I have been
meaning to write about pricing for a while now. Ever since I saw a post on a soapers blog
calling another soaper’s soap “pricey”.
This was during that trend a few years ago when people sent their soaps
in for soap reviews? I was never really
into the soap review thing… neither having my soap judged/reviewed nor publicly judging
or reviewing other people’s. I
have tried others soapers' soaps and have found something I like about each and
every one. I love my own the best though
as I hope all of you do as well!!
I didn’t
like seeing someone calling another soaper’s soap as “pricey”. I know most of us are undercharging and
when I see someone who is charging more, I am rooting for them! Let’s look at my soaps – 6€ per bar. Not very often, a new client will make a
comment about the price… and I try not to react but my blood boils. I usually smile politely and say I am sure
they can find cheaper soaps out there, not sure they will be the same quality
and although I would love to offer a soap for less, I am not prepared to lower
the quality of our ingredients. But
what I really want to say is:
- Do
you realize that within those 6€, 21% of that goes to the government as sales
tax? So I only really see 5€. Many soapers here don’t actually declare
their income from soaps but we do, and we pay our taxes.
- Do
you realize that another € of that goes to packaging? Locally handmade packaging that offers 4
different work sources locally? ( 1) we purchase the material locally, 2) a
local lady hand makes them for us, 3) we get them stamped locally by a small
t-shirt printing company, and 4) our bag tags are printed by a small local
printer) . We could get them printed in
China for pennies, if I wanted to bring the price down, but that is not what we
are about.
- Do
you realize that I use only ingredients that are fabulous for you? Ingredients that I feel amazing about using,
only natural, mostly local? I am not
using recycled olive oil as many other soapers do here. We use only fresh organic, extra-virgin olive
oil from our local olive oil mill. We
could use palm oil, which would harden up the bars and bring price down, but I don’t
feel great about its environmental implications, so we don’t. We use organic un-refined Shea Butter in all
of our soaps except for Castille. And
only pure essential oils.
- Do
you realize that instead of making these in our kitchen, we actually have a
dedicated studio as required by Health and Safety here and pay monthly rent,
insurance, electricity, water, social security which is expensive here in
Spain, and that we pay for an analysis from an external laboratory for each
batch?
- Do
you know that in pricing our soaps, I can’t actually include my time or there
would appear no profit?
- Do
you know that we have not increased the price of our soaps in 3 years although
the cost of living has gone up?
That is
secretly what I wish to say. But I don’t. Most of our clients are pretty amazing and
get what we are all about. Most don’t
have a problem at all paying 6€ per bar.
I will eventually have to increase that price. Especially if we are going for the official “organic”
label here.
So to all
those soapers out there who are able to charge what your soaps are actually
worth -well done!!!!!
I am
including some random photos over the past few months. We have been getting out to more and more
trade shows and loving it.
The journey
continues to be amazing and I am so thankful to be doing what I love each and
every day!!!
Happy
Soaping everyone! Xoxoxo Jen
