starting a business tips

August 26, 2007

Hello, My husband and I have decided to start a natural/herbal store.

We want to make our own products...does anyone know of any tips,

websites, suppliers, etc..... We have all of our business licensing

info nad are ready to begin, we just want to get some tips and advice

from other business owners... We live in a town that is starting to

really grow.. and there are no stores like this in our county. So we

know that it will be a great hit....If anyone can help us with info

that would be awesome..

Thanks

Angie

August 27, 2007

My sister and I had an herb shop for about 10 years. It was pretty successful, and we sold it to continue other things.

Before we started, we'd heard lots of people saying that they wanted to make something they'd read about, but couldn't find the ingredients locally. So, we set out to have those things. We made a lot of products, but wanted to also supply things for do-it-yourselfers.

We had a wall covered in peg-board, which we then covered with one ounce bags of bulk herbs that we weighed out. Also bottles, jars, droppers, mortars and pestles, grinders, muslin bags, etc. for your customers to use with their finished products. The containers were mostly things we used anyway, and selling them just improved our profitability.

Have classes if you can. The first year or so, they paid the rent. Be sure and have a sign-up sheet for addresses and email addys so that you can let your customers know what's coming up. We also did a bi-monthly mailing. Expensive, but much more effective than anything else we did for advertising. Paid for itself within the first two days.

The book - Growing Your Herb Business, by Bertha Reppert - was immensely helpful. Bertha has passed on, but her daughter Susanna took over the reins, and The Rosemary House is about to celebrate their 40th year in business. The book is available through their website - therosemaryhouse.com.

Good luck, and have fun! There's a lot of trial and error the first year or two, but you'll have a blast. OH! One of our very favorite things (which I still do) was to have a giant Year at a Glance calendar. For the first year, it will help you keep everything straight so you don't get overbooked. After that, looking back will really help you see trends - when to add a class to pep things up, when things get busy over the holidays... stuff like that.

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