Op where are you? I don support you,oya come and continue your story...

I am sorry for being absent for some days now. Unfortunately "I collected small ban". I tried to open a new account to address some rising issues but it turned out that I can't use it until after some weeks. I decided to wait for the ban to expire. So I am back. EMMAACHILE, Ogakazeem, Great500 and Others, I am back. Akwaidara, I am yet to see you here. Where are you

iHart:
I am sorry for being absent for some days now. Unfortunately "I collected small ban". I tried to open a new account to address some rising issues but it turned out that I can't use it until after some weeks. I decided to wait for the ban to expire. So I am back. EMMAACHILE, Ogakazeem, Great500 and Others, I am back. Akwaidara, I am yet to see you here. Where are you

we dey here bros... au far? welcome back. au d business dey go?

EMMAACHILE:

That means he has not even started production! What's hard for him to answer? Let him take his time like Mr Buhari.
I have ran enterprises and I can give you an average for any of them.

Relax, I am not avoiding the question, but I want to take things easy because I feel that answering your question outrightly may not make us to appreciate the "money" part of the business. But I am happy you have ran enterprises, so I will give you an old man's tale that can help you figure out the ROI.

here comes the tale; I have a proposed annual capacity of 60 tonnes, that is to say that I will target 5 tonnes/month. Note: the installed capacity is actually above 5 tonnes/month. I targeted to start operation at 30% (1.5 tonne/month), unfortunately I started at ~10% (475kg). To achieve that, I spend #172, 020 (including raw materials, labour, power and transport) and it gives me a total of 110 cartons containing 100 pieces each excluding offcuts. That is to say that I spend about #1563 to produce one carton, #15.63 per tablet. On a wholesale, I sell #1750 and #1800 per carton depending on negotiation and quantity demanded. On an average, I make #200 per carton. Now let met give you an assignment, deduce the ROI.

I lease gen (a 40kva generator), though I have "NEPA" I am yet to use it in production. I hire labour on contract. Any time I want to run production, I call in three more hands and I pay each #2000/day. I actually run that ~10% in a day. That is to say that my cost of production can still come down when i reach a full/regular operation as i will employ factory workers on a full time basis, paying them like #15000/month thus bringing down their salary to as low as #500/day. More so, by that time I would have integrated "NEPA" into the business. That will further bring down my cost of production and increase my profit and the ROI.

okeytus, can you please gist us your experience when you visited the factory yesterday? we will be glad to hear it

iHart:
Relax, I am not avoiding the question, but I want to take things easy because I feel that answering your question outrightly may not make us to appreciate the "money" part of the business. But I am happy you have ran enterprises, so I will give you an old man's tale that can help you figure out the ROI.

here comes the tale; I have a proposed annual capacity of 60 tonnes, that is to say that I will target 5 tonnes/month. Note: the installed capacity is actually above 5 tonnes/month. I targeted to start operation at 30% (1.5 tonne/month), unfortunately I started at ~10% (475kg). To achieve that, I spend #172, 020 (including raw materials, labour, power and transport) and it gives me a total of 110 cartons containing 100 pieces each excluding offcuts. That is to say that I spend about #1563 to produce one carton, #15.63 per tablet. On a wholesale, I sell #1750 and #1800 per carton depending on negotiation and quantity demanded. On an average, I make #200 per carton. Now let met give you an assignment, deduce the ROI.

I lease gen (a 40kva generator), though I have "NEPA" I am yet to use it in production. I hire labour on contract. Any time I want to run production, I call in three more hands and I pay each #2000/day. I actually run that ~10% in a day. That is to say that my cost of production can still come down when i reach a full/regular operation as i will employ factory workers on a full time basis, paying them like #15000/month thus bringing down their salary to as low as #500/day. More so, by that time I would have integrated "NEPA" into the business. That will further bring down my cost of production and increase my profit and the ROI.

okeytus, can you please gist us your experience when you visited the factory yesterday? we will be glad to hear it

So, if I'm a retailer and decides to sell each tablet for ₦50 which is still fair, it means I would make ₦5,000 on one carton.

If this my analysis is true, it means you are working for retailers then.

[quote author=iHart post=66707999)Glad to have you back.

Grupo:


So, if I'm a retailer and decides to sell each tablet for ₦50 which is still fair, it means I would make ₦5,000 on one carton.

If this my analysis is true, it means you are working for retailers then.

retailers sell two tablets for #50, i.e #25 for one. Actually, a retailer makes more profit per soap but I make more money overall because I sell to many retailers. it can take some retailers one week to finish a carton while presently I can sell as much as 20 to 30 cartons in a week.

Grupo:


So, if I'm a retailer and decides to sell each tablet for ₦50 which is still fair, it means I would make ₦5,000 on one carton.

