How did this year compare to last?

[RobinInOR]

Thought it would be interesting to see if there were regional differences. Now that the shows and holiday sales are starting to wind down....

Did your year go as expected?

In general, how did your year compare to last? Better, worse?

Was your product mix different - did you see any difference in your customers' wants?

What did you do that improved things the most for you?

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Gotta love stats (hey Sara the stats girl). Sales this year were down 5%, but net income was up 115% I was a good girl and really held expenses down.

This was the year I flipped candles for b&b - candles were down, b&b was up. Customers seemed to be after the same type of products as last year. They seemed free-er with their money this year, more in a shopping mood. Spending more per purchase too.

I think just time is improving things - showing up at fairs for the 2nd year in a row, getting to some more local fairs so neighbors know I exist...

How about you? Even if you haven't "closed your books" or even if you don't have any books, how did you feel about your year?

[elle110]

I did my last show 2 weekends ago. I was impressed with sales this year. I am in agreeance with Robin, people seemed very free with their money. My sales were up tremendously per show. Their were several I did for the first time and some of those were ones I did the most sales. My shows averaged $1500, 3 of them were over $2200 and a couple were only around $800, I normally like to do at least $2100 for a 2 day show or half that for one day. I will give the two smaller ones a try again next year as they were easy indoor shows with short hours.

My top seller continues to be my lotion bars and soap, I sold about 600 lotion bars since October (this was the beginning of my holiday season) and am still getting online orders for them. My most popular fragrance is Pink Sugar in lotion bars. Eucalyptus Mint in soap but Patchouli, Lemongrass sage and Blooming Tulips are not far behind.

I did try some new marketing strategies that worked. I was already displaying my soaps in big tin buckets in bulk style bare naked and I started displaying my bath salts that way as well, kind of like a candy store, we do prebag some beforehand but people love that bulk look. My bath salt sales were already high but jumped even higher. I also go my website in May so I have tried some different things promoting it.

In January I plan on tweeking my baby line as i have a friend who reps some highend shoes, clothing etc to highend baby boutiques and has offered to rep my products as\t a small commission only when an actual contract is signed. She already has a very good business relationship with these stores and will provide a very unique opportunity for me.

Also I plan on marketing the you know what out of my lotion bars since they are obviously a very profitable item for me. I am going to have a very professional display made etc and start marketing them to stores. I live in a 5 minutes from 2 downtowns and also have a huge college community near me with very unique stores that pride themselves in carrying unique but useable items (does that make sense)

So anyway, it has been a good year, I have not closed my books yet so I do not know exactly where we are at but I am pleased. I am looking forward ot promoting the heck out of my business at the beginning of the year and maybe hire a part-time person to help me.

Whew, sorry so long

Elle

[Common Scents]

Well its hard for me to compare because my first full year of busines was last August to this August. And last year I only did two shows in Dec. for my total sales. So this year was DEF. up! LOL! I have completely changed everything...last year I started out with 3 diff types of containers...now I'm down to one. Last year I did votives tarts and tealights and now I don't do any of those. I added aroma bead air fresheners this year and my milk baths are soon to follow. I can't wait to close out my books (my last show is Friday!) and see how I did at what shows and find out where I can trim some fat, although I think I have done a lot already! New for the coming year for me is of course my website which just opened, I'll be adding 10 additional scents to get my # up to 40, and I'll be doing a few new bigger shows too. For my first year in business I know I have come pretty close to breaking even...just a wee bit in the red! Can't wait to see how others did!

[Trish]

Considering I had barely started selling last year, this year has been huge. However, much bigger, much quicker than I anticipated...all because of one guy taking my pillars to a couple of furniture trade shows, I have 14 wholesale accounts and a few new possibilites as well...

I have no idea whether I'm actually making any money yet, seems as soon as I have money in the account, I need a pallet of wax or a ton of FO...It'll be interesting to see how it all turns out at when I get everything input.

Great thread! It's nice to see that everyone so far is having a great year!!

[Scented]

Not much to compare to last year except:

Not all the figures are in.

Seasonally, particularly this last part, the buying was way down as were the number of shoppers we were expecting. Comparing late fall through last weekend, sales overall were down.

We were more surprised by the sales we had in Sept., October and early November.

More surprising to us was that seasonal scents didn't seem to go when they should have ... i.e. we were still getting people wanting spring scents in the fall.

We learned a lot and we're changing a lot. Last year was primarily votives and some 3x3.5s and sachets. We did better last year in sales for 3x6.5 and 3x9.5 pillars. This year 3x3.5s kicked butt and our bears did pretty well too.

