What Do Prosperous Retail Stores Have That You Don't?

Prosperous retail stores have a synergy at work that creates their success that includes the following:

Location
Marketing and Advertising Plan
Great Products
Appealing Displays and Atmosphere

Now having a great location is very important but if you don't then success can be achieved if your other elements take up the slack.

Not enough money for marketing or advertising then you might get away with that if you use the dollars you have creatively and also if your location is great.

Products, you need what the customer wants and plenty of it, you can't get by with less.

The most important element to this synergy is display and atmosphere. You could have a great location, lots of advertising dollars, wonderful products but if your place has an unpleasant look then your customer isn't moved to buy nor come back.

How does your store measure up? Is synergy working or is there a disconnect at one or two of the important elements?

Lets talk again and next time I'll focus on the importance of creating a story (atmosphere) in your store that encourages your customers to buy and come back to visit.

Life Is An Adventure

Meet Linda Kick one of my customers from down the Keys. I met her via phone when she placed her first order with me. I love meeting new people and am always intrigued on where they live and how they got there. Someone living in the Keys sounded so wonderful and I asked how long she lived there etc. Well I loved her story so much I asked if she would write it down so I could put it on my blog. Here's her story in her words.

After 25 years in San Diego, CA. (which by the way is an amazing place and so beautiful) I decided to shake things up a bit. I tell people everyday to go for their dreams, take risks, and live life to the fullest. Upon reflection I discovered I was pretty complacent and so I decided, on a whim, to move to the other coast. Remember, the hardest part of any action is making the decision. Once the decision is made, then you just put one foot in front of the other and take action! So in a period of 4 weeks, I sold or gave away most everything I had.

If it didn't fit in my convertible mustang, it didn't travel with me. That in itself was a major task. Talk about releasing the past! lol. I had 25 years of stuff to go through. It took 4.5 days to drive across the country to the East Coast. I landed in the Florida Keys December 19th, called for an apartment, moved in. It was an amazing feeling to have reached my goal and to know I was beginning a new adventure.

At first I played at being retired or what ever you want to call it...I wasn't working! lol. Lots of sightseeing and getting to know my neighborhood. Then I realized I wasn't growing in any direction so I answered a small ad in the local paper and began working in an art gallery. What fun. Now I am stimulated by beautiful things all day long inside and out. It was not long (about 2 months) when I decided to open my own shop. A 9x12 storage space in the Rain Barrel at Islamorada, Fl. I had a new dream and a new project and I was giving birth to a new journey once again. It seems like once I made the first decision to change my life, the rest began to fall into place. It was so exciting.

Now, with my new shop, Tropical Zen, open only two months, I had an opportunity to grow by taking on a much larger space. Square footage was about 4 times bigger! Yikes. That was scary Would I be able to make the additional rent? Would I be able to afford the additional inventory needed to fill the space? Would I be successful? Let me tell you....On the other side of FEAR is everything I could ever want. If you remember that one thought, you will be brave enough to step through that FEAR and accept all the greatness that is yours. It was my dream, I made the decision to make it real. How would I do it all? That was not a concern, I knew from experience that it would all come together in its own time. And it did!

I started out with an order from First In Line Soaps. Then was able to add aroma therapy soy candles. Inspirational signs followed along with Chi Energy bells and positively green greeting cards. I've recently added some easy fit clothing that flows nicely with the Keys Island life. The store continues to grow along with my income. A dream come true for me.

Now, let me explain a bit about myself. I am not a young entrepreneur. I am now 58 years old, a mother to a grown woman, and a grandmother to a 6th grader. I have been divorced and struggling on my own for some years now. Everyone, and I mean everyone I knew thought I was absolutely crazy to uproot myself from family and friends. My new friends here in Florida couldn't believe I would open a shop during these hard times, especially when they knew I was dumpster diving for old furniture pieces others didn't want just to furnish my apartment! I just want to tell you, it is never too late to make a decision to move forward in your life. Until the day you stop breathing, you have the ability to make wonderful things happen. Just make the decision and take action. Believe in yourself and know you have unlimited potential.

