beauty parlours etc.. would be ideal places to approach? And also places like bed and breakfast do they buy handmade soaps, I mean cost wise would it not be too expensive for them?

[@annamilona6996]

Thank you so much for all this information! I have a probably silly question 🙈 How do you present your soaps? Do you have them in a box, in a bag, in individual boxes? Thank you 😊

[@TheSussexHandmadeSoapCompany]

HI Anna. When visiting retailers, we have all of our soaps in a box and if the shop owner wishes to see them we bring the box out and take out the individual soaps to show them. To be honest, there is probably a better way to bring them out and present them but this works for us at the moment.