Selling Soap - How Much I Really Make (Wholesale, Farmer's Markets, Shopify, Etsy)

so in total with all of our streams of income our wholesale customers our e-commerce platforms our farmers markets our events our direct customers all those five sources of income have made us in the month of october [Music] hello friends welcome back to my channel if you've ever been curious about what a small business like this makes this is a video for you today i pull back the curtain and reveal to you guys exactly just how much a soap and bath bomb business makes by showing you the sales that i made in the month of october i'm going to do this monthly because i feel like this type of information is super useful and interesting to a bunch of you guys i wish i had found a youtuber that did this back when i first started but i hope in doing that you guys can follow me on my growth but at the same time get inspired and hopefully grow right along with me if you're new here welcome to my channel i talk all about my soap and bath bomb business if that's your jam please subscribe if you're already subscribed welcome back you are so appreciated love you guys and now without further ado let's get into it now i just want to have a quick disclaimer and say that what i talk about today is not meant to show you the typical earnings of a soap and bath bomb business but just to show you what i make which is probably unique to a lot of people's experiences hopefully this info can serve as a type of guideline an inspiration or a discouragement depending on what your goals are in starting a soap and bath bomb business now with any small business it's always a good idea not only diversify your streams of income but to have as many streams of income as you possibly can you never want to rely on any one stream of income in the event that that stream of income either gets greatly reduced or taken away which is what happened to us back in april when all of our events were taken away and when that happened we were fully employed so it wasn't the biggest deal but it really drove home the fact that it's so important to have other streams of income because if we were relying on that income which to us was about tens of thousands of dollars of income then it would have been devastating for us thankfully we had our ecommerce platforms at the time and we still do we had our shopify and our website so sales from those streams of income really helped to supplement our income when those events were taken away so for our business we currently have five streams of income wholesale e-commerce direct sales farmers markets and events as i go through each stream of income i'll go into a little bit of a description about each one direct customers my favorite kind of income so these are our local customers who've reached out to us either through facebook or instagram or email or even in person asking us for product and they pay for their purchases either through e-transfer or cash as we've grown in our communities through our farmers markets and events the number of these types of customers have grown along with that and and that's awesome for us because these types of sales there's no vendor fee there's no e-commerce fee and these customers are some of our favorite customers because they are so loyal and so awesome we've really gotten to know them and they've really gotten to know us so there's that relationship and trust that we've built with them so we always love accommodating their requests because they become more like friends to us than customers so from direct customer sales we made 385 dollars and 18 cents if i'm looking sideways it's because i have all of my notes here and the screen of my computer might cast weird light on me every now and then so i apologize about that the next type of income which is super important and that is our e-commerce sales now our e-commerce sales come from three different platforms our etsy our website which is hosted through shopify and local line which is an online version of the farmer's market that we attended back in the summer time and having an e-commerce platform to sell your stuff i think is so important especially during these times so that your customers have an option of buying your products without having to be out in places in person i found that in this year in particular our sales through our etsy and our shopify have gone through the roof and it's definitely because of what's been going on so if you're starting out i think for sure you should get your products up on either an etsy or shopify there's even free websites you can use out there i'm not sure which ones exactly or the experience with them because i've always had a shopify but if you can manage it do it because people are online and they want to shop online so the sales from our e-commerce platforms were for 2 803 and 44 cents so our next term of income is farmer's markets and in the month of october we started out the month with three of them for the first two weeks and then after that we were down to one so you can see how even through a farmer's market stream of income we really have to be able to find other ways to supplement because farmers markets don't run the whole year so we were down to just one for the rest of october and that really drastically reduced the amount of money we were getting from farmers markets farmers markets are actually kale's favorite way to make money because he's so social and he loves interacting with customers one-on-one for someone like me who's more introverted it's not exactly my favorite but he loves it i like farmers markets because i like to see how people interact with their products in person the selling part i for sure have to improve on i am super shy i'm pretty sure a few of you can relate but i can say for sure that since doing the farmers markets i am definitely better at selling in person now than i was when i first started so we made three farmers markets 3 163 and 33 cents the fourth stream of income that we had in the month of october is events and we had just one event in october this was actually the only event that we've done in all of 2020 like i mentioned before we had a lot planned