This year we offered votive packs in themes which didn't move well. We also added some containers and what we had in stock, we were left with seven 4 oz jelly jars. All the 8 oz jellys are gone.

We added incense and tarts but found that the trend in some places we were at this fall was on potpourri instead. So we may tinker with that. We're in the contemplation stage and rearranging mode.

Labelling will be changing. This was the first time we did 18 shows from mid-Aug. to last weekend (Amen they are over ) Total shows for the year we did 22.

What drove me nuts was we'd make a batch out of a lb or 2 of FO and sell out, reorder, remake and they wouldn't move. This happened to us with Peach, Pink Sugar, Patchouli, Log Cabin, Roasted Chestnuts. BUT, we had trouble keeping Love Spell and Sweet Pea in stock through every month. And the funniest thing for us was we didn't move much tulip in the spring, but it was pretty popular during the fall. :rolleyes2

[shell1226]

This year's sales were up about 15% from last year. I'm cool with that. Made lots of new contacts this year which may lead to some opportunities for next year.

[Glowlite]

My year was a huge compilation of ups and downs. I lost a huge wholesale account that I thought for sure was going to topple my business on its back side..but after picking up two more I was able to make ends meet.

I didn't do any shows this year at all. I do regret that a little becuase I saw some really busy shows here the past few months. I opened a small booth in a local market back in July and it took till October to finally start making some money.

My candle product line is know perfected..My scent list is the only thing that will grow. I no longer do custom orders or weddings. Last year my main focus was weddings and it damn near killed me. I'm still working on my B&B line. Currently I only sell bath salts, cp soap, lotion and bath bombs. This coming year I will focus on B&B in a big way and get that line looking good.

All in all I had a good money year,,,but all of it was put back into my company. I'll be opening my retail store in March....if things go as planned.

Now for stats. This doesn't inlclued the month of dec.

My retail sales are up 13% from last year

My wholesale is up 51%

On the flip side I want to add stats on my costs.

Last year I could buy pallets of wax and get it delivered for free to my house

at a cost of .44 a pound. Now I pay .64 a pound

My elctric bill is up 17% from last year

And we all took a raping from gas prices. This was a tough one...A few of my accounts are far from me.

My phone and internet services both went up 4.99

[Meridith]

Well I officially became a business this year and had a great first year. The response I have recieved on my products from my community has been outstanding. In fact, I did so good this year that I quickly out grew the kitchen, and then quickly outgrew my work room. I needed to expand again but am very limited as to where I can go in my house. So a wonderful deal fell into my lap that was too good to pass up and I am now getting ready to open my own store. Not sure though yet what I made this year, cuz I'm like Trish, all my money has been invested back into my business. I can't wait to see my numbers when my accountant does my taxes.

[Tara]

This is my best year yet and I am still pouring LOL Anyone want to help a person out? I am so exhausted and I don't even do shows. Sales are way up for me this year. Most of which comes from my site. I don't know how people find me but they do I am not complaining. I did pick up some wholesale accounts which I didn't have last year and did a few new fundraisers that I didn't do last year. Overall financially I would say I am very pleased with the way things have gone.

[Fern]

Hey Tara: I was just looking at your website...it looks great, but I wonder if you noticed that you made a mistake in your gift basket section...it says your selling them for $3.00. Just thought you might want to know.

[tx twister]

I'd have to say my sales were down this year, but this is my 3rd yr. and I think I will actually break even this yr! I did better by dropping melts, soaps and deleting a few fragrances. I figure if they can't find something they like in 40 fragrances, they're not going to find it! Can't please everyone. Most people purchase cinnamon type scents during the holidays, but this yr. sold a few gel candles at my last show and even did a custom Christmas chunk pillar in Cucumber Melon scent - go figure! :rolleyes2

[Tess]

I tripled my sales (at least) and still getting orders daily. I increased my clientel by no telling how much. I am proud of myself!! Been in biz for exactly 2 years now

[Fire and Ice]

I'd have to look at the numbers to confirm it but for me, sales were way down. But then so were my supplies. There several reasons for this. Though I did more shows, if the weather was nice, the crowds didn't show. Two of the shows were new to me and the people failed to advertise and lied to the vendors to get them in the show.

There was the Italian Fest that I dropped out of one the first day because it was to dang hot out my candles were melting and block us in so that nobody could get to the crafters:mad: ! I lost over $1,000 from that was scrambling at the rest of the shows to make it up!

The biggest show of the year for me was excellent and I did over 30% more sales there than last year.

I was really hoping to pick up another great wholesale account but the one small one I got fizzled when the people were taking the candles home and burning them instead of allowing the customers to buy themsanta roll

I still have my tobacco stores accounts and they're doing well but the owner is yet again pissed because HIS name and number is not on MY candles. He also thinks I'm undercutting him when I sell cases of candles at the shows.(He's warped) And I get the honor of getting into it with him tomorrow.

