Risks Faced When Things Are On Consignment

One of the losses that we have made in this business resulted from putting our goat milk soap on consignment to outlets. Consignment basis here means that we, as soap distributors, put our product at a particular outlet (convenience stores, beauty shops, petrol kiosks, etc) and they are only paid when the soaps are sold. If they are not sold, the outlet owners are not obligated to pay us anything apart from those that have been sold. 

The problem occurs when our soaps are not being properly put in its baskets (where it is displayed) - which would often result in outlets losing/misplacing these baskets, unkempt soaps (with its wrapper torn & weary), soap bitten by rats or our products are shelved some place obscure altogether - away from the public eye.

That is the reason why we encourage distributors to insist outlet owners/operators in displaying the soaps (in the basket) at the cashier's counter of the outlet or some place prominent where the customers could immediately see them because these soaps do not belong with the other detergents (including commercial soaps) at the back of the shop. It would not sell if they are put back there nexy to the Luxs and the Doves - which are way cheaper in pricing.

Brochures of the soap's benefits should also be available to the customers in order to educate them about the effectiveness of our soaps and why it is priced in such a way. 

These informative & educative method (by putting the soaps, brochures and pamphlets at the front of the store) will eventually benefit the shop/outlet owner at the end of the day - apart from the customers. After using our soaps, users would definitely feel the difference. That's certain.

It is sad to find that some outlet owners would chuck the goat milk soap in the abyss along with the other products. It would surely rot there and eventually damaged. These are some of the foreseeable risk that distributors face when trying to market these soaps.

However, we already have many outlet owners who pay upfront for these soaps as they have already seen the effects that these soaps give to their customers' health & satisfaction, and their soaring sales of the product. It's a pity not all of them are willing to give it some time to see some difference these soaps would do to their revenue.     

Goat Milk Soap in International Islamic University Malaysia (UIA) Gombak

This past week, we have been visiting IIUM near Gombak and we were able to stock up our goat milk soaps in 7 out of their 14 convenience stores scattered all over the university ground. 

Some of the c-store owners were very receptive of us promoting our goat milk soap. Some were very sceptical. But alhamdulillah, all in all, 7 outlets acquired was a very good outcome.  

Convenience stores which now sell our goat milk soaps in IIUM are : 

1) Mahalla Asma'
2) Mahalla Aminah
3) Mahalla Salahuddin Al-Ayyubi
4) Mahalla Ali
5) Mahalla Zubair
6) Mahalla Uthman Ibn Affan
7) Mahalla Bilal

We had put 10 soaps in Mahalla Nusaibah last 6th November 2011 during our 1st visit to IIUM. After a day, all soaps were sold off. However, Nusaibah's convenience store owner advised us to come back in February 2012, after the holidays. We got to know that the students are facing their Final exams in a few weeks' time and then the holidays. Sale would understandably be low during the hols but it is already great enough that we have been given the opportunity to market our soaps in this amazing campus.

There were some of the c-store owners that we had called and approached at the university namely in Mahalla Asiah and Mahalla Ruqayyah rejected our requests outright to market our soaps at their outlets. This is part and parcel of sales & rejection of it. You win some, lose some. Oh well, maybe we could try again if sales at the other c-stores within the campus are good and promising.

We gather that some of the c-store owners were either family related or are friends from one another. Hope that they will have good things to say about us to each other after using our sample soaps that have been given to them during our sales pitch :-).

Also a special thank you to brothers Nor Asree An-Nahwi Al-Basri and Mohd Fairul (of Mahalla Bilal) both from IIUM for assisting us locating these convenience stores the other day. We couldn't have done it without them. May Allah bless both of you. 

      

..and Why Hand-Made Soaps Are Better Than Commercial Soaps?

1) First, hand-made soaps are the REAL soaps.

2) It's made carefully and with personal attention in small batches, not industrially manufactured. Its entire making process is made by hand (at least 50% of it) from start till finish - even the packaging. 

3) Hand-made soap makers leave soaps to cure for a few weeks before it can be used. Commercial soaps harden by chemicals almost immediately so that it can be used in a heartbeat.

Why hand-made soaps are normally more expensive than the commercial soaps?
4) Its high quality & expensive contents such as olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil, glycerin (that moisturizes your skin) and palm fat are generally good for your skin. In our case, we have products which could do amazing things to your skin : goat's milk and calendula (Refer : Qamalia).   

Naturally, you get your money's worth when you spend more for a particular product. Buy a Benz, u get the luxury feel that comes with the vehicle. Buy a lesser quality car, you get the faulty door knob and power window after a year's use. You get what we mean.