but they were all cancelled but we were lucky enough that an event that we did last year we are kind of close with the coordinator and she reached out to us and let us know that this event was happening again this year and she wanted us to participate it was a much scaled down version of what it was last year but we were happy to do so because all of the proper precautions were being followed and so we felt safe and comfortable doing that we weren't sure how much money we would make but it was still something that we wanted to do because a huge bonus was that the event was free for us so even if we sold just one little thing that's profit the event actually ended up being great and we made 1052. and 28 cents the last room of income is our wholesale customers and this type of customer is awesome when you're first starting out because their orders are huge and that big injection of money is awesome for buying supplies and equipment and anything you need to really get your business going i'm actually in the stage now where we're starting to turn away wholesale customers because i'm starting to find that i don't have the time it's getting to be a little too crazy especially this time of year we have our regulars and that's just about enough for us anything more and we would for sure not be able to do it and you gotta have to start saying no because if you keep saying yes your business will definitely suffer so from our wholesale customers we made 1833.64 so in total with all of our streams of income our wholesale customers our e-commerce platforms our farmers markets our events our direct customers all those five sources of income have made us in the month of october 9 237 and and that sounds like a lot which it is but there's expenses like with any business there is a cost to running it and for us we are no different in the month of october we had to pay banking fees and that was for our business bank account that we have at our local bank that cost us 32.75 cents the next expense we had was all of our e-commerce fees so that's the fees that shopify has charged us that sc has charged us that local line has charged us and that was 92.81 and to get all of those online orders out the door and delivered we had to pay for shipping labels and in canada shipping is expensive shipping in the month of october cost us 488.68 the more you grow and scale the more you're gonna be investing in equipment and we had to buy a new sick blender and a square reader in the month of october kayla and i had to sell in two places at the same time and that was when we were doing the event and so i needed a new square reader so our equipment for the month of october costs us 122 dollars and two cents as a side note if you are going to be selling a person get a square reader i can't even say how many sales we would have lost if we didn't have a square reader and you'll find that people will often spend more if it's all going to their card so definitely get some sort of reader that takes credit and debit and the last expense which is our biggest expense every month is our supplies and the more your business grows the more you'll be spending in supplies we've been buying more and more ingredients in bulk and that has increased the amount we've been spending towards supplies buying in bulk is not only a good idea to get your cogs down cogs being cost of goods but it's also a great idea so that you always have the ingredients nothing's worse than preparing an order and you're out of ex ingredient and you have to have a shift from somewhere and it's going to take another three weeks to get there so buy in bulk really helps protect you against that so for the month of october we spent in supplies 1536.92 in total all of our expenses cost us 2519.43 so if you take the amount that we made in october and minus our expenses you get six thousand seven hundred and eighteen dollars and forty four cents which isn't bad that's still a good amount of money but wait because we are a small business no one's taking away our taxes we have to do it all ourselves so i have no idea how much we will need to pay in taxes next year so a good practice that i've heard is to remove about 25 of your earnings to have it in preparation for tax season so if you were to tax the profit at 25 you get a grand total of 5 38 and 83 cents so that's it that was our profit for the month of october again i hope you guys found that super interesting and helpful if you're wanting to go into this as a business it's always a good idea to know some realistic expectations and whether or not you can earn a full-time wage off of this business i'm example that yes you can but like i mentioned before and as you can see from our numbers diversify and increase your streams of income it's so important to have as many places that you're making money as possible so it'll be really interesting next month what our numbers will be november and december should be really good for us but then we're also preparing ourselves for january and february where it won't be so good so if you enjoy this video give it a thumbs up and please subscribe and if you do subscribe don't forget to hit that bell icon so that you never miss a single video i really don't think i'll be able to be posting daily but i am definitely trying to post as often as i can for those already subscribed thank you guys so much i've been loving all of your comments and i've been loving all of your feedback i can't wait to show you guys all of the videos that i have planned i really hope that i keep inspiring you thank you as always for choosing to follow me on my journey keep being awesome and i'll see you in the next one bye guys you

Channel: Jerika Zimmerman

Views: 98,414

Keywords: how to make soap, soap making, cold process soap, cold process soap recipe, bath bomb recipe, how to make bath bombs, bath bomb making, soap business, bath bomb business, make soap at home, soap diy, bath bomb diy, etsy business, small business behind the scenes, how much can I make selling soap, soap business income, how much I made selling soap

Id: JehVOIKpcgM

Length: 13min 7sec (787 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 11 2020