The Christmas sales have not been what I'd hoped for but again, I'm ordering less supplies too so I'll do the paperwork and see.

The final thing too is that the prices on my candles to the public went up by a dollar per candle but I didn't increase my wholesale prices.

I want to finish out the month ands see how it goes. Sometimes in the last days before Christmas thing can really go really crazy.

[Tara]

Hey Tara: I was just looking at your website...it looks great, but I wonder if you noticed that you made a mistake in your gift basket section...it says your selling them for $3.00. Just thought you might want to know.

Thanks but that's the way it is suppose to be. It's $3.00 in addition to the items you choose to put into the basket:wink2:

[Fern]

Tara: Oh, I didn't realize you were selling the basket separate. Sorry about that, just thought you may have made a mistake on your pricing and over-looked it.

[RobinInOR]

I want to finish out the month ands see how it goes. Sometimes in the last days before Christmas thing can really go really crazy

Isn't that the truth! Guess I should have started this thread next week lol... I've got 4 baskets to get out to an ex boss on Saturday, shipping 2 orders out today UPS, and filling a few more local work orders from stock that's already made up, so that's pretty easy.. I'm "closed" from Dec 19-Jan 8, so I'm basically done.

My plan for this year was to increase gross sales by 30%, but obviously didn't hit it. Am reworking my targets for next year..

Now, as long as DH was really kidding about wanting to move to Missouri (ack!).....

[Sara]

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Gotta love stats (hey Sara the stats girl).

Hee. Man you guys are on the ball. I do most of my records by hand. Tedious, I know, but it works. So I don't have the stats like you do. However, this year started out slow, and I pulled back for a good portion, not advertising or offering sales. The last and first quarters of the year is where I found most of my bulk orders came in. I also did consignment for the first time this year, which I mostly look at as a form of advertising. It did work and I got some direct orders from that, so I count it as a success.

I would say this year was better than last because my focus was more contained. I did not add a bunch of things that I regretted adding, I streamlined things and expect to do so even more in the new year. My focus has shifted from as many candles to more soaps, pillars I may entirely drop from my line.

Good thread.

[mountainmadness]

It is difficult to compare this year to last because I did a Sat. market every weekend this summer.

Although I have been making soap for years, I am know actively marketing so when my full-time job is finished in 18 mo. I can have a good customer base.

My sales were unbelievable. We have so much support for the local crafters and artists here. I am re-investing my money right now into the business but did have some big savings goals and achieved those. Because I am still working full time my soap money allowed us to put money down on a new house, buy a couple pieces of nice furniture, and take a vacation this winter and was able to still pay for my years worth of supplies.

I plan on it being a better year next year with doing a wholesale show in Feb., market again this summer, craft shows, parties, and finishing my website. I debated on whether or not to start testing candles but have decided to expand my bath and body line. I do almost all soap now but will be offering more unique homemade bath candy at market.

My long term goal is to have a store front when my day job is done (18 mo.). I will continue to save for that event.

I feel blessed this year and I really love what I am doing. I appreciate you all being here and look forward to another year of blessings.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

[KristinesShower]

Shows were a bust this year. I didn't make ½ as much as I did last year at them, but sales for the website are up up up! 65% to be exact as of today

[cindym]

I don't have all the numbers in yet, I picked up a huge private lable account, and have another in the offing, private orders have been incredible this year and everyone is screaming for me to do a party after the holidays, ladies night out, should be fun, my existing wholesale accounts have at least trippled there orders from last year and the soap is really taking off. I am still getting orders, which is very surprising so we will see. At this point I have no debt:D and still have some large checks coming in or due.

[sharyl55]

Last year was my 1st selling and I only sold tarts and hurricanse so I had no place to go but up. This year I did more shows and a Sat. farmers market. And I finally finished testing wine glass containers and votives so had a selection of them to offer. Sales are up but so are costs so don't expect to be in the black. Was pleased to get orders for 18 Memory Candles for Christmas presents. Did get 1 small wholesale account and have product on consignment in an artsy gift shop. Ornies were my big seller this year. I'm getting a rep as the lady who makes those good smelling things. My area is economically depressed so most sales are under $7. My financial high point was a couple of days last month when I had almost $1000 in the checking acct. Then my Visa bill came in. LOL

Goals for 2006 are to find and test a std. container - don't really want to do JJ, test pillars, and set up a web site. Might be biting off more than I can chew. My new Years Resolution is NOT to buy every FO I read about on this board.