INVESTING IN LIQUID SOAP BUSINESS - SMALL SCALE

Our goal is to help people get employment to support their families, particularly children. Our activities are to provide people with employment opportunities and also provide them with the needed support to start their businesses.

This post has to do with establishing a liquid soap business. It will provide you with the financials, branding, and also marketing strategies to earn some income for you and your family. Let’s get into the deal.

 

Product Description

Liquid Soap is a detergent that is used in the house for dishwashing, handwashing laundry, and floor cleaning. Generically, liquid soap can be bathing gel or shower gel but in this context, we are talking about liquid soap for dishwashing, handwashing, and floor cleaning activities. Liquid soap is also used in the office for handwashing, floor cleaning, and evening laundry services. This product is generally used by everyone and so it provides the opportunity for unemployed people to take advantage of this product due to its marketability.

 

Ingredients Expenditure

Whether you are doing this product on a small scale or a large scale but not like the other big companies. You will need the following basic ingredients. Below is how you need the ingredients to start this liquid soap business on a small scale.

 

Table 1: Price of Ingredients on the market

Chemical	Local Name	Price	$ Equi.
Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate	Base	40.00	4.98
Sodium Laury Sulfate	Booster	10.00	1.25
Sodium Benzoate	Preservative	5.00	0.62
Sodium Chloride	Salt	5.00	0.62
Color	Color	1.00	0.12
Fragrance	Fragrance	10.00	1.25
Citric Acid	Acid	5.00	0.62
Vegetable Glycerin	Glycerin	20.00	2.49
		96.00	11.96

The table above indicates how much you will need to purchase chemicals to produce 25 liters of liquid soap for handwashing and other home and office activities.

 

Bottling and Packaging Expenditure

It will always be to choose the way you want to package your product. Nice and attractive packaging enhance marketing. But it is always important to take into consideration your target market. For instance, if your target market is high-income earners who would love to have their product in 5-liter gallons, you wouldn’t worry yourself with a 1-liter bottle.

To use the 5-liter gallons as our bottling material, let us look at how it will cost us to package our 25 liters of liquid soap. The table indicates how many bottles needed for the 25 liters of liquid for the various bottle types

 

Table 2: Price of bottles and quantity for 25 liters of liquid soap

Bottle type	Quantity	Unit Price	US$ Equi		Cedi Total	$ Total
5-liter	5	8.00	1.00	40.00		4.98
1-liter	25	5.00	0.62	125.00		15.57
500ml	50	3.00	0.37	150.00		18.68
200ml	125	2.00	0.25	250.00		31.13

 

From table 2, each bottle type is on its own. If you want to use a 5-liter bottle that will fill the 25 liters of liquid soap we are going to produce. Same for the other bottle types. Now let's look at the label design and printing for each bottle type.

 

In terms of label design averagely, it will cost you around GHc 80 equivalent to $ 10 to get a very standard and nice label for your product. The table below indicates the size and printing cost for the labels. It must be noted that this is an estimation.

 

Table 3: Price of the label printing for each bottle to be selected.

Bottle type	Label size	Quantity	Unit Price	Total
5-liter	5 X 5 Inches	5	1.50	7.50
1-liter	2.5 X 4 Inches	25	1.20	30.00
500ml	2 X 3 Inches	50	0.80	40.00
200ml	3 X 3 Inches	125	0.50	62.50

 

Expenditure Total

Depending on the type of bottle you choose to sell your liquid soap, you must take the total from the bottle price, label design fee, and the printing and then add it to the cost of ingredients. For instance, if you are going to use the 5-liter gallon to sell your liquid soap, it means you will need a total of GHc 223.50 equivalent to $27.83. To sell your product, liquid soap is currently, the 5-liter gallon of liquid soap is sold at GHc 35.00 equivalent to $4.35

Read about how to market your product from here 

 

TAKE HOME

Investing some amount of money into the production of detergent-like liquid soap can help generate some income for the family. You must be aware that penetrating the market with a new product requires strategies and a lot of money for people to accept the product. You must start selling the product to your family, friends, and your local community.