sockmonkey

I'm not real big on florals, but MMS has a sunflower FO and it's ok. It's a pretty tame scent--not too heavy, not too sweet or "green." If you want to send me a S.A.S.E., I will send you a sniffy of it. PM me if your interested.

What a load of garbage.

If your Ec.Dev. personnel is anything like what we have here, they couldn't care less about you. You're more of a nuisance to them--you're too small time for them to bother with. They are interested in bringing in factories and warehouses, and do NOTHING for mom & pop shops. Gosh, I don't remember where you need to register your business name--I think it's with your Secretary of State. You need to get in touch with your state's revenue dept. and you can find out about tax issues with them.

You're welcome.

I've never dealt with her, (and I never would with what I have read about her here) but has anyone notified the Better Business Bureau or the Attorney General's office in her state about their dealings with her? It sounds like she's someone who needs to be shut down.

You need to establish what your minimums will be--either units or dollars, or both. In order to sell to them without charging them sales tax you will need to have a copy of their tax ID on file. PRICING: For example, in order to get wholesale pricing you must make $150 minimum purchase. Determine what your pricing structure will be. Will you offer discounts for large volume orders? What type of payments will you accept? Many companies only accept pre-paid credit card orders for the first three orders. After that some offer credit, others will accept checks. What type of shipping will you offer? UNITS: If you sell shower gel, as an example, you might sell it my the case (determine what amount will comprise a case--12 bottles, 24 bottles?) in one scent only, or you might allow them to mix and match their scents to equal one case. LABELS: What will you supply as far as labels go? Do they have to use your standard label, changing only the company name on the label, or can they supply you with artwork to create a new label? If they do that, will you assess a "set up" fee? Will you have an additional charge per label, or will you hide it in the cost of the product? Those are just a few quick things I thought of. Here are a couple of more: What kind of time frame can they expect their order? One more...NO COD's.

Oh, just someone who gets mentioned every few months or so for ripping people off.

The Chemistry Store is where I got Stephenson's from. If you sign up to be on their email list they will send you a coupon good for 15% off your next order.

I use them too. It's a shame these companies will never thank us for sharing good news about them.

There is a major Canadian manufacturer who makes m&p soaps and a LOT of vendors purchase their soaps from them because they are so cheap. I cannot verify it, but what NG sells certainly looks like the same soap. I used to buy that soap from a different supplier and I liked it. Then I tried Stephenson's, SFIC, and Crafter's choice. I immediately stopped using the other soap because I found it had an inferior lather compared to the other brands I tried. I liked Stephenson's and SFIC the best and wound up making a bulk purchase of SFIC m&p and have been happy with my decision. I think that's something else you might want to look into--trying other brands. Sometimes other brands might be cheaper, but you might find a different one, although more expensive might last longer, and therefore could be worth the difference in price. As far as the beeswax goes, I took PA's suggestion before, and for me I found that it seemed to cut down on the lather. I'm not a dare devil like she is when it comes to soap, so I decided to just to stick with it as it was. Have you tried using cocoa butter bases or oatmeal bases? Both of those bases from SFIC seem to produce a more firm bar than the goat's milk base does in my opinion.

Thanks but no thanks to handing out cards at dealerships. I'd rather stick a fork in my eye than to spend one extra minute in those places.

I think those here who truly support their family (make the house payment, the car payment, buy groceries) on their candles and b&b are actually very few. I don't think the majority of people here do it full time and rely solely on it for their income. For some, I'm sure it's a good supplemental income.

One easy solution for you might be to simply make a bigger bar. Another thing to consider is that just because your soap lasts a short time for you doesn't mean customers will necessarily be getting the same results. You may have more people using the same bar of soap in your home vs. someone else's home, and the water temperature you use may be hotter than another household. There may be more moisture in your shower than the next person's, which could also contribute to rapidly disappearing soap. If you haven't done so already, you should have family and friends living outside of your home take some bars home and use them and report back to you on where they used them and how long they lasted. Customers ask me how long a bar lasts and I don't tell them a certain amount of time. I just tell them how long the bar will last is really dependent upon several factors, such as where the soap is kept and how steamy your bathroom gets, etc. Some people work up a much greater lather than others when they use soap, so that also affects how quickly it disappears. I basically tell them that I can't really give them a specific amount of time because it can vary wildly from household to household. If you don't mind me asking, where are you getting your m&p from?

What's your personal income for the year?