But this is not about getting from point A to point B. This is about what kind of damaging chemical that goes onto your skin and that seeps deeper into your inner organs hence the cause of skin irritation, red spots & eczema; and the causa causas of the more serious skin cancer, hair loss, heart problems and many more fatal diseases. We take life for granted  when using these daily detergents like soaps & shampoos for beautification not realizing that it is like a slow suicidal action we partake without well-informed knowledge.          

You make the decision. Good luck.

Why Commercial (Normal) Soaps Are Bad For You

1) What is referred to as commercial (normal) soaps?
Example : Lux (USED to be the household's No.1 soap), Palmolive, Dettol, Dove, etc.

2) Why are they bad?
1st, they are detergents, not soaps. It dries out skin and leaves chemical residue.

 

3) They're made out of petroleum products & dangerous chemicals (including sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), sodium cocoyl isethionate (synthetic detergent), stearic acid (hardener),trisodium EDTA (stabilizer, used in industrial cleaning products to decrease hard water, skin irritant), BHT (preservative, common skin irritant), animal fat, etc.).

Anti-Bacterial soap contain Triclosan, classified by EPA as a pesticide. ( * EPA is the Environment Protection Agency)

These are the reasons why most people especially children who have highly sensitive skin suffer from using commercial soaps because the contents found in them. Most of our customers love our products especially the goat milk soap and Qamalia because it moisturizes (which normal soaps don't do) and it feels luxuriously great.   

4) Glycerin is good because it draws moisture from the air into your skin.
Glycerin are removed from commercial soaps & become poor quality products.

5) They are so cheap because natural occuring glycerin are stripped out of them (normal soaps) to resell to you in the form of beauty bars and lotions.

Win Ca$h When You Introduce Us Outlets To Sell Our Soaps

That's right! It's just so easy :

a) Approach any convenience store, supermarket, petrol station, restaurant, clinic, pharmacy or anywhere there is high consumer population.

b) Convince outlet owner to display and sell our soaps at their outlets. We will come and deliver our soaps & brochures to be displayed at the outlet.

c) We pay cash after the first collection from the soap sale at the introduced outlet. Cash reward ranges from RM10 to RM30 per outlet (depending on the number of soaps the outlet sell). This is a one-time payment only.

Eazy money. KA-CHINNNGGG!

e-mail us!

For those who wants to e-mail us on any enquiries or advice about our soaps or pricing, please do not hesitate to e-mail us at yatisbeautyandhealth@yahoo.com. We will reply your questions as soon as possible. Cheers!

Making Hand-Made Soaps

Our hand-made soaps are made from quality & halal products such as olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil and palm fat. Unlike the normal soap which could cause skin irritation or other skin diseases to people who are sensitive to chemicals put into these commercial soaps for instance, babies/kids, hand-made soaps is a delight to the skin.

Hand-made soap makers need to leave the soaps to dry on its own (after making them) while they form into shape. In a good and dry weather, this process could take 2-3 weeks. Even after the soaps are already hard, it is still soft and they are able to be cut smoothly into half just like cutting butter. Commercial soaps harden quickly by using chemical to multiply production in a short period of time unlike making hand-made soaps which is time consuming hence produced in small batches.

Imperfection is perfection : that's what hand-made soaps are all about. Even though their shapes and edges are not as straight and accurately shaped by a production machine like those found on commercial soaps, but these uneven cuts and shapes definitely give huge character to the product (hand-made soaps).        

Halal & Quality Product

We assure all our customers that our hand-made soaps are halal, registered with Kementerian Luar Bandar & Wilayah and monitored by Persatuan Pengguna Islam Malaysia (logo above).

We choose premium quality ingredients when making our hand-made soaps which include high quality olive oil, palm oil and coconut oil. There is strictly NO lard or any other animal fat used in our soap making process. We also add a tiny dash of zam zam water - into our soap mixture during the making process together with the other ingredients - for great measure.  

qamalia.blogspot.com

This blogspot is referring to the same Qamalia goat milk & calendula soap which is in THIS blog although the pictures of the soap displayed in qamalia.blogspot.com (pic below) is not the correct picture of the real item. Maybe the author of that particular blog did not have a pic of the real Qamalia soap at the time. That particular blog was created in early-2010. 

There were already Qamalia soap customers who called us up and were confused on whether there was another Qamalia soap brand out there in the market ie. referring to the soaps in the picture below but we had explained the situation and everything is cool.:-)  

The Qamalia goat milk & calendula soap had already been featured in our earlier post.

Damaged Soaps

From our experience as a soap distributor, when there's not enough love, tender & care put into storing goods in a proper place, chances are the soaps would either be eaten/bitten by rats or the plastic wrapper would be torn apart (from day-to-day handling by workers and customers who are curious to pick up the soap & smell them from time to time).