$22 A Loaf Soaps

Jumble Bubble loafs came about due to overage of soap when we make our regular line of soaps. We started them out as a free loaf for the purchase of 5 loafs. Why did we do that? Well to tell the truth with the economy scare and retail stores struggling we thought that this was a good marketing idea to hopefully get more customers to our site, try our products etc and help the retail stores. The customer didn't get to see what we were giving away free till they opened their order. So now in hind-site I can see that there had to be a bit of trust on the customers part to know that we would send off something that looked good, smelled good and would of course sell for them. So what I thought was a good idea really had some flaws. So we shelved that idea for the above reasons which really was that it wasn't doing what we wanted it to do.

So then like all ideas another one came to mind. The customers didn't like the idea that they couldn't see what they were getting, which now makes perfect sense. So I decided to offer our Jumble Bubble soaps again for a price $22.00 which is considerably less than our regular line of soap but this time I'll show them what they are getting. The one pictured here is a Pumpkin Crunch loaf that smells soo good. It's also very pretty looking mixing the colors of chocolate brown with a pearlized orange. As you cut into the loaf no two slices will look the same. There are only 3 loafs of Pumpkin Crunch available and when they are gone they are gone. You can see this loaf and the others we have available here

It's been about two weeks since we put the loafs on our site and with little or no fanfare it's working. So for me when an idea is working I start thinking about how I can enhance it even more.

So in the next week we will slowly be adding new swirl designs at $22. a loaf in the following fragrances.

• Green Tea
• Pearberry
• Sugar Blossom
• Think Green
• Sweet Grass
• Jasmine
• Chamomile

Undertaking My Web Site! And New Men's Soaps

I've been working on our wholesale web site trying to get it posted and up. Previously my son has done it but with his full time job and working on our retail site www.soapier.com I think he has enough on his plate to do. Besides I like doing the web site.

Here's the problem, I don't know html but the site was made from a Frontpage friendly template. So you would think all would be easy, with a WYSIWYG type of program it would be just insert the changes and viola!! Wrong, but it's not all bad. I'm really enjoying learning it. Microsoft has a wonderful community discussion board that when things go wrong I can just go and ask. Unfortunately sometimes they are speaking in a language I don't know. Thus a trip to the library for Html for Dummies.

So with trying to get orders out and getting soaps made I'm squeezing in some time to learn and get this up and running.

But for now here's a preview of some new soaps we have

We did a new line of men's soaps

Healthy Competition!

I had an incident happen to me recently. I created a soap with a very popular smell (very unsoap like fragrance) due to many requests from my retail customers. The idea of the fragrance got my creative juices going and I came up with a pretty funky bar. Now because I do google alerts I had done one on that soap and low and behold another soap lady was making the same thing, with a different take on the design. If I hadn't had a google alert on that soap I would never of heard of her or her soap company. Anyway, then a week later I notice I got an order from her for one bar of that soap.

What?????

Now the only reason she would want to buy one bar of my soap is to compare. So I called her on it and spoke with her on the phone and told her I knew who she was and why did you need one of my bars when she had her own? She said she just wanted to smell it. Right! Well I had a choice of refunding her money or sending it out and I figured if I refunded the money she would get someone else to buy it for her so off it went to her.

So now she's claiming she has the best, she was the first etc etc.

I knew what she was doing when she ordered the soap, something that a lot of business experts tell you to do. Check out your competition, order their products, see how they do it etc etc.

Now I'm talking to you small business owners like myself whether you have a gift shop, do craft fairs, or sell on-line.

I'm not an expert but I think it's WRONG!!

Don't do it because what you are doing is being desperate and trying to take away their customers to be yours. Somehow that just doesn't sit right with me. Why would I want to take your customers? Would I think your customers will be better than the ones I develop myself?

Now I do believe there is plenty of business for all of us but and here's the big BUT you must be creative. You really don't have to steal away any customers from your competition, just give your customers what they want. Don't tell me they want what your competition is selling cause that's not true. They might be buying that but is that the only thing they will ever buy?

What do your customers want? They want to walk into a store or your booth and feel good. They want to see creative things, things that make them smile. Today they want items with a fair value price. They want to see things done creatively that they don't think they can do themselves. They want to see displays done up that tells a story.

Now, tell the truth, do you try and get the same products that your competition has to sell in your store? You think that they are selling a ton of it and you want some of that action. That's a no no.

