Artisan soaps vs mass produced

Fergiebilly said:
You will get it Cheaper from this Seller on EBay..The 60 G Pucks Last for Ever..There is a Discount if You Buy a Couple of Pucks from here..I have Never Came Across an Artisan Soap that Can Look Near it..Artisan Means Nothing to Me..:)
http://www.ebay.de/itm/6-17-100g-Ha...398638?hash=item360504402e:g:o84AAOSw1KxXM2La

Billy
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Am I missing something? This is more expensive than my 1912 shave soap, do the maths Billy.

60g puck plus postage = £8.88 divide by 60 = 14p per gram
140g container plus postage = £18.49 divide by 140 = 13p per gram

But! I hear you say...

Buy a couple of pucks of Haslinger and receive a discount.
Type tsr-10 at the Wickhams website and get the TSR forum discount of 10%

I'm still cheaper, and it seems you get a free container as well Billy.

Go to my website look at the available scents for the 1912 shave soap and send me a PM of which one grabs your fancy, send me your address and I will send it to you FREE on the basis you put it head to head with Haslinger. No need to post back your thoughts. As a soap maker who takes what he does seriously and with the amount of competition out there I benchmarked 1912 against all the top soaps including this one before I was satisfied I had a product to sell. Why would anyone in their right mind, Artisan or not put a substandard product on the market place at a more expensive price than the market leaders? To me this does not make sense.

This was the reason I discontinued Super Smooth, it was no longer IMO a market leader that commanded a price I could charge over breaking even. Yes I could of kept selling it but eventually the decline in Super Smooth customers would of been the indicator of this fact. Why try to fool your customers and more importantly why try to fool myself, again it don't make sense to me.

It's not just shaving soap you can argue about price Vs quality and how they don't seem to add up with different companies. This is not specifically an Artisan Vs Mass produced or even a small company Vs big company debate, it's much more global and complex than this, it's seen in all sectors between all sizes of business. It's not just size that matters, it's also location, law, politics, finance, plant, operational set up, management, goals, skills, knowledge...

An example of some companies you can argue the same with and where locations play a part.

British Airways - Virgin flight to same destination
Thompson Holiday - First Choice same holiday package
Nike - Adidas same shoe style
House on the south coast - house in London same size
Shirt made in India - same shirt made in China
Car hire with Avis - same car with whoever
...the list is endless.

Here is something that many people here don't know. Because I buy bulk from one of the major suppliers my natural ingredients fluctuate regularly in price. My prices are linked to market prices, so when there has been a bad harvest or quotas increase/decrease or exchange rates go up or down I see price adjustments. So far this year I have seen an eye watering jump in the price of Cocoa Butter. The last price adjustment was an increase of £3.60 on the Kilo or on my MOQ of 25 Kg an extra £90. What do I do? Do I keep changing my prices to maintain my profit margin or do I swallow it in the hope it will go back down along with the other rising prices of ingredients I use?

https://www.mintecglobal.com/2016/07/cocoa-butter-prices-trend-upwards-2016/

You see it's not just about how big or small you are that dictates your price or the level of the quality of your goods produced. Just because I am an Artisan, (one man making soap) don't think of me as a small business doing business with other small businesses. Open your minds and think bigger! Only small minded people think small. :)
 
Last edited:
Fox said:
Am I missing something? This is more expensive than my 1912 shave soap, do the maths Billy.

60g puck plus postage = £8.88 divide by 60 = 14p per gram
140g container plus postage = £18.49 divide by 140 = 13p per gram

But! I hear you say...

Buy a couple of pucks of Haslinger and receive a discount.
Type tsr-10 at the Wickhams website and get the TSR forum discount of 10%

I'm still cheaper, and it seems you get a free container as well Billy.

Go to my website look at the available scents for the 1912 shave soap and send me a PM of which one grabs your fancy, send me your address and I will send it to you FREE on the basis you put it head to head with Haslinger. No need to post back your thoughts. As a soap maker who takes what he does seriously and with the amount of competition out there I benchmarked 1912 against all the top soaps including this one before I was satisfied I had a product to sell. Why would anyone in their right mind, Artisan or not put a substandard product on the market place at a more expensive price than the market leaders? To me this does not make sense.

This was the reason I discontinued Super Smooth, it was no longer IMO a market leader that commanded a price I could charge over breaking even. Yes I could of kept selling it but eventually the decline in Super Smooth customers would of been the indicator of this fact. Why try to fool your customers and more importantly why try to fool myself, again it don't make sense to me.

It's not just shaving soap you can argue about price Vs quality and how they don't seem to add up with different companies. This is not specifically an Artisan Vs Mass produced or even a small company Vs big company debate, it's much more global and complex than this, it's seen in all sectors between all sizes of business. It's not just size that matters, it's also location, law, politics, finance, plant, operational set up, management, goals, skills, knowledge...