If this my analysis is true, it means you are working for retailers then.

hmmm...well, if you buy a carton @ 1,800 and sell @ 50 naira...meaning you will make 3,200 as profit....a carton contains 100tablets according to Ihart.Ihart what do you think about this analysis

iHart:
retailers sell two tablets for #50, i.e #25 for one. Actually, a retailer makes more profit per soap but I make more money overall because I sell to many retailers. it can take some retailers one week to finish a carton while presently I can sell as much as 20 to 30 cartons in a week.

Nice...jst saw this post.

Great500:
hmmm...well, if you buy a carton @ 1,800 and sell @ 50 naira...meaning you will make 3,200 as profit....a carton contains 100tablets according to Ihart.Ihart what do you think about this analysis

Any soap of this type and size in the market is sold @ #25 per one at retail price and in some cases #30 (mostly by retailers in very remote areas) another thing affect the retail price. Mostly retailers buy from sub distributors. I showed okeytus one lady in our village market that buys 5 cartons every week. She is more or less like a sub distributor. She buys from me at #1800 and sells to the retailers at #2100, she also sells retail too. She makes about #1500 from my soap every week, the retailer that buys from her makes about #400 per week (it takes long for the retailers to finish their stock than the sub distributors). And I currently have five sub distributors I give between 5 to 10 cartons every week bringing my average sell per week to 25 carton. if I make an average of 200 per carton, in a week it amounts to #5000. Remember, my salary have been taken care of, this is just the net profit and I am flinging it back into the business. So in actual sense who is making more money and who is working for who?

Ihart I think the profit margin for now is not really much...though I know you are looking @ the over all profit... don't you think making the soap a bit bigger...will help you price it better?...Just a thought though...

ok,starting to see your point,its like we are posting @ same time

Great500:
Ihart I think the profit margin for now is not really much...though I know you are looking @ the over all profit... don't you think making the soap a bit bigger...will help you price it better?...Just a thought though...

Very good. Yes, making it bigger does affect the profit per one and subsequently the overall profit. Plodding a bigger size is faster and saves cost on diesel and labour. But there is what we call consumer poverty. I learnt that from the MD of a soap factory I worked in Awka, Anambra state, The Coopers. Queried why he was selling more of the small soaps, the MD made me to understand that due to the hardship in the country, consumer tend to buy what they can afford and use up at any given time even if it is more expensive on a long run. Take for instance, a peasant farmer who loves to take tea will prefer to buy 1 sachet of milk for #30 every day than to buy a big sachet for #800 naira. But actually, if you check the quantity of the #30 sachet that will give you that of #800, you will discover the consumer is paying more for less. The same thing applies for soap depending on your location. in my location, consumer are mostly low income earners, they prefer to buy the small soap once they want to wash than buying the big one. But do you know the good news? my sub distributors are now demanding for the big ones. Seems we are now getting out of recession?

So today, I took out time to design the eyelet for big size, and its cool.

You see why I didn't want to go into the "money" aspect of the business, it will make me to leave the story half done. Please I will want ti continue with my story telling. later we can come back to this.

pictures coming soon.

iHart:
Any soap of this type and size in the market is sold @ #25 per one at retail price and in some cases #30 (mostly by retailers in very remote areas) another thing affect the retail price. Mostly retailers buy from sub distributors. I showed okeytus one lady in our village market that buys 5 cartons every week. She is more or less like a sub distributor. She buys from me at #1800 and sells to the retailers at #2100, she also sells retail too. She makes about #1500 from my soap every week, the retailer that buys from her makes about #400 per week (it takes long for the retailers to finish their stock than the sub distributors). And I currently have five sub distributors I give between 5 to 10 cartons every week bringing my average sell per week to 25 carton. if I make an average of 200 per carton, in a week it amounts to #5000. Remember, my salary have been taken care of, this is just the net profit and I am flinging it back into the business. So in actual sense who is making more money and who is working for who?

Please, one last question before we stop talking about money.

You mentioned that your salary has been taken care of. I don't understand that, who is taking care of your salary?

In soap business, your best bet is to go for luxury soap production just like sebamed. Sebamed may be an overkill as an example but I learnt from a seminar that luxury medicated soaps gives the most margins as some can sell as high as a N1000-N3000 per tablet.