Think creatively and find different products that sets you apart from the rest. "but Linda there is just so many products out there" Well that might be true, but if they go to the Atlanta show to do there shopping then you go to New York. Not enough different stuff in New York then go to LA. Also you have tons of different artists on line at Etsy.com or wholesalecrafts.com that are looking for wholesale buyers and they aren't at any trade shows. Find some new and different stuff and bring your style into your store and then you will have designed a store that no one can copy. Put your stamp of design on it. Give your customers good customer service, wonderful products and forget about what the other guy is selling and doing. Do your own thing!

"But Linda I'm not creative" Not true, everyone is creative, maybe not in the same ways but we all are. God created the world, we are in his image thus we are creative.

We all work hard at our businesses, we all deserve to be successful, leave your fellow store owner, business owner alone, concentrate on you, not them.

In regards to my business I also had an email from another soapmaker who loved my designs hope she could one day do the same quality of work and to her I gave her my phone # and told her to call me any time, I was willing to help her on her journey.

New Policies

Sometimes we have to take a hard look at the numbers and do the right thing for the business. My hope has always been that those who buy from me wholesale would be able to make a nice profit from selling my soap. I still have that desire, but a visit with the accountant, a hard look at the numbers has forced me to reconsider some of our policies. New policies will take effect on Monday October 19, 09

Minimum orders
I have always had a minimum order requirement posted on our site and for the last few years it's been $150 for new accounts and $100 for reorders. Many times I've received orders for less than and just let them go thru, we won't be able to do that in the future.


I always thought that volume selling was the way for First In Line Soap to make money and so I created a program that allowed our customers (you) to get a free loaf with every 5 loafs ordered. Plus my fear for the retail stores in this economy and how I could help was also what prompted the Customer's Come First Program. The program was a success but did not generate enough sales for us to continue with it , so it's being discontinued.

One of the things I'm most proud of is our offer to you of our signs, labels and wrapping paper. I believe that these help you market the soaps. I think we are unusual in this offer and of course I think our label and sign designs are definitely creative. So I had a choice of either increasing our prices for the loafs or start charging for the extras. I thought hard about this and decided that keeping the cost of the loafs the same at $29. was in your best interest for your profit margin. So on the shopping cart you will have the ability to buy the labels, signs and wrappers.

Private Labeling On our web site you will be given the choice for private labeling with an additional cost above the price of our regular labels.

Jumble Bubble loafs, with each loaf we make there is always some extra soap left over that needs a home and that was the intention of the Jumble Bubble. For these loafs we have to pick a fragrance and come up with a design that would be appealing to your customers and you make a tidy profit. Well these loafs are getting to be more work than our regular line of soaps. Time is money so they say and with that we have to increase the price of them to $22. each. My goal is to make them before hand, have pictures of them and then once someone buys it it's gone and then we make more. When you buy the one pictured that's what you will get.

Turn Around Time
Please order with consideration to our turnaround time. We have a two week turnaround time and during the holiday season it can be up to 3 weeks.

Time Management!

What a waste of time!

Searching for items, spending minutes, hours looking for them. Repeating the same things over and over again when you can do it just once. Running errands without a list to find out you forgot something and have to go out again. How much time do you waste? I'm afraid to even know.

Time wasting costs time... but it can also cost money. Being organized... THAT saves you time to do the things that are productive, and it can also make you money!

Time is like your bank account filled with money (I wish) and you get to choose how you will spend it. So lets say you have lots of money and decide to go out and buy an expensive steak dinner. Once you've spent that money it's gone. Now you could have gone to the store bought a great steak, cooked it for you and your friends and spent way less money. You have that choice. The same is true about time.

Your time bank account has lots of resources, but if you are like me you might be spending it foolishly.

I forgot a valuable lesson about this that I learned along time ago when my kids were little.

The moment came for my son (he's the oldest) to start to learn how to tie his own shoes. The thought of teaching him to tie his shoes would arise when we were ready to go out. I had a choice on those occasions to teach him to tie his own shoes or just do it myself. I opted to do it myself because I rationalized that it would take less time. That was true for that particular moment but then I realized if I added up all my shoe tying for him it was a heck of lot more effort than teaching him how to.

That experience happened about 33 years ago and last night I remembered that lesson and realized I was doing the same thing again with my meds. Time wasting.

Each morning and evening I open the bottles and pick out the pills and re-close the bottles and then look at each pill in my hand to make sure I got them all and then I swallow. This happens twice a day 7 days a week. Once I have the bottle opened it would take a bit more time to pick out seven pills drop them in a seven day pill box and then close bottle and repeat till I was done for the whole week. My estimation is it would take me maybe 5 minutes more on one morning of the seven days. Then all I would have to do each of those other 6 days is open the one marked for the day and swallow.

