I bought a whole bunch of the clamshells when they first came out. The ones I bought, which were hearts, made smaller soap than what my usual bars are. I made a few of them. It was easy to do. I had to design labels and backing for the clamshells because they look too naked without anything. I am not sure why WSP says they will save you money as it was much more expensive for me to make my soap in them by the time I designed the package labels and took into account the cost of the clamshells. Anyway, I never sold any of them. Not one. People just didn't like them, I guess. I wound up using them for molds. (Still do.) But, my market is an odd market here; lotion does not sell, and very few bath products do. Only my soap really sells, and it sells well. I wish you more luck with those clamshells than I had.
Susan

the only way i can see them saving you money is in the packaging time...but if you made designer labels that would negate the time saved.....

I usually just wrap my soap in plastic wrap, & I used address labels from current for the soap labels....one for the front, one for the back (ingredients).

but I've since just learned to print my own with clear address labels i bought at Staples, there won't be any Fancy stuff, just my basic label.
The clamshells I got have victorian designs on them, so the front should be okay, & I'll use my labels on the back.

I figured 100 was enough to experiment with i got 3 designs & 1 plain (figuering men might not want "purty", LOL!)
I'm planning to take a much smaller volume of shop to the shows this year, as it sold so poorly last year. also, won't take as many scents.

I expermineted in the spring doing that, & percentage wise, I sold as much with a smaller scent choice as I did when I had more choices. Can't remember the exact figure, but say I sold 60% of what I took, didn't matter if I had more or less scents, I still sold 60%. Only difference was on the smaller selection some scents sold out & the gaps were more noticable.

But jewelry was ½ of my spring display, & for the fall it's probably going to be more like 2/3rds...and I figured if I could town down the scents at the table somewhat it would help the folks jewelry shopping. I'll still have a bar of each scent availalbe to smell, just not 6 or 10 of everything.

Hazel

Hazel,
How have the clamshells done for you? Did they sell well? I was just curious.
Susan

Hard to say.....since soap sales fell off last year, I'm taking less number of soap scent choices to the shows, I've changed my display and I'm doing jewelry also.........so many variables come into play.

The show I did at the beginning of october I sold SOME some soap, but nothing like I was in previous years, BUT that was the whole problem last year, which is WHY I added jewelry.

Over all soap sales & ALL things scented paled compared to the jewelry sales.

Good thing is the clam shells keep the scent in better, & the soap travels better.

I may be spending some in the Chicago area, so I may be checking into craft shows up there and see if there is any difference in craft sales from south to north.........

Hazel

Hazel - How did the Chicago area do? Our shows this year (Florida) started slow but ended strong. We also reduced the number of scents -- the inventory was killing us! It worked really well for us and sales were up substantially over last year. Unlike what you said, some of our shows were almost all soap sales (rather than bath gels / lotions / sets / etc). Go figure!

Also, hate to see you leave the forum. I'm as guilty as the rest for not coming more -- just not so many people. Can anyone recommend another forum? This is the only "soap" one I check and I will certainly miss it if you and Susan leave!

Jennifer

I ended up not going to Chicago when I was supposed to, but will be going in 2005. I will check out the area & see what they have before deciding which way to go. As I said in the other thread, I'm going to try some home jewelry shows with handmade jewelry & see how that goes.
I also have some of the jewelry (and lotion) on Ebay. They both have sold okay.

Some of the folks that used to post here were posting at another board, but off the top of my head I can't remember where they were posting. Maybe some else will remember.

Hazel