Teach Soap

Hi - Can you advise me on good and safe websites to sell my soap on? I'm not sure on how expensive they are. Thank you.

Thank you, so let me ask, what is the difference between Etsy, Go Daddy, register.com etc? So confusing..

For your own web site, you need to register it (like GoDaddy), then have someone host it. Depending on the host, you would need to install your own shopping cart.
For Etsy or ArtFire, they have their own registration, their shopping cart and their own web site. You register with them, but the site is not your own; only your store is. You would be competing with thousands of other crafters that sell similar merchandise on the same site.

My Etsy is bare bones right now. They had a serious security breach, their customer service sucks and you have to keep relisting in order to be seen. That can get expensive. For ArtFire, there is only one monthly fee and you can list as many things as you want with no other extra fees.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Any time you want to set up a store it takes a LOT of hardwork to get the word out there. A lot of people who use Etsy seem to think "If I post it, they will buy it" but that can lead to very slow sales. You still need to advertise advertise advertise and then promote some more! As for etsy fees, it costs 20 cents to list an item, then they take another 2.5% from the sale when it's made. If you're using Paypal, they will take another 3.5% off the sale. So, if you list and sell an item for $4.00 (not including s&h) Etsy will take 20 cents plus 1 cent (2.5%) and Paypal will take 1-2 cents (depending on if they round up or not) not including s&h and up to 30 cents if they do include s&h in the transaction (I'm assuming a $5.20 s&h charge). So really, you'll only be making about $3.50 off of the original $4.00 purchase.

(Paypal charges are there if you use their service at all for your transactions so it doesn't matter if you use Etsy or Artfire or your own store, if you're using paypal for exchanging money, there is a fee).

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Tamra
New to soaping, long time crafter and artisan, avid learner of new things!

So in todays world of soap crafters what is the best way to sell? Everything that I read in books lean toward online stores. What do most soap crafters doing? Thank you.

Are there any craft fairs near you? That would get you a foot in the door.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Hi - Yes I have my first one on June 11. I'm just trying to get my business up and running with as many options as I can. What do you think of Artfire, is it a good site and user friendly?

Me, personally, I'm going to set up an Etsy account, barebones, with 30 items in it, so I can list one item a day each month (cost for that upkeep is about $6.00/month), so that I can get at least some traffic and I'll point them to my own website/store. I have paypal and they can help me set up a shopping cart on a website (I'm still researching which host I want to go with) of my own through which I hope to do most of my selling. I am also planning on doing home parties like what Pampered Chef does which will also be linked through my website/store. I am using blogger right now to help promote what I do and help out some other soaping stores get some promotion as well.
I won't be setting up for selling until I get the proper registration and licensing (hopefully in about a month), but that's my game plan for right now and I'm not expecting to sell much (if any at all) right off the bat, but have other plans percolating in my brain for promoting my business.

I would love to do craft fairs but around here they're upwards of $750 for a weekend spot >_< something I definitely can't afford!

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Tamra
New to soaping, long time crafter and artisan, avid learner of new things!

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

By paper work in place, do you mean pricing, ingredients, payments etc?

Have you heard of Groovepress.com’s?

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.