The above example is just one illustration about my time wasting.

So what to do? I have made many attempts to organize my life with to do lists. I love them, love making them, love crossing off what I've done. There are some problems with this though. I usually use a small note book that I thought would be helpful if I carried it around with me in my pocketbook. My goal was to do the list each morning (I'm too tired at night to think straight) The problem with this was half the time I couldn't find the notebook, ( a time waster). The other problem was if I didn't accomplish what I set out to do I gave up.

So I was stuck, wasting time. Well after realizing how I was wasting time on my pill intakes I decided I needed to analysis my other time wasters. I needed to come up with a type of system that would:

1. keep me on track for goals
2. figure out how to be a better time spender

So my little to do list page for my 6 day work week (God rested on the 7th day) will be on a clip board in my workroom that stays put so I don't loose it. On it I list the to do's and then what did I do. I call this The Boss. You know that guy who looks over your shoulder making sure he's getting his money worth out of you, the paper has now become my boss, the one I have to answer to.


What will this do?

My hope is that I can see what I've accomplished (hooray) and what I haven't (boo hoo). For the not done I'll ask myself the important questions of why? What happened that kept me from doing all that I wanted to do. I might not be doing things (like soap wrapping) in a productive way and then I can search out better ways to do it.

My purpose in this is not to beat myself up for not getting things done but to improve my life and how I function. I'm excited and really looking forward to being the best I can be.

My worksheet is crude but feel free to use it if you are so inclined to go on the journey of reducing time wasting. You can see it here

Of course keep in mind you and I also have to be realistic in what we can and can't do, you understand that, right? I'm not asking of myself to have a to do list that would take a great time spender a week to accomplish but I want to do it in one day.

So What's The Plan!

We all have plans, for our business, our home, our marriage, our children, our life. But the secret to the success of the plan is sticking to it. Now I'm not saying that you can't change your mind when you realize that one plan isn't working so you opt to go to plan b but what I am talking about is the creative mind needing to be reined in and put on focus. Creative minds love to create and that includes new and exciting ideas for our life, our businesses. But as interesting and exciting as these new ideas may be they are keeping us (some times) from sticking to the plan.

I have proof that my personality has a problem sticking to the plans. "The Path, Creating Your Mission Statement For Work And For Life" By Laurie Beth Jones (1998) has an exercise in the book that asks you to close your eyes and picture if you were an object what would that be? Me.... I saw a compass with a magnet real close to it. You know what happens to the arrow when it's close to the magnet, the arrow can't stay pointed in one spot. That object I envisioned was spot on for me. So then she asks what would you like the object to be and I want to be the arrow pointed in one direction. Now I keep the image of that arrow in the forefront of my mind to help me stay focused on my plan, sometimes it works then other times my creative mind wins.

I believe creative minds have problems staying focused. We love to create, whether it's a piece of decorative soap, collages, art, screenplays, jewelry, store displays, fancy dinners, a beautiful home or even drama in our lives, we love to create and are always looking to do that. So when the impulse to create comes up that urge in me is so strong that the plan goes out the window. Until I realize that I got off track.

Creative minds see a problem (mine, lack of enough funds) and then create a possible solution to that. I did that this past weekend. I signed up for a flea market to sell my soaps. This is not in my plan for my business. It might of been 10 years ago but today it's not in my plan. But I did it anyway. Did diverting from my plan work out? Did I make money? Did I have fun? Was I happy with my decision? The answer to all 5 questions was no. I was signed up for Saturday and Sunday and on Saturday it dawned on me that the flea market was never in my plan so I didn't return back on Sunday. What I realized what happened is that all used energy, time and money for the flea market took me away from working on my plan to grow my business.

The plans for my business:

• To learn all there is in becoming an on-line presence for both my retail and wholesale web sites and through that media the company becomes profitable.

• To grow the business so it can afford to give me a comfortable salary which will allow me to do the things I love to do.

• The business will continue to satisfy my craving for creating as soap making does.
  

