Retail ideas

[Pompal 09.]

Hi all,

I need some feedback on some retail ideas.

First tho, let me say I have not had the best luck with retail. In the past, I have had some and it didnt do very well. I currently have a small collection of things from a local shop. The shop keeper put it together for me. I make a small amount from the sale. Basically, he is splitting his profit with me. I have bars of handmade soap, bath bombs, and individual packages of bath salts. The soaps sell for about $3.50 a bar while the bath fizzies and bath salts go for about $2.80 a piece. I have had this stuff for about 6 weeks and sold ONE thing. Most of the time, I forget to talk about the bit of retail I have. I do use this kind of soap exclusivly, so I do talk it up when I remember.

Now, as for my new idea for retail. I want to get some of those bongers. I have a pair that I dont use often enough. I can get them for $9 a pair and they retail for $18. I wouldnt have to buy 200 pairs of them either. To get this price, I would only have to buy a dozen sets and then I get one pair (a demonstrator pair) for free. http://www.bongers.biz

Another idea is to sell thumbsavers. These would be to sell to therapists primarily. I would have to purchase a larger quantity of these to get the wholesale price. 30 pieces for $180 and they retail for $15. http://www.thumbsavers.com

And my last idea, bath bombs, I can purchase 100 of them for about $130 and that includes the shipping. These are about the size of a tennis ball. If they cost me $1.30 each, I figure I would mark them at $3 each or 2 for $5. They are very pretty and come in many many different scents. They remind me of scoops of ice cream. They come wrapped and eforum.xxxged for that price. I figure a big basket full of these things would atract attention. Plus, if I have that much money invested in them it would be difficult to forget to mention them. I am thinking I could also sell them 8 in basket for $20 when they buy a gift cert. I could wrap the basket in celophane and a ribbon, wouldnt that be a wonderful gift??

I want retail that will sell!!

Christine

 

[Daniel I]

I think the bathbombs would be an eyecatcher, and that's a head start. I only retail one thing: spongele bath sponges. They sell wonderfully, smell wonderfully, and we all use them personally at the shop in our homes. I have them in a big clamshell bowl that I bought from the same company. I don't push them at all & I usually sellout within the month - that's my average so far - its not a killing, but an extra $100 a month for little to no effort is nice.

I say stick with stuff you personally can endorse if things are tight. Later (when we are rollin in the big bucks HA) we can invest in theme concept lines of products, etc.

Good luck.
I *hate* retail. I've even stopped seling sombra & biofreeze _ I simply use them in my therapies.

Last thing - I just received a foil packet sample of BonVital's Foot Balm. they seem to have a nice retail sized tube. I can't say much about it yet - am going to try it today. Its from Scrip. I got it because I bought their natural massage gel - love it!

Jill/sagetherapist

 

[Pompal 09.]

Yes Jill,

I have seen the flyers from http://www.bonvital.com about their foot balm. I have also recieved the sample pack from bon vital. I too thought about this item, but wasnt sure.

Can you elaborate on the spongele bath sponges?? Do you have a website I could visit??

Christine

 

[madie]

yes I am interested in the sponges too

 

[*w0wZ* [mALiSSa]

Please share the web info for the spongele sponges.
dollardays DOT com is good for dirt cheap ramis, loofahs etc.
Another site for loofah is loofahbytheinch DOT com.
Robyn

 

[papaw]

i have spongeables sitting on my shelf that have been there for over a year. they haven't sold at all. they are really nice, but for the most part people are interested in massage therapy. i have had product on my shelves now for 2 years and hardly any of it has sold. i usually tuck a couple of things in a goodie bag for clients when a family member buys them a gift card. i'm relocating my office at the end of the month and plan on giving away the rest of my products. in my new office i'll just sell biofreeze (which i barely mark up). i must have over $700 in product sitting on my shelves ~ yikes.

http://www.spongeables.com/web/index.asp
.

 

[Sami. K]

http://www.spongelle.com/page%202.htm

I love these. their website/online store is not up yet, but I simply called them & ordered. Very eay. Very nice people. They also had a booth at the IESC show in Vegas last month. I have already sold through two shipments, and I don't push anything - hate to.
jill/sagetherapist

 

[Pompal 09.]

Oh yeah, I have seen those spongelle things now that I see the site. I have also seen these combo soap and sponge things (cant remember the name) they are made from a sponge that resembles egg crate. The bottom flat part of the sponge has so much soap in it the sponge doesnt even look like it is there until you use it a few times. A friend sells them at his bath and body store. He said they are selling great and he has only had them in for about 2 weeks.

I sold some product from my friend!! I bought something for my bath, and two other ladies bought soap and bath salts too!! Yeah!!

 

[maran subramaniam]

I sell rice-filled microwavable hotpacks. My mother and I make them together and consider it fun time, so our overhead feels very low. She handpaints the cover fabric using those sunprint paints, then we run up little rectangular muslin tubes on the sewing machine, fill them with rice and a pinch of lavendar & cinnamon, and make the colored covers the same way. (The covers are machine washable.) We print a eforum.xxx for the cover on fabric you can get for the inkjet -- you run the fabric through the printer and then iron the printed fabric eforum.xxxs onto the covers. The eforum.xxxs have my practice name & phone and the name & phone of her fabric business.

So far we are only doing eye-pillow size -- about 10"x3" -- I'm giving them away as a summer special to current clients and selling them for $8 to everybody else. I paid my mother $3 each for the first batch. I have had them out for a couple weeks and have sold a few; we will be making longer and wider ones for autumn and have a few preorders.

I don't know if that helps you! I don't offer any spa services so I don't know if bathy products would sell for me. I have been thinking about adding a few bottles of Rescue Remedy and maybe some relaxation CDs and small books about massage self-help techniques (acupressure, etc). And because of my migraine clients I'm also considering feverfew, and those plastic reflexology cards. I think that's about all my space can handle.

Dang it - now I want to go buy a bunch of retail products!

 

[Chucky]

We've had great success with our retail store. We concentrate on selling items that we either use in our practice or that would be good for clients to use at home.

Our best-sellers are analgesics such as biofreeze, sombra, tigerbalm, massage lotion (in smaller sizes) that we use in our massages, CDs that we play, books on massage and self-care, massage tools such as bongers and knobbles (ohhh and the omni-massagers...they're really great!)

The reason these items sell so well is that either the client experienced them during their massage (ohhh what is that cream that you used...I really like the was it feels or wow....I loved that CD, what was it??....or what was that tingly stuff you used on my neck) or they are things that we recommend that they use at home to increase their pain relief.

We have never tried to sell anything. We're not pushy that way. We simply have it available for the clients if they so desire. What started out as an initial investment of $2,000 has grown to an inventory of over $10,000.

It's funny with sales....some things that we thought would be a "can't-miss" item never sold and some things that we were skeptical about carrying practially flew off of the shelves.

Good luck,
Angie