Usually, we would replace these damaged soap with a new stock with no charge but in some cases, our baskets are also misplaced or lost, and the soaps are so badly damaged that we do not have any choice but to consider the soaps sold & ask outlet operators to replace the lost basket. These are indeed additional costs that had been spent by us. Well, this all depends on the situation. We are not too rigid about the whole damage and loss thing but sometimes, we need to put a stand and tell our partners that they need to be a bit more responsible in keeping their stocks/goods at the shop well taken care of.   

As for the damaged soaps, we will normally turn it into our personal use.

Above Picture : Badly maintained goat milk soaps which were retrieved from one of the convenience store outlets in Kuala Lumpur.

Why choose our soaps? Why you should try our services?

There are a few reasons why we believe that we provide the consumers and our partners (outlet owners & distributors) the best quality product and provide the best of services. 

1. We place our soaps at our partners' outlets very neatly in a beautiful basket.

2. We provide brochures on the benefits and ingredients of our soaps.

3. We also provide our distributors' contact number(s) on the soaps for any follow-up orders, consultations, questions, advice on its usage, complaints and anything related to the products & services. 

4. At most of our outlets, we offer our soaps on a consignment basis instead of an up-front cash payment. (However, we charge for loss and damage of baskets). We will change damaged soaps with good ones esp. those bitten by rats UNLESS outlet owners were negligent in causing the loss/damage.   

5. Our soaps are prepared meticulously focusing on making 'em look presentable & free from residue/dusts before they are wrapped, also with a high quality plastic wrapper and a tidy wrapping method.  

6. We do not charge any fee for delivery services provided that an agreed minimum number of soaps are purchased (NOTE : This service only applies to areas within the Klang Valley).

7. We will provide basic training & guidance to our distributors/partners on how to use the products properly and effectively, on how to market & sell them and discuss on the challenges ahead, how to deal with them.

8. Our price is very fair considering the amount of services that are attached to it. 

9. We create our own hand-made soap contents with its own brand.

10. We have sold thousands of soaps to individual owners and in the process, had exchanged great and (to some) life-changing stories after using our products. We have a very great and close rapport with our consumers and partners.

11. We offer incentives to the public when they introduce new outlets which provide us space to sell our soaps. We are also devising a few activities to further expand our product outside the city center. 

12. We provide wrapping, labeling and customized work on designing brochures for our soap distributors.

13. Our hand-made soaps are of premium quality and its contents are recognized by the Government and approved within the Islamic business circle. 

2nd year anniversary : 2009 - 2011

Ever since we officialy started selling soaps back in late-October 2009, we have approximately sold more than 50,000 goat milk soaps and a few thousands of higher quality hand-made soaps in Klang Valley & Putrajaya. We have marketed many more soaps to the public and business owners along the way and convinced and trained distributors/partners to further sell our products outside Klang Valley. It has been more than 24 months now since then.


Despite the time span and number of soaps sold, we have been lagging in marketing as we are a small unit, a mini-show. This past 2 years witnessed world recession, the increase of almost everything out there especially petrol prices and recently, the price of raw materials hence affecting the soap price. Also, competition from low quality soap makers and dirty tactics played out by other soap distributors to cut our market share of the business. These are all in a day's work but ethically, we have a policy in never to offer cheaper priced soaps to an outlet where our competitor had put their product (eg. another brand of goat milk soap). We embrace competition with soapy arms but price under-cutting is just hugely unethical. We believe in karma and in the fairness of a business cycle.        

After stating that, we would in turn focus on maximizing our level of services to our partners (business owners/outlet operators), distributors and of course, the consumers. We hope to see many more increase in the number of soaps that we sell in years to come. For 2012, we are targeting to increase the number of our market outlets by more than 50% and we are hoping to sell more than 60% of the goat milk soap. This target will be achieved when we create more active distributors and venture to outlets outside Klang Valley. Also, we would focus more on marketing the Qamalia brand ie. the premium hand-made soaps to the mass market.    

Outlets : Where we sell & market our soaps

The pictures above are some of our 100++ selected outlets in Klang Valley and Putrajaya where we sell and market our range of soaps. Outlets include petrol stations, convenience stores, restaurants, laundry outlets, clinics, etc. We place our soaps neatly in baskets (which we provide for the outlets) and place brochures highlighting the benefits of the soap with it.

We currently have more than 6 - 10 distributors all around Klang Valley, Putrajaya and Pahang. Areas in Pahang which sell our soaps include Mentakab, Temerloh, Jengka, Triang, Sg Tekam, Jerantut, Bera and Lancang. We welcome distributors to sell & market our soap collection. We also provide basic training on how to become a successful soap distributor and how to use these soaps effectively.