What my plan does not include is;

• Craft Fairs

• Flea Markets

• Trade Shows

• Home Parties

• Direct Mail
• 
  
• Peddling in the streets (just kidding)

My point in this is.....if I don't focus on the plan I get easily distracted and drawn into other things that aren't moving me and my business forward. Like the flea market. Fears well up money isn't coming in and I think I've got to do something. I don't think" lets keep working on the site and getting us known on the web", no I think flea market. Cost $10 for the booth it can't hurt. The cost was way more than $10 considering all things.

How do I keep that focus. Well I'm printing a picture of an arrow that I can put on my bathroom mirror, my refrigerator,use as bookmark and anywhere else I can think of to help me reign in my creative mind. Focus minds are successful and that's my goal so I'll keep you up to date on my progress.

Positive Thinking And Owning A Business

Your life is about what your thoughts say about you and that is true of your business. Have you ever heard of the idea that if you have a dog, it's behavior is a reflection of who you are? That's so true also of your business. So when things start to go bad I can very well blame the economy (thus thinking I'm powerless over the forces that be) but I choose not to do that. Yeah the economy is horrible, yes sales are way down, yes I get very depressed over the whole money issue but there are businesses surviving and doing well even in this economy.

Problem solving is a great tool. It's looking at the solution and not the problem and I do believe that all problems have the perfect solution. I started my problem solving with my business with myself and my attitude towards who I am and what that means for my business.

One of the main issues with failing businesses in my opinion is the attitude of the owner. We need to ask ourselves what does our belief systems say about us and our business and success. If you have a healthy belief system in who you are and in your abilities to run a business, deal with success, people and money then you should very well be on your way to a profitable business. I know that's a blanket statement and I'm assuming you have done your homework and know that the product or products you sell has a market and your pricing is right.

I bring to my business my ideas of who I am and my capabilities as a person and business owner. Here's where my business starts to reflect who I am, it can't help itself to do that because of what I believe to be true about myself.

I can think up all positive thinking affirmations but my belief system says "NO, that's a lie, this is the truth" But actually most times our belief systems are the lie especially if it's a negative thought pattern about who you are. In my opinion no amount of forcing positive thinking affirmations will take root unless the lying belief system is uncovered and eradicated.

Are you struggling with your business? If so then ask yourself the hard question what do you believe about you and your business. Be honest with yourself, write it down, journal about it. Then if you realize there are some thoughts that need to be changed I recommend reading Norman Vincent Peales books. He has a common sense approach to this problem.

Here's some beliefs that might be hindering your success.

You're not good enough
You're stupid
You're lazy
You're not good with numbers
No one in your family did well in business
You don't have the time
The economy's bad
You're too young
You're too old

You get the idea. With a paper and pen find a quiet place, close your eyes and just ask yourself "what do I believe about myself and my business" then start writing.

Would love to hear back from you! You can email me at Linda@firstinlinesoap.com

Creating Success In This Economy!

My purpose for this post is not so much that you should know some of our important financial decisions here at Firstinlinesoap.com, but as encouragement for us all to do whatever it takes to stay in business in this economy.

It's been awhile since I've posted and things have changed here at First In Line Soap. In April I made the decision to close our retail store, our direct selling portion of Soapier and to regroup.

We've moved our manufacturing back to an at home business again (that's how we started out) and we've also taken some very hard looks at some of our expenses.

Here's a list of expenses we were able to cut.

Rent for the store which was not only a small retail space but most of it was dedicated to manufacturing.

Electric.

Cable/phone I've maintained a cable internet for my home and then one at the store. Now I'll just use the one from my home. I'll use my cell phone as my contact phone number.

Web site shopping cart for all of our web sites. Previously I used a service for three of our sites that cost $60 a month. We decided to go with Mal's Shopping Cart which you can get for free. You can click here for their web site. This is a basic secure shopping cart which is all that we need.

We've stopped our daily pick up with UPS. That cost was anywhere from $8.00-$16.00 per week just for them to pick up. Now we'll use FedEx and drive your purchases over to a FedEx drop off.

I've also discontinued my relationship with our credit card company thru Quickbooks and have decided to use Paypal exclusively This allows us to save the monthly statement fees and the percentage rate and cost per transaction is almost the same.

With the above changes I anticipate a saving of $12,000 each year

This economy has me looking over where I can save whether it's for my personally or business finances and if you are not doing this now then you should be, it could make the difference in whether you can stay in business or fold.