The soap targets babies, toddlers, adults and cures plenty skin diseases. A replica like that can be added to your production to help in profit margins.

iHart:
Very good. Yes, making it bigger does affect the profit per one and subsequently the overall profit. Plodding a bigger size is faster and saves cost on diesel and labour. But there is what we call consumer poverty. I learnt that from the MD of a soap factory I worked in Awka, Anambra state, The Coopers. Queried why he was selling more of the small soaps, the MD made me to understand that due to the hardship in the country, consumer tend to buy what they can afford and use up at any given time even if it is more expensive on a long run. Take for instance, a peasant farmer who loves to take tea will prefer to buy 1 sachet of milk for #30 every day than to buy a big sachet for #800 naira. But actually, if you check the quantity of the #30 sachet that will give you that of #800, you will discover the consumer is paying more for less. The same thing applies for soap depending on your location. in my location, consumer are mostly low income earners, they prefer to buy the small soap once they want to wash than buying the big one. But do you know the good news? my sub distributors are now demanding for the big ones. Seems we are now getting out of recession?

So today, I took out time to design the eyelet for big size, and its cool.

You see why I didn't want to go into the "money" aspect of the business, it will make me to leave the story half done. Please I will want ti continue with my story telling. later we can come back to this.

pictures coming soon.

Ok,I agree with you,fire on with the story

EMMAACHILE:
In soap business, your best bet is to go for luxury soap production just like sebamed. Sebamed may be an overkill as an example but I learnt from a seminar that luxury medicated soaps gives the most margins as some can sell as high as a N1000-N3000 per tablet.

The soap targets babies, toddlers, adults and cures plenty skin diseases. A replica like that can be added to your production to help in profit margins.

You have a very good point here,guess in the course of this story Ihart might touch on that... but let's allow him have the floor for now for his story.And Ihart you may also comment quickly on the salary issue raised above.

Wait o' e be like I don turn moderator.

iHart:
Very good. Yes, making it bigger does affect the profit per one and subsequently the overall profit. Plodding a bigger size is faster and saves cost on diesel and labour. But there is what we call consumer poverty. I learnt that from the MD of a soap factory I worked in Awka, Anambra state, The Coopers. Queried why he was selling more of the small soaps, the MD made me to understand that due to the hardship in the country, consumer tend to buy what they can afford and use up at any given time even if it is more expensive on a long run. Take for instance, a peasant farmer who loves to take tea will prefer to buy 1 sachet of milk for #30 every day than to buy a big sachet for #800 naira. But actually, if you check the quantity of the #30 sachet that will give you that of #800, you will discover the consumer is paying more for less. The same thing applies for soap depending on your location. in my location, consumer are mostly low income earners, they prefer to buy the small soap once they want to wash than buying the big one. But do you know the good news? my sub distributors are now demanding for the big ones. Seems we are now getting out of recession?

So today, I took out time to design the eyelet for big size, and its cool.

You see why I didn't want to go into the "money" aspect of the business, it will make me to leave the story half done. Please I will want ti continue with my story telling. later we can come back to this.

pictures coming soon.

Please, I want to ask if you run production daily in your factory or not?

EMMAACHILE:
In soap business, your best bet is to go for luxury soap production just like sebamed. Sebamed may be an overkill as an example but I learnt from a seminar that luxury medicated soaps gives the most margins as some can sell as high as a N1000-N3000 per tablet.

The soap targets babies, toddlers, adults and cures plenty skin diseases. A replica like that can be added to your production to help in profit margins.

I have an uncle who has runs a small provision store in the interior part of his village. He sells small and cheap items like small sachet milk, small sachet beverage, Lipton etc. You should have the picture of what I mean. So one day I visited him only to discover that another young guy has opened beside him. This guy's shop is very big and you can take it to be a mini "super market". I was worried that my uncle will soon pack up. My uncle was not worried, he told me that the big shop will close up and his own will still be there. I wondered how possible that will be. So after some time I visited my uncle again as usual and discovered that the big shop is down. I asked my uncle why the shop was closed, he said the guy have moved to another location, and that nobody will come to this interior village to sell expensive items and make it. How can you stock your shop with big sizes of tin milk and beverage, big big size of tissues (when the villagers mostly use pit toilet and paper), etc It doesn't work like that, you need to also have a view of what your customers can afford before you venture. Take a look at " Peak milk and cowbell milk" (why am i even using milk milk for examples, it seems I like milk, ). Now when cowbell came into the market, Peak was there with big sizes but cowbell went for smaller size of products, and today Peak have joined the chorus and cowbell have captured a huge market share. Peak was for high class, cowbell came for the low class. The low class was, I don't know if they are still, higher than the high class. Understanding your customers base helps in the choice of product to start with.

The consumer base for that kind of soap you are talking about is small compared to the ordinary soap, at least in my primary market zone. And most importantly, that soap is more or less a "drug" than a soap. However I have plans to move into multipurpose, toilet and beauty soap(not like the one you mentioned up there) with time. In the course of telling how I learnt soap making, I think I will capture those kinds of soaps if questions about them arise. So lets keep a date.

