Bath & Body Works, LLC, is an American retail store under the L Brands (formerly Limited Brands) umbrella. It was founded in 1990 in New Albany, Ohio and has since expanded across the United States and Canada. It specializes in shower gels, lotions, fragrance mists, perfumes, candles, and home fragrances.
If you love making soaps or shower gels, a bath and body business might seem like a natural fit. Creativity and a love of beauty products, however, aren't sufficient to make your business succeed. You'll need a business plan and access to financing, but these steps alone aren't sufficient. To create a truly successful bath and body business, you have to offer something other businesses don't.
Starting a business making and selling your own bath products can be profitable. The key to succeeding is finding the perfect formula and then finding the right way to market and sell your product. Handmade soaps sell well in beauty boutiques, at craft fairs and in small gift shops. You can also consider selling the products online. The bath products will appeal to a wide market. Working from you home will allow you to slowly increase your business and possibly continue at your current job while doing it.
Choose the Right Products
It's not enough to offer products that smell good or protect the skin, as dozens of beauty lines offer this. You have to find a specific hole in the market that you can fill. You might, for example, market soap products that are scented with real flower oils or specialize in bath products made from cruelty-free and eco-friendly ingredients. If you have a knack for design or are a talented artist, elegant and dramatic packaging can be used to advertise the product's merits in an appealing way.
Preparing Your Home
You will need a sterile environment to make your soaps. Ideally, you should set aside one room that is only used to prepare and package your soaps. You might want to buy materials such as a sterile steel worktable, large mixing bowls and measuring cups and a heating source, such as Bunsen burner for your product line. If your city or country requires a business license, officials might come and inspect your home to ensure it is safe to operate a business there. They will check for items such as pests, and for safety issues such as having a smoke detector and proper wiring for your equipment.
Creating Your Product
It is important to perfect the recipes for your product line. You could start small with a line of bath salts or you could cover all types of bath products when you begin. Purchasing the bottles from a supplier is the easiest option, but you will still need to design labels and a logo that will help customers recognize your product line. If you are not artistically inclined, hire a graphic designer to do it for you. When you pick out the labels, you want something that represents the values that you and your product represents. You can apply the logo and graphic design to your website as well.
Buying Your Supplies
If you want to market your soap as being pure, you will need to carefully choose whom you buy your products from. At the beginning, you might choose to buy from a craft or beauty supply store. However, you can save money by buying in bulk. You can look at both local suppliers and online suppliers to find the best deal. You want to order from a company that you can trust will deliver you pure products so that your soaps consistently come out at the same quality.
Selling Your Product
The places you sell your product will help determine your success in the business. Specialty bath soaps sell well at craft fairs, in gift shops and at boutiques. Selling items from your company's website is a good idea as well. One option is to contact local merchants to see whether they will allow you to have shelf space in their stores. Another option is to find a company that will distribute the product for you. However, you might want to wait on that until you can produce large batches, so you can keep up with potential orders. You will need to choose a competitive selling price that leaves you enough margin to make a profit while buying new supplies.
Market Your Business
No matter how good your products are, you're unlikely to succeed without a strong marketing plan. Define your target consumer and come up with ways to reach her. Most bath products are targeted to women, for example. You might advertise on fashion blogs, in women's magazines or at stores where women like to shop. Search engine ads can help people who are already looking for bath products locate your website, and a social media presence that features discounts, beautiful pictures and shareable posts can help create demand for your bath and beauty products.
Develop Your Brand
Your brand identity helps set you apart from your competitors and is built partially on what makes your product distinctive. If you specialize in eco-friendly products, for example, you might design a website filled with environmental information and opt for low-key and biodegradable packaging. A recognizable logo, marketing style and voice when talking about your products are all vital to a successful brand.
Find Sales Options
A brick and mortar store is the most costly option for selling your products, so you should only go this route if you have sufficient funding. Websites such as Artfire provide an outlet for purveyors of homemade products, and a business website is an excellent option for building interest in your products. Sites that sell related products, such as clothing or personal care items, may be interested in selling your items, and established stores provide a ready-made marketplace for your bath products if you can persuade the owners to carry them.
Workshops for How To Starting a Bath and Body Business
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