Making Huge Money Selling Something As Small As a Lip Balm!
You recently lost your job and have been applying all over town for weeks or months trying to find and even better job than your last. Slowly reality kicks in and you start searching for any job, even one you hate, with the sole intention of finding something to help pay the bills. As the situation becomes more and more frustrating you slowly start looking at creative ways to make money from home. You begin by looking for something with ease of entry and huge upside. You consider house flipping and selling items on eBay. You do some research and soon find that you are not alone. Literally thousands of people are in your same shoes and looking at those ventures that they have seen or heard success stories of. You know the ones…the little old lady who made thousands selling beanie babies she found at a garage sale or the 18 year old that made 150k flipping his first house. The reality however, is that the vast majority of eBay sellers or house flippers don’t make the money they thought possible. In fact, most of them make very little, if anything because the competition is fierce and the experts take the biggest piece of the profit pie. That brings you to this article!
In an economy like the one we are currently in, creativity is a must. Get rich quick schemes that actually work are rare at best. To get ahead in today’s economy takes creativity, a good business plan and the will to make it work. Our answer…LIP BALM! You hear names like Chapstick and Burts Bees and your mind immediately focuses on the little stick that moisturizes your lips and fits conveniently in your pocket. The average person never considers the huge profits that can be made from such a small item but in this article we intend to open your eyes. We intend to outline a number of basic ideas that can turn that little stick into huge profits. Please keep in mind, all the ideas below on are based on buying Bulk or Custom Lip Balm from a company like Bulk Apothecary or any of the other dozens of lip balm manufacturer’s in the USA.
1. One great way to make it big in the lip market is to create your own custom lip balm line and market it the same way as Burts Bees or Chapstick. Burts Bees is the classic example of how someone turned a small idea into big profits. They started slow with the simple peppermint balm you know and love. They started selling it all over town. Slowly they built a loyal following and eventually with some added sku’s had a business worth over $900 million (according to the Clorox purchase price a couple years back). Not bad for something that gained momentum from a stick of lip balm. Now although this is the dream scenario, there are thousands of companies that are doing the same thing on a smaller scale and making a fantastic living at it. All you need is a good idea, a cute label and you’re in business. Head out to smaller retailers and try to get them to pick up your newly formed product line. After all, this is how thousands of people start their own product line and is a simple recipe for success.
2. Another great way is to buy Unlabeled Lip Balm off the web and start your own party/wedding favor business. You can currently buy unlabeled product off companies like Bulk Apothecary for .28 per unit. You pick up a small amount of inventory, get a nice printer and some printable labels from an office supply store and your open for business. Most custom lip balms sell online for anywhere from .60 per unit to 2.00 per unit. A hefty profit for something with such low start up cost and ease of entry. Not to mention advertising on Facebook or other social networking sites is all you need to truly build a successful business. Plus, since most people will be buying 100-500 pieces at a time, the volumes can really add up quick. So can the profits!
3. The last way might sound the craziest of all. Market yourself online as a distributor or manufacturer of lip balm and sell to other companies looking to make money selling your product. Companies such as Bulk Apothecary sell their unlabeled lip balm for as little as .19 per unit on very large quantities. There are thousands of customers that use lip balm for all sorts of reasons. Whether they have their own brand, have a small custom lip balm website or even if they are a private label manufacturer themselves, but don’t have the equipment to make their own lip balm. Whatever the case, at .19 per unit there is plenty of room to buy in bulk and remarket yourself as a huge distributor/manufacturer of these tiny little money making sticks.
The ideas listed above are just a few ideas to spark your creativity. There are countless ways to make money with something as small and inexpensive as a Chap Stick and all it takes is a little ingenuity and some hard work. With any luck you could be the next lip balm mega earner. The one thing to keep in mind is try to do something that most people don’t think of. Flipping houses might sound more glamorous but believe me, there is more money to be made in lip balm if you find your niche.
Danny Pellegrino is the Vice President of Bulk Apothecary and long time veteran of the custom chapstick industry. We currently private label lip balm for some of the industry’s biggest names and pride ourselves on offering the absolute best quality and prices anywhere!