Grupo:

Please, one last question before we stop talking about money.

You mentioned that your salary has been taken care of. I don't understand that, who is taking care of your salary?

Like I said earlier, I pay for labour and it is captured in the total cost of production. That labour also includes mine. I don't include labour for running around to find market, its the sacrifice I have to make to help my business. In summary, I pay myself for production only and none for marketing. There are more sacrifices I make, I may mention them as we go...

so back to where we stopped.

...after my short period at IEA, I took the remaining time of my IT to go for electrical installation training. Fast forward to 2016, after I have picked interest in soap making, I started learning about soap making. I sourced for articles and videos, online and offline. there are too many of them, I read a lot and watched a lot of youtube videos. I started trying out some formulations/recipes. Funny enough, I never tried out any soap production even before I started getting my machines. I just believed so much in the business that I felt whatever I needed to know will be learnt when the time comes. My instinct was actually leading me. So I didn't try out soap making first, it came later after I have gotten my plodder, cutting table and boiler. By then, I have gathered a lot of information and ideas about soap making. So I had to try it out because I needed to test my machines, especially the plodder.

By the end of 2016, I thought to myself, "I need to go learn industrial or large scale soap making". I made contacts both online and offline but no one was really going to help even when I offered to pay. There are two people I discovered here in this forum. I reached out to one but anytime I bring up the idea to visit his factory, he will shy away and change the topic. The second person, I never got to speak with him. He never replied my DMs and quotes. I trailed him, put a face to his moniker and got him on Facebook, still no reply. I spread my tentacles and contacted his brother his brother, but he couldn't help me with his number. I even got the address of his factory and it was close oh but I decided not to go search for him physically because I needed his consent before barging into him. I just gave up and started thinking of another strategy to learn.

But I wonder oh, why will people not want to teach others, even for a fee. It is not even as though soap making is a secret. At least two people from this forum have visited me in my factory, I don't see any big deal there.

picture 1: testing my plodder after making my first soap.
picture 2: trying out more soap making using different recipes/formulation. Notice the difference in colour. one was made transparent.
Picture 3: trying out more soap making

iHart:


The consumer base for that kind of soap you are talking about is small compared to the ordinary soap, at least in my primary market zone. And most importantly, that soap is more or less a "drug" than a soap. However I have plans to move into multipurpose, toilet and beauty soap(not like the one you mentioned up there) with time. In the course of telling how I learnt soap making, I think I will capture those kinds of soaps if questions about them arise. So lets keep a date.

You have a very important point here.

Following...

edoman2016:

Please, I want to ask if you run production daily in your factory or not?

i have not reached full capacity hence i don't run production daily. Check my previous post up in this page.

Great job. Please what did you add to that soap in the mold that makes it white.

henrymidas:
Great job. Please what did you add to that soap in the mold that makes it white.

nothing. It is the type of oil i used(PKO) that gave it that colour.

QuitNotice:
Op, I am trying my hands on paper air freshener production, which is similar. I need your advice on how to market the product. Anyone else who has an idea can also help. The products is ready, but marketing is proving to be an insurmountable obstacle. Please reply

sorry my reply is coming late. I don't know much about this product and how you can market it, but i have given it a thought. The best bet is to market it as souvenir and campaign/advert stuffs. You can approach politicians to use it as a platform to enhance their campaign. You can also approach "about to wed" couples and those preparing for burial to use it as souvenirs. You can setup facebook page or an advert here to promote it. You can also approach all these printing press and gives them samples to advertise to those who come to print wedding and burial programmes as a souvenir. Promise them some good percentage of what ever business they bring to you. Thats what i think about this but if i take out time to study it, i may begin to see better marketing strategy. Goodluck as you try it.

iHart:
Thank you so much. I am presently in Umuahia, but I don't have samples with me. But I wouldn't mind coming around to met you to discuss business. I can make my products available as soon as you want it. I will travel to my factory tomorrow(located in Isuikwuato) and get you samples by next tomorrow. But I wish if we can meet tomorrow. Can I have your contact please?

Wow you are even my inlaw. can i visit your factory?

engrgordon:


Wow you are even my inlaw. can i visit your factory?

you are highly welcomed, just put a call across before coming.

...i want to thank those who have ordered for my product. For those who may want to place order, here is the deal; if you are within Isuikwuato-#1750 for 5 to 10 cartons. #1700 from 11 cartons upwards. For those within Umuahia and Okigwe- #1750 for 10 to 20 cartons and #1700 from 21 cartons up. Presently we don't have the capacity to take orders outside these places we mentioned but if you are outside those places you can still call for discussion and a possible special arrangement. Note, these prices are tentative and subject to change. Thank you.


We will continue our story today, so keep a date..