Funk, do you offer people link to your site (or your ID in general) a discount on your services vs. people who request not to have you listed? The only one who has anything to gain by having it listed is you. Unfortunately, too many people (myself included) are in the dark when it comes to creating webpages and don't take the time to research a lot of companies and compare prices and practices before they buy into the quickest, easiest website designer/host. If you can get cheaper pricing by advertising another company on your site that's fine, if you understand that's what's going on. However, if you want a truly professional looking site, take a look at what the big boys do. You will never find any advertisements for the host or the designer on a B&BW site, Avon, Mary Kay, Caswell-Massey, Yankee Candle, or any other major retailer's site, even suppliers such as WSP, SW and you will find none of them identify their hosts or give credit to who designed the site. In reality, some have their own in-house designers, but what it amounts to is that they aren't advertising someone else for free.

It makes you really wonder about the whole "integrity" question. Do you have integrity to suggest scandalous problems exist and not identify the source if you knew other people might also be exposed to the same situation? Do the same people who claim they would never do business with a company with "unethical" business practices shop at Walmart? They've been found to discriminate against women and use use illegal aliens as "contractors" in their stores. They've sold clothing made by children in sweatshops. Is it hypocritical to shop there?

I could name names, but I won't, because too many people use the particular site I'm thinking of. I'm not trashing their sites, they're cute but if you go to this site you can click on all of the "merchant's" websites and what do they all look like? Let's all put beige, plaid, stars, sheep, angels, berries, etc. Each one is different, yet they're all the same, and they all have the designer/host listed at the bottom of the page. Obviously, that free advertisement at the bottom of everyone's page has gotten a lot of mileage and is working for the designer/host, because there are a ton of people that use it. As for the B&BW comment, I fail to see the similarity. I buy the product, take it home and use it without removing the label. It's for my own private use and I do not intend to resell it or share it with others. Why would I care if others buy the same thing? I don't make it. I have no stake in it. I understand why a designer or web host would want to leave their ID on a product they had a hand in creating--for the purpose of drumming up more business. Nothing personal against you or anyone else, but if someone comes to the website I'm paying the bills on, and upon which my income depends, I want visitors to focus on my products, not who created my artwork or who hosts my site. With the attitute that it's cool to advertise who does your website & design, why not list everywhere you buy all of your supplies from too? It makes just as much sense.

Well, if they did the work for free maybe they should feel entitled, but if you paid them for the design already and you're paying for that website every month why give them free advertising? For some of the people who get their design and hosting from the same primitive/country places, they all kind of look the same. What you are doing by allowing them to advertise their site and services for free on your site is essentially giving an open invitiation to everyone who stops at your website to know the secrets to your business. I wouldn't want people to have a website that looked similar to mine. That free plug on your site irritates me much like car dealer logos on most of the cars that everyone drives. If you plunk down $30K for a vehicle--why should you give them free advertising everywhere you drive that car? You own it.

If you don't want it on your site you need to establish that with them before they do the work for you.

Hey, Afrin rules!!! Every year I suffer through about 2 nasty colds per winter. I get a wicked stuffed nose and can't breathe. After years of suffering I don't know what finally made me do it, but I bought the nasal spray, Afrin. All I can say is, I could instantaneously breathe again after one shot. That stuff was like a miracle cure for me!

Hmmm..Taking legal action to "help" this person along. Are you sure you don't really mean help you and your family? I guess you're trying to make us read between the lines. From what I'm gathering, the person you are talking about, which you allege lacks integrity must be a member here.

I just thought of another thing--"ear" candles. Think anyone would be dumb enough to use the same concept with "sinus" candles? I could see a jar decorated with a cartoon neckscarf and thermometer, maybe a stuffy red nose, to hopefully get the point across without having to call it a "sinus" candle. Maybe call it Cold Comfort.

I'm not knocking your idea Candle Man. Under other circumstances it think it would be a good idea. It's just that she linked "sinus" to it and that conjured up images. If it was a simple eucalyptus scented candle I think cough drop would be a good name. Now for a sinus candle, how about just calling it "Medicine Man" or something like that?

What's the deal about them not picking up packages? I'm seeing commercials on tv advertising that you don't need to go to the post office anymore because they will pick up your packages! Guess they didn't get the memo...

"Cough Drop" for a sinus candle? Yuck. I'm getting visions of something not so pleasant, if you can imagine. You know how stupid some people are. Someone would probably try to carve a hunk of it off and use it for a cough drop.