To sell soap at a farmers market, decide first whether each bar is soap or a cosmetic, because that decides its label; pour six weeks ahead, because cold process soap has to cure; bring nearly twice what you expect to sell, wrapped and labeled; and put a cut bar out to smell and touch. Then count what came home, because the next batch is six weeks from the shelf. In the example below, a skincare maker in Kailua sells soap, body butter and sugar scrub at a Sunday market through November, takes $2,666 over four Sundays, and keeps $1,563 after the products' cost, card fees and the stall. Below is the soap-or-cosmetic question, what to bring, prices and bundles, the humidity, the four Sundays, and a free market day planner.
The short version
- A bar that's made of fats and lye and sold only to clean is soap; claim more and it's a cosmetic.
- Label every bar: what it is, the weight, the ingredients, and your name and place.
- Cold process soap cures for weeks; pour for a market a month and a half ahead.
- Bring nearly twice what you expect to sell, weighted to the scents that sell.
- Put out a cut bar to smell and a tester of each butter and scrub.
- A bundle of three bars sells more than a discount on one.
- Keep bars wrapped and out of the sun and the damp.
- TaroStack counts stock on a phone at the stall, and gives every batch a lot. More below.
Soap or cosmetic: the label
FDA treats a product as soap only if most of it is an alkali salt of fatty acids, its cleaning comes from those, and it's labeled, sold and represented only as soap (21 CFR 701.20). Products that meet that definition are regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, not FDA (FDA). A bar that also says it moisturizes or deodorizes, or a body cleanser that isn't true soap, is a cosmetic, and a cosmetic bar has to state its weight in pounds and ounces, among the other cosmetic label rules. A bar that claims to treat eczema or acne is a drug. So the words on the sign at the stall count as much as the label: "nourishing" on a chalkboard can turn a soap into a cosmetic. Body butter and sugar scrub are cosmetics either way. What goes on a cosmetic label is in cosmetic labeling requirements. Your market will have its own rules too: some take only farm products and food, and markets often ask for liability insurance and a sales tax permit. This is general information, not legal advice.
Pour ahead
Cold process soap needs weeks of curing on the rack before it's ready, so a bar poured today is for a market six weeks out. Plan the pours from the market calendar: November's Sundays and December's holiday markets are poured in September and October. Every batch gets its batch code on the label, so a customer who reacts to a bar can say which batch it was. How to give each batch a code is in how to create batch numbers for soap.
What to bring
Hoʻola Botanicals, a made-up skincare maker in Kailua, Oʻahu, I use in these examples, brings for an ordinary Sunday:
| Product | Price | Cost, with the card fee | Bring | Expect to sell | Sell-through |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cold process soap, 5 oz bar | $10.00 | $4.15 | 60 | 34 | 57% |
| Whipped body butter, 4 oz | $18.00 | $5.19 | 16 | 8 | 50% |
| Sugar scrub, 8 oz | $16.00 | $3.81 | 12 | 6 | 50% |
| All three | 88 | 48 | 55% |
Sixty bars in eight scents is about seven of each, more of the best two. Bars are the table's draw: a stack of soap is what people stop for, and the butter and scrub are what they add once they're there. A bar cut in half, wrapped in clear film, lets people smell without unwrapping the stock. How much to bring, worked out from past markets, is in how much inventory for a craft fair.
Prices and bundles
$10 a bar at the stall, the same as online and the price a shop sells it at. Three bars for $27 moves more soap than a discount on one, and the third bar is often a scent the customer wouldn't have tried. A bar priced lower at the market than in the shop down the street loses the shop. How the $10 is built from the oils, lye, box, labor and fees is in soap business profit margin.
The humidity
On a damp windward morning, handmade soap can bead with moisture, the glycerin drawing water out of the air, and paper wraps go soft. Keep the stock in a closed bin, wrapped, put out a few of each scent at a time, and keep the table out of the direct sun, which fades colors and softens butters. Body butter melts in a hot car; it travels in a cooler.
Four Sundays
| Sunday | Soap bars | Body butter | Sugar scrub | Sales | Products and card fees | Stall | Left |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 1 | 34 | 8 | 6 | $580 | $205.48 | $40 | $334.52 |
| November 8 | 28 | 6 | 5 | $468 | $166.39 | $40 | $261.61 |
| November 15 | 41 | 10 | 7 | $702 | $248.72 | $40 | $413.28 |
| November 22 | 52 | 14 | 9 | $916 | $322.75 | $40 | $553.25 |
| The month | 155 | 38 | 27 | $2,666 | $943.34 | $160 | $1,562.66 |
The Sundays get better toward Thanksgiving, as people start buying gifts. The bars sell the most and leave $907; the 38 jars of body butter leave $487 and the scrub $329. An ordinary Sunday leaves about $335 for six hours with the setup and the drive, about $56 an hour; the Sunday before Thanksgiving leaves $553. How the rest of a market's costs add up is in cost to sell at a farmers market.
After each market
Count what came home by scent, and write down what sold. A scent that sells out every week needs a bigger pour six weeks before it runs out; one that comes home every week is a scent to stop pouring. A sheet for each market's sales is in farmers market sales tracker.
Get the planner
Download the soap market day planner. Two sheets: market day, with your products, prices, what each costs you, what you'll bring and what you expect to sell, where sales, what's left after the stall and what's left for each hour fill in; and season, one line for each market with what sold, where sales, costs, the stall and what's left fill in from the first sheet. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Eight scents of soap curing on racks, each poured on a different day and ready on a different day, body butter in three scents, scrubs, a Sunday market, a website and a few shops. A notebook can't say which lavender bars are cured and ready for Sunday, how many will be by December, or which batch the bar a customer reacted to came from.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack counts stock on a phone at the stall, and gives every batch a lot.
Every batch a lot. A batch of soap takes its oils, lye and fragrance off stock and gets a lot of its own, with the lots of oil it used recorded, and a batch record form carries your own fields, such as the date it comes off the cure rack, with a sign-off. Bars still curing can be held, kept from sale, until they're ready. How a batch record works for cosmetics is in cosmetic batch record template.
Counting at the stall. Counting works on a phone with no signal, at the stall or in the car, and sends itself later, so what came home is in the stock before the bin is unpacked. With more than one site, the stall is a site of its own, with transfers out and back; more than one site is on Standard at $99 a month.
What to pour next. "What could I make right now" says how many bars the oils and lye on hand allow, and a scent below its reorder point raises an alert while there's still time to pour and cure it.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which bars are cured | Dates on the rack | Holds until ready |
| What came home | Counted, maybe | Counted on a phone, offline |
| Which batch a bar came from | The label, if kept | A lot for every batch |
| Lavender running low | Found when it's gone | Alert below the reorder point |
Counts, recipes, batches and lots are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.