Linda Nigro
www.firstinlinesoap.com

Valentine's Day and Heart Soaps

My Heart To You

This is one of our newest soaps that we are marketing to the retail stores at $12.00 a dozen. Hearts come in assorted colors and fragrances. Plus for each dozen of soaps you get 4 organza bags so you can package them up as little gifts.

Each of these soaps weigh in about 1.5 ozs and they smell wonderful.

GUEST BAR SAMPLERS

This was our old packaging of our Guest Bar Samplers. It's nice and they do well but I wanted something different.

So this holiday season we created 3 different samplers with different packaging.

Free the Elves, with the fragrances peppermint candy, Christmas Wreath and Sparkling Snowflakes.

Kozy Up To Winter, (pictured)with the fragrances Gingerbread, Cinnabun and Hazelnut

Boston Tea Party, with fragrances green tea, chamomile and mango sage.

15% Off Sale

Are your minds on the state of the economy, or the election and who is going to be our next president and can he get us out of this mess?

I believe those of us in business are holding our breath waiting till it's safe to breath a sigh of relief.

So what do we do? I'm not going to let a bad economy drive my business into the ground nor should you.

Stratagize with other store owners, create some kind of events to attract customers. Also be aware today's customer wants a sale, wants to know that they are saving money. That's what we have to do to keep going.

And this is the reason for the post. I offered a 15% off on orders of $200 or more at the beginning of the month and this sale ends on Halloween. Now this can put extra money in your pocket or it could give you the opportunity to have a sale.

A $29.00 loaf at 15% off brings the cost of the loaf to $24.65 and if you cut 1" slices then each slice costs you $2.05 each. At this cost you can do a sale of 3 bars for $15. and still make a nice profit.

Anyway I hope you all are doing well, keeping up.

Next new item we are coming out with is a guest bar sampler. There will be The Boston Tea Party, Free the Elves and Come Home for Kozy. I should have pictures for you next week.

Till next time

LOAF SOAPS AREN'T JUST FOR SLICING

Our loaf soaps are sold by the slice usually for that individuals use. Now that the holidays are fast approaching I thought I might offer some suggestions on other ways to sell our loafs.

Pictured here is a half a loaf of soap. You could also just cut your loafs into thirds. The slice was cut for the sake of the picture. Added a ribbon and a bath brush viola you have a great gift set. Outlet stores usually have great deals on bath accessories. Another idea is go to an outlet store like T.J. Max and look for bamboo cutting boards. Add your half or third of a loaf to the board, with a dinner knife. (I like going to salvation army and getting the more fancier silver knifes) Wrap it all up in cellophane and you have a great gift idea. This will look so special on someone's bathroom sink.

Another great place to find some inexpensive bathroom accessories is the dollar store. You can get bathroom holders and scrubbies and more there. Use your imagination to come up with some great ideas combining things to make it a great gift.

What I might add to the loaf would be

Loofah (dollar store has them)

nylon scrubbie

cutting board

soap dish

bath brush

pretty wash cloth or hand towel.

If you should decide to do this wrap your loaf up with some cellophane or saron wrap then attach your item.

GUEST SOAPS SETS SPECIAL $5.00

In the course of making our soaps there is always left overs. So not to be wasteful we make these little guest bars (they are actually bigger than a guest bar weighing in at least 3 oz). Pictured you see a really nice set of black and white.

For a very limited time we are offering 5 sets to our wholesale customers for $5, that's a $1. per set. You can easily retail each gift set for $5.

What you will get is 10 different soaps and 5 organza bags. The soaps will be assorted and so will the bags. Each soap will come shrink wrapped and a label will be attached. We would not be able to identify the fragrance, but customers love sniffing and smelling. Soaps and bags will coordinate to create a nice package. Ribbon is not included. We are sorry but we can't accommodate any color or fragrance requests.

These will not be put up on the wholesale site so email me if you are interested in these.

NEW LOAF SOAPS FOR CHRISTMAS

Our loaf soaps are a big hit with customers and we added 3 more to our product line to celebrate the holiday season. Each loaf weighs 4 lbs and yields 12 1" slices. Each slice weighs at least 5 ozs and we recommend at least a $6. retail price.

SANTA'S NOG SOAP LOAF
Using striking copper and red showcased in a pale yellow bar we've created what we think Santa's perfect drink would look like. We specially blended scents to create a cinnamonny egg noggy scent that will have you singing Merry Christmas. I promise the scent will just fill the room.