Wrapping the soaps

To some, wrapping something may not be important especially when you already have a super product. But tell that to the high-end marketeers. The first thing a customer would subconsciously do when picking up a soap is to smell them. If you do not have proper or in-your-face wrapper and an amazing wrapping method or material, chances are, the customer would not make a purchase. 

So, the thickness of the wrapper is essential as it should not be too thick hence blocking the scent when wrapped nor must it be too thin which would result in an easy tear at the slightest of frictions each time customers hold the soap up. 

Wrapping should be neat and the plastic wrapper must be stretched to make it look clean and tidy. No wobbly plastic here and there.

From the photo:

1. Paper (label) cutter
2. Printed soap labels
3. Cellophane tape
4. Plastic wrapper
5. Laminated product brochure. 

Oodh or Agarwood (Gaharu) Soap

Calendula + Betel Leaf (Sirih) Soap

Orange Soap with Collagen

Oatmeal Soap

Then there is Qamalia...

After the great reception we got from customers from the goat milk soap, we decided to introduce our own brand of hand-made soap. We wanted a spin-off from the goat milk soap with a greater quality soap (which was why we went with the hand-made soap) while still retaining benefits that come with the goat's milk. So, 'Qamalia' was born. The 1st Qamalia brand product is a 70g hand-made soap. Its contents are a combination of goat's milk & calendula (a type of flower in the Marigold family group). Its fragrance is English Lavender.

Qamalia's goat milk & calendula hand-made soap is great for problematic skin such as acne, blackheads, eczema, skin irritation, rashes and oily skin. Our hand-made soaps are made from premium quality ingredients such as olive oil, coconut oil apart from the natural goodness derived from goat's milk & calendula. This soap is very soft. It moisturizes the skin and are great for kids who usually have very sensitive skin. Goat's milk & calendula has their own set of fans who love this soap to death. :-) This soap easily rivals the more expensive and branded soaps. Our soap quality is the same with the big dollar, hugely advertized soaps, if not better.

You can never find another Qamalia goat milk & calendula soap out there (with premium quality) other than this one. We assure you this.     

How to use the soap ?

1. Remove the goat milk soap from wrapper.

2. Wet soap by using water. Rub soap against your hands until forming a thick, milky foam.

3. Take foam and massage onto face and body.
(This soap can be used for both face and body)

4. Wash foam off from face and body with water.

NOTE : There are customers who complain that their body contract rashes after using these goat milk soaps. Please make sure the soaps you purchase are not of cheap and low quality. Sellers who are out to make a quick buck would attempt to flood the market with very inferior quality soaps and which are not prepared adequately before they are packed & sold. Be careful when purchasing because when using the wrong kind of soap can be detrimental to your skin and health as a whole. 

Goat Milk Soap Benefits - Customer's Point of View

Most of our customers rave about the goat milk soap. They said that it's like bathing in milk and unlike normal soaps, its foam is thicker and smoother - fresh, moisturizes and great for the skin.

Here are other benefits of the goat milk soap (all were based from customer feedback) :

 

1) Helps enlighten the skin & helps sloughs off dead skin. 

We have a customer who is Malaysian Indian. She had this spectacle mark on the side of her face all this while. So when she used our soap, she was elated to find that the marks made by years and years of wearing glasses has decreased and eventually disappeared. 

2. A great fragrance and freshens the body all day.

Our goat milk soap bar is 100g in weight and has a lily fragrance. Smells delicious. :-)

3. Highly beneficial to acne-prone and oily skin surface, sensitive skin (rashes) and skin with diseases like eczema especially for babies and kids.

A lady customer from Putrajaya purchases our soap for the whole family especially for her boarding school resident son because he doesn't want to shower with any other soap after experiencing our goat milk soap. This customer's younger child who has eczema also benefits from using this soap.  

4. Maintains a youthful and rejuvenated skin.

Don't get us wrong. These are what customers say after using the soap. We aren't miracle healers but you sure feel rejuvenated after each bath with the soap.

5. Eradicates foul body odor. 

There are customers say it works on B.O. albeit discreetly. :-)

6. Reduces the risk of skin irritation, allergic reactions and itchiness on the skin.

7. Reduces facial black spots.

8. Rich with protein, vitamins and minerals.

Introduction

We are a local outfit which focus on marketing health & beauty products, namely, soaps. In this blog, we will share with you our experiences and feedbacks from our customers on our goat's milk soap and other soaps in our collection. We have been marketing these soaps since October 2009. As we already know, goat milk soap (pic above) has many health benefits. You have to experience these soaps yourself to feel its milky freshness. We also offer advice on how to market, sell and demonstrate the usage of our products effectively. Have a great read.