Featured Business: Natural Bathing Co

Today's interview features Carrie Freeman the owner of Natural Bathing Co, which can be found on Etsy and Ebay. Now to Carrie, to tell us more about her luxury handmade bath and beauty product business.

Tell us a bit about your products.

At Natural Bathing Co I sell my own handmade bath and body products, which I make in our kitchen at home! I like to make my products as natural as possible as I know how hard it is to find products suitable for sensitive skin, and I'm hoping that in 2012 we can expand our shop to include up to 50 different items.

What makes your products stand out from the crowd?

The things that make my products stand out from the crowd are the ingredients. All the ingredients are researched and are only put into the products if they will benefit the user in some way. I do my best to give great customer service and repeat customers have the opportunity to obtain discounts!

Sandalwood and Vanilla Soap

How did you start out?

I originally sold wholesale made bars of soap until I found out that these included artificial foaming agents which in fact dry out the skin. I looked into making my own soaps and haven't looked back since. Now I am running my business to set up a fund for my first home and to give me a little bit of extra income while doing the thing I love.

What has been the hardest part of running your business? How have you overcome it?

Personally I think the hardest part of running my business has been time management. As I am also a student at university I have a lot of reading and studying that I have to do at home, as well as making my products. I've tried to organise myself by setting aside designated time slots for doing studying and then using a lot of my spare time for my business.

What motivates you?

As previously mentioned, I have set up my business to provide a fund which will help me make a start in life. My dream is to expand my business to the point of it becoming my full time job, where I can work from home and be there for my children when I decide to start a family.

What is the best resource you would recommend to others?

The best resource for anyone looking to start out in soapmaking would be The Handmade Soap Book by Melinda Coss. It is a great book with lots of helpful information for troubleshooting and ideas. For anyone looking to start their own bath and body business I would recommend checking out the legislation in their country as often there are certificates that you have to have in order to sell your product. Other than that, research! Research and practice making your products is essential! You might also want to look at the current market and see if there is a niche, which you would be able to fill nicely.

How do you connect with your customers?

I like to connect with my customers through social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook, but with Etsy, the community discussion boards are also a great way to keep in touch. I am a member of the CraftBritannia team on Etsy and often like to take part in team events, chatting with other people and helping to promote other people's items as well as my own. Etsy is so community focused that not only do I make friends with other users, I also get some sales through doing so. I'm ordering some new business cards as well which I will pack into each order with a coupon code for each return customer.
 

How do you make your customers feel valued?

I know that sometimes it can be hard to make each customer feel valued so I try my best to make sure I send them informative but friendly emails about their order status. You have to remember not to be overly friendly though as then you are at risk of losing your professionalism. As mentioned before, I also like to include a coupon code for customers so that if they come back to my shop and buy again, they can get a small discount.

Dragons Blood Soap

Tell us about your latest product range?

Coming in February 2012 will be several new products. I am adding a fruity strawberry smoothie scented soap which reminds me of strawberry milkshake, a lime, mandarin, and basil soap which is very citrusy and fresh, and a baby butter bee soap, which is similar to the fragrance of baby powder. I am making these soaps as my shop has been open for a couple of months now and I feel it is time to expand my range. I am also planning on making some more bath bombs in the same scents as my soaps, and I'll be looking into recipes for making wonderful flavoured lip balms for Spring 2012.

What ingredients do you use in your products?

The main ingredient for all my soaps is an organic base, to which I add shea or cocoa butter, followed by a fragrance or essential oil. I pour it into my silicone moulds and wait! I love the silicone moulds because not only do they provide me with a good chunky bar of soap, but it is really easy to unmould my soaps and they are super easy to clean.

My favourite ingredient is organic unrefined cocoa butter which I use in my chocolate truffle soap. It is a hard butter but is rich in the chocolatey smell which many people love as well as having all of its natural properties.

To find out more and stay up to date with the Natural Bathing Co please remember to stop by and visit Carrie on facebook and twitter.

Sell, Sell, Sell - Online

Do you want flexibility, to work at home? To work your own hours? Then the internet has opened up a whole range of opportunities for you. Your business idea: to sell goods online. For these types of business you need to be able to spot a gap in the market a niche, a place in the market you can call your own. You need to have confidence predicting markets and a great eye for figures. You will have to buy stock, the right stock and know that you will be able to sell it on for a profit. Otherwise you risk losing the money you invest. Build an online identity that users can trust, this can be much harder than businesses that sell face to face with consumers. You need to keep in contact with customers, answer their queries, provide a great service and this should help you gain the positive feedback that is crucial in increasing consumer trust and therefore sales. Be as informative and open as possible, in a shop a user can see and try any item, you have to recreate this using only words and photographs. Practice your writing and methods of photographing your goods in an interesting way to get customers hooked. Describe how the product looks, feels smell, how and when the customer will use it. What will it add to their lives, how will purchasing your product make them feel?

Selling platforms-

Ebay- The king of online selling. Most of you will have sold a couple of things on Ebay, but how to do it professionally? Buy in bulk, a great way to do this is at auctions. This will give you the volume to sell your products in a range of sizes and styles. List regularly so your items show up at the top of searches and experiment with titles and descriptions see which one works best then replicate this on your other listings. Decide carefully whether to use the auction, buy now or a combination of settings. Open a shop rather than selling as an individual on the site so once visitors have clicked one of your products they can see a full range. An alternative to Ebay is Price Minister.

Amazon- You don’t just have to sell books, Amazon is now a market leader in a range of products. Listing is easy and quick, but it is easy to get lost in the crowd. Pick a niche of books or product to sell. It is easy to see what competitors are charging for exactly the same product so be prepared to be competitive with your pricing and your feedback ratings will be key. Remember to send out a business card or promo leaflet with orders so shoppers remember to search for your store again.

Etsy/ Folksy/ Deviant Art- For the creative amongst you, sell your own hand made products. These sites are great for setting up a small online store to sell your crafts to a world-wide market. Remember to promote your store on other sites, facebook, twitter, LinkedIn or a book marking site to gain a following. And get involved with the online community built into these sites including the blogs, teams, circles, treasuries, and forums the more you put in the more you will get out of it.

Zazzle/Café Press- Don’t have time to make your own products? But still want to create something unique or never seen before, use one of these sites. As long as you hold the rights to your image or design you can upload it onto one of hundreds of products. Keep strict control of your designs or allow your customers to customize them to their needs, the choice is yours. The best part? These sites handle the order fulfillment, payments, and returns. You just take a commission payment on every sale! You can increase your income by earning a volume bonus on sales or by referring people to your shop or others on the site and taking a percentage of any sale made!

Your Own Website- Want even more control over the type of online store you run? The best option- to set up your own website, you can sell whatever you like and keep all of the profit! Sounds great but remember you may need to pay to have someone design your site, users will have to have confidence that you will fulfill sales, and you need to set up a trusted payment system that customers will be happy to use, paypal for example. But the hardest part? Getting people into your store, it will take a lot of time and dedication to get people to find your site and then even more effort to create interesting content that will make them stay and actually buy something. Consider using google adwords where you can design your advert and a daily budget. The key-EXPERIMENT, find out, which ads work and those that don’t, play with titles and keywords and do your SEO research carefully! But the effort of setting up your own site could definitely pay off in the future!