GIVE A GIFT SOAP LOAF
Green and gold are popular colors for the season and we took advantage of that to create this wonderful soap. This fragrance is a combination of Christmas trees, peppermint, spearmint and vanilla. It's a nice warm winter night type of fragrance.


UNDER THE TREE SOAP LOAF
Christmas morning everyone hopes that under the tree is a big bright red present wrapped in a bow. Here it is and we fragranced this soap with a peppermint candy scent. One whiff of this wonderful fragrance will make you think of Christmas and gift giving.


We so enjoy creating new and different designs. With this process we decide what the bar should look like and then come up with just the right fragrance. We love our work and we hope you will love our designs as much as we do. Our hope is that you and your customers will love them as much as we do.

Linda Nigro

You can see these and all of our other wholesale products at http://www.firstinlinesoap.com/holiday_specials.htm

NEW PRODUCT "MUD MASKS" ON SALE

NEW PRODUCT

ANNOUNCEMENT

AND SALE!!

We are introducing to our wholesale line our collection of masks, Dead Sea, Anti-Oxidant and Chocolate Mud Slide. For a limited time buy 10 get 2 free. You are encourage to mix and match offering your customers some choices. Use coupon code mud at checkout.

Dead Sea Mud Mask
Ingredients in our mud masque make it an ideal product for those with troubled skin. The dead sea clay with brine helps tighten pores and stimulate circulation. The addition of Shea Butter helps protect the skin. Bentonite clay and Aussie Black Clay help pull the oils and toxin from the skin and sea kelp and glycerin are added for their moisturizing benefits.

Anti-Oxidant Mask

This mask is filled with clay, butter, aloe and fruit extracts. It is perfect for those with sensitive skin. The French Pink Clay is very gentle and does not draw oils from the skin. Avocado butter is a very rich moisturizer, as is Aloe .The red raspberry extract is a natural astringent, antiseptic and anti-bacterial product. Cranberry extract helps restore radiance to all skin types. 4oz

Chocolate Mud Slide

This masque is a quality dark chocolate masque without the clays or muds. Chocolate is rich in iron, magnesium and has softening properties along with a high anti-oxidant properties.
Shealoe is a blend of aloe gel and shea created to soothe dry and irritated skin. Rice bran oil is also moisturizing. Along with this is Tarmind Seed Extract (wonderful cosmetic ingredient) that helps increase moisture to the skin.

Stop by our web site at http://www.firstinlinesoap.com/mud_masks.htm for our mud masks.

THIS THAT AND HALLOWEEN

I'm one of those people that refuse to give up. Now before you think wow what a great attribute let me tell you it really could be a curse.

I've sort of reinvented myself or business to just keep it going. If I find something doesn't work right away I go on to the next thing. Such as Ebay, man for the life of me I can't sell a thing on there. Others that I know personally are doing okay making some money and others are doing really well. Me I don't know if it's the product (you can't smell soap on-line) or what. So my thought was back to the drawing board. You do realize that all these ideas are to generate money so I can make a nice living doing what I love to do.

So then I said to myself, myself, how about trying craft shows again. Okay cause the money could be good. On the Sponge Docks for Labor Day weekend there was a craft show so I took $150 of our earned money and applied. I got accepted and was promised a spot near the entrance to the mall where my store is in. They honored that request.

Saturday the first day of the show was brutally hot and ugly humid. My son was complaining about the heat as he trucked our tent, tables, soaps etc. Because of my age the sweat was pouring off of me. It's pretty disgusting to be a sweating senior citizen. By the time I got the booth looking some what decent I was soaked thru and thru down to you know what. Plus on top of that the others (my daughter and son deserted me) well not really I told them to retreat to air conditioning.

So we are set up and the heat is still unbearable standing still. I'd be shaking my head thinking, what was I thinking. Well the relief finally came in the form of a storm. Yup rains came, customers left, even though I only made about $20 during the heat. So we shut down early fearful that our tent would fly away and that would increase our costs to the application fee plus a new tent with a $20 day.

Next day was worse. Oh the weather was better but the rain was threatening again, (weather bureau said more of same for Sunday) and the wind was so bad that one of us had to hold the tent down as we watched people walk by our booth.

Okay I came away from that experience to never do it again, yup I decided to ditch the idea of craft shows. Just way too much work that I don't enjoy.

