Offering your soap to be bundled as a variety gift is a great option to offer to your soap shop customers. However, doing so might drive your costs up if you’re not careful. Don’t let that discourage you, though. If you put together a gift combo using a variety of different soaps and a put it in a gift bag with ribbon, you can create a gift option that will be a good deal for your customers without cutting into your profits. For more details and suggestions, check out the video below.

One of the better ingredients to add to your soap is milk powder. The natural lactic acids can gently remove dead skin cells without harming the layer of skin underneath. Insert the powder into a bath product can also introduce casein, which helps skin retain moisture. What are some ways you can incorporate milk powder into your soap products?

In most soap recipes, you can replace water with reconstituted milk powder to add the skin treating effects to your favorite soap. Mixing milk powder into the carrier oils before adding them into salt or sugar scrubs can also enhance its effectiveness. Consider experimenting with milk powder and see the results for yourself. For more on milk powder and how you can use it, click here:: 5 Ways to Use Milk Powder in Bath & Body Products

With all the different craft and soap businesses online, it can be difficult to find your specialty and individuality. Finding and tapping into your devoted niche market is an ongoing learning process. However, there are some ways you can uncover what your niche.

Ask yourself why you started your soap business and ask yourself what makes you stand out from the rest. Your passion and reasons can show customers where you are coming from and what drives you. The unique aspects of your soap shop (examples: focus on floral scents, organic ingredients, or a specific unique recipe) can also define your shop towards your ideal customer. Focusing on this over time can help expose your niche while developing other aspects of your shop. For more on finding a niche, click here:: What is a Niche and How Do I Find Mine?

One of the most important elements in selling your handmade soap online is your photography. The pictures you post of your soap or craft product have to entice your buyers and appeal to them. What makes a quality photo of your craft soap?

First, try to make sure you use the natural lighting to your advantage so that your soaps colors can pop without being too bright. Be sure that your soap is in focus so the customer can see every detail. Try different background structures and environments to compliment the look of your soap (example: a rustic soap would look good next to fall leaves). These little touches can add perceived value to your soap products. Get more photography tips here:: 6 Tips for Perfecting Small Product Photography

We are just a little over a week away before Valentine’s Day, so it’s time to figure out what to do for the sweetheart in your life. Nothing can express your care for a person like getting a great gift. What are some ideas for gifts aside from the run-of-the-mill boxed chocolates and flowers?

Maybe grab a DIY cheese kit for you and the foodie in your life to make together. A stained wooden phone case can provide rugged protection and care. You can even give your science-sweetie the solar system! Well, at least a ring depicting it. Get inspired with more Valentine’s Day ideas here:: 18 Out-of-the-Ordinary Valentine’s Day Gifts

When you’re running your online soap shop, it is important to get the word out using as many marketing outlets as you can find. The more people see you, the more people can see your soap. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media are must-haves, but is an email newsletter be a viable option for you?

Well, it depends. If you have valuable content to communicate with your customers along with great photos, you might want to consider a regular, weekly-to-monthly newsletter. However, if you don’t have much to say or don’t have time to commit to writing a unique newsletter, you may want to pass on it. Besides, there is a chance that your ideal customer might not even want a newsletter anyway. For more on newsletters, please click here::Is a Newsletter Right for You?

While there are many who try to live off of their online soap business and struggle, there are many different paths toward success. If you are first starting out, you might want to know what has worked for the people who are living the dream you seek. A number of successful soap sellers started out just like you and have some wisdom to share.

Rachel from “The Daily Scrub” recommends that all soap businesses register, get insurance, and get appropriate licenses in order to prevent potential hassle later on. Jill at Calise Soapworks wants newbies to celebrate even the smallest successes and to learn from failures without beating themselves up. For more words of advice from soap success stories, please click here:: Top Soapy Business Advice of 2014

Running a successful online soap shop means trying to reach as many ideal customers as you can. Offering an email newsletter can help interested potential customers catch-up on what’s new at your shop. However, there are some newsletters that aren’t effective and just clutter the inboxes of customers. How can you improve your newsletter?

First, use an effective title/subject line in the email, something catchy or a description of one of your new products. “October Newsletter” tells me nothing. Next, be sure that your newsletter is full of content, links, and quality photos so that it is interesting to read and keeps your customer’s attention. This will pay off since even if they don’t buy anything from that newsletter, they’ll appreciate the content and look forward to the next one to peruse other items they might enjoy. A great newsletter can make all the difference. For more newsletter tips, click here:: 5 Steps to Build a Better Newsletter

When you’re running an online soap or craft shop, there’s more office work than you think. You’ll want to have photos of your products and a bio on-hand in case the local paper wants to run a story about your business. You’ll want to keep email addresses of certain customers or consignment shops in order to keep track of orders. There will be soap recipes you’ll have to reference since there are too many to commit to memory. All of these things can be easily lost with a click of a mouse. So what can you do?

Put safeguards in place. Store your recipes and non-private information onto a cloud service like Dropbox. Keep copies of your emails on a separate hard drive, clearly labeled. Lastly, you can also “go analog” and have printed or handwritten copies of recipes or a list of emails/contact info. Keeping everything in place with back-ups can help when hiccups occur. For more on craft shop data organization, click here:: 4 Systems You Should Have in Place to Ensure You Never Lose a File or Email Again

Ever wonder what that type of oil does? Or wonder what benefits this ingredient can add to a soap? Whether you are making soap as a hobby or as a business, it is important to know what your ingredients are, what purpose they serve, and how much you have in supply. It can get messy and disorganized at times, so what should you do?

Whenever you get an ingredient, clearly label it and insert the name into your own “database” via notebook or Word doc. As you have it listed, you may want to add whatever benefits it does (example: exfoliates, smells of roses) in case you want to try it in a new recipe. You may want make other documents with particular benefits at the headline and list ingredients that would add to that benefits (example: under “Heals Skin” put down “aloe”). This way you can have a complete database for you to quickly reference your inventory. For more on ingredient organization, click here:: How do I organize information on my ingredients?