So are you wondering yet what's my new idea.

Teaching Soapmaking Classes.

I think I'm good at this soapmaking and I've had people ask me if I have classes. Will I be giving away trade secrets, maybe but I think it would be okay. If you read up on marketing and all of that stuff you'll read about how you should show yourself as an expert. This will do that for our company and hopefully they'll come and buy our products when they see the time, love, enthusiasm we put into our products.

I'll be holding soapmaking classes starting in October. I've designed some new Halloween type of soaps (pictured here) and I thought it might be fun for others to learn how to do it. If you are in Tarpon Springs come sigh up!

Jumble Bubbles Reinvented

What's New and What's Old

Selling on ebay didn't prove to be as successful as I had hoped for. It's summer and I know that on ebay that's a slow time for sales, It's on to plan B

So my scrap soaps (that's really not a good name for it) the parts that make my Jubble Bubble soaps is still growing. So when business is bad (ebay) I then try to think of another solution. I do sell these loaf slice bars at the store for a great price but I love to move things quickly. So I decided to do a craft show at the Sponge Docks for the Labor Day Weekend.

This might prove to be doubly good. Sell my Jumble Bubbles and direct them to my store with a coupon. So I have a plan, another plan.

So as I was getting to make these Jumble Bubbles (originally in loafs) I came across some old food molds that I had used years ago. Now in soapmaking anything resembling food seems to be a hit, so I thought it might be nice to create these loaf cakes (sort of bundt like) with my leftover soap. Well I got so into it that I decided to create my entire craft show event around the theme Soap Desserts. My creative juices were so happy!

Some look like cakes others look like jello and then some look like petit fours. They are all adorable and might just have to be added to my regular line.

These were so much fun to make and doing the drizzle was the best. I'm trying to master doing a pour of soap that resembles confectionary sugar icing that is solid on the top and drizzles down the bottom. It's about the temp of the soap I'm thinking.

After all these years doing soapmaking I realized that if I can't bring new creative ideas of soaps into the line I'm not happy and Linda wants to be happy.

Let me know what you think of the soaps. I'll try to remember to post some pictures of the display at the show. My idea for the display is to look like a bakery with each sliced cake (soap) on a clear glass plate on a pedestal.

I'm also going to be offering a 2 lb loaf cake wholesale (not using scraps) for a great price ($12.50)to my wholesale customers. I've come up with about 10 different fragranes, all food related. I'll keep you posted. The Petit Fours might also be available I just have to work out the pricing. These guys are about 3 ozs of soap and would make a perfect favor.

Thanks for stopping by

Linda

The Decision To Sell On Ebay!

Most soapmakers have this problem of leftover soaps and the dilemma of what to do with them. With my style of soapmaking you just can't always judge how much soap you are going to need so it happens that you have leftovers.

While we concentrated on our wholesale orders and keeping our store supplied our scrap soaps grew and grew to a point of it taking over our studio. Now I'm not one to keep everything, I do pretty well with throwing things out, but these leftover scraps of soap represent dollars to me.

So I decided to make some loaf soaps with the scraps and call them Jumble Bubbles. I realized that because they were a jumble of different soaps I couldn't sell them for the same price as my other loafs so I had to come up with a price that would benefit both the consumer and me. We put them in our store for $3.00 each or 4 for $10 and they did very well. Only problem was I didn't think we were selling them fast enough. I like to move product quickly.

Then I thought I should try selling on ebay at a starting bid of $14.95. I was targeting companies looking to resell so they could also sell these at the $3.00 price. At this price I was breaking even but I would be getting my money on soap that was just sitting there doing nothing.

I jumped in with both feet, listed the loafs and waited and waited. About every hour I would check and see if there were bids and if not see how many people looked at my listing. Each hour that passed I got more and more discouraged. My initial reaction was that I'm unlucky and just don't have what it takes to sell on Ebay. But I realized that the successful powersellers just have knowledge that I don't have and I'm out to find out what that is.

I've done some searching about selling on Ebay and found useful info and will be making changes this week. I'll just keep building on new knowledge that I get.

When design season comes around for us we end up with loafs that just don't make the grade, like the one pictured. So again not to waste them we decided to offer these also on ebay.

Anyway if you are in the market for great soap at even greater price check out my listings. Click here to see my listings on ebay