An example of some companies you can argue the same with and where locations play a part.

British Airways - Virgin flight to same destination
Thompson Holiday - First Choice same holiday package
Nike - Adidas same shoe style
House on the south coast - house in London same size
Shirt made in India - same shirt made in China
Car hire with Avis - same car with whoever
...the list is endless.

Here is something that many people here don't know. Because I buy bulk from one of the major suppliers my natural ingredients fluctuate regularly in price. My prices are linked to market prices, so when there has been a bad harvest or quotas increase/decrease or exchange rates go up or down I see price adjustments. So far this year I have seen an eye watering jump in the price of Cocoa Butter. The last price adjustment was an increase of £3.60 on the Kilo or on my MOQ of 25 Kg an extra £90. What do I do? Do I keep changing my prices to maintain my profit margin or do I swallow it in the hope it will go back down along with the other rising prices of ingredients I use?

https://www.mintecglobal.com/2016/07/cocoa-butter-prices-trend-upwards-2016/

You see it's not just about how big or small you are that dictates your price or the level of the quality of your goods produced. Just because I am an Artisan, (one man making soap) don't think of me as a small business doing business with other small businesses. Open your minds and think bigger! Only small minded people think small. :)
Click to expand...
Wow, that's an offer you can't refuse!
 
im willing to put the wickhams soap base up against any American artisan unscented base..

The super smooth samples foxy boy, the soap base is far far far better razorock classic cream, and that continues to sell out on a lot of websites.
 
Just tossing it out there, how many of the 'Artisan' being discussed in this debate are actually bordering on mass production anyways? My idea of an artisan would be a small maker and a small limited batch not available on various outlets and websites?
 
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most of the American artisans at this time, have more production capacity then Taylors of Bond Street did in 1905. And more distribution.
When I was on the shave den, now and then I would pay attention and go look at the vendor site when new releases were finally up for sale. It was quite common for some, such as barrister and Mann, and mickey lee to have a "single release batch" be 4-6000 containers of soap in 3 or 4 different scents hit the market for sale on the same day. at ONE vendor site.

that would be like saying, a single batch of Cella in the red tub being comprised of 12,000 to 24,000 little red tubs. So as a result.... I don't see how many artisan soap companies can claim to be small scale.
 
It's all about the attention to detail, and getting to know the actual makers, see what they stand for, what they enjoy doing, and ultimately feel their passion, I'd rather buy something from someone who I genuinely believe loves doing it and making it, adjust it, test it, change it and then sell it, rather then someone from palmolive that loves to press the repeat button and just keep producing exactly the same product, incidently I do enjoy by palmolive cream, but there are lots of ingredients I don't even know the name for .

That said : super-smooth and the 1912 pretty much are top 4 for me, it really makes you appreciate the quality of them especially when you use a different soap for a few shaves, I've sold a fair few or traded off to try others and still ended up selling the soaps as they don't cut it for me.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
the v2 super smooth base is fantastic. just somewhat of a pain as I am a face lather man, and it needs a bowl to get moistened up in or it created big chunks in my brush.

its just that erasmic in that little red box is so reliable, and that I can go anywhere in the world and buy a box and its the same stick. I cant really get that from most "artisans"
 
Whosthedaddy said:
Just tossing it out there, how many of the 'Artisan' being discussed in this debate are actually bordering on mass production anyways? My idea of an artisan would be a small maker and a small limited batch not available on various outlets and websites?
Click to expand...
But that is only your idea of what what an artisan is, just because you can produce enough to sell to third party vendors does not mean that you are not an artisan, what about artisan brush makers who gets an order from a third party vendor and fills that order.... Is he/she no longer an artisan brush maker.
And as far as soaps is concerned how many times have you seen that the third party vendor has run out of stock of these artisan soaps, that's because it is a small production run that the artisans have. I could go on but I think I've put my views across now
 
Bezoar said:
the v2 super smooth base is fantastic. just somewhat of a pain as I am a face lather man, and it needs a bowl to get moistened up in or it created big chunks in my brush.

its just that erasmic in that little red box is so reliable, and that I can go anywhere in the world and buy a box and its the same stick. I cant really get that from most "artisans"
Click to expand...
Well buy your erasmic stick then, nobody is going to think any the less of you because of that anyway.
 
Blademonkey said:
But that is only your idea of what what an artisan is, just because you can produce enough to sell to third party vendors does not mean that you are not an artisan, what about artisan brush makers who gets an order from a third party vendor and fills that order.... Is he/she no longer an artisan brush maker.
And as far as soaps is concerned how many times have you seen that the third party vendor has run out of stock of these artisan soaps, that's because it is a small production run that the artisans have. I could go on but I think I've put my views across now
Click to expand...

So true. Just because a product is artisan doesn't infer made by monks deep in the Alps and all profits go to war orphans. :rolleyes: ;)

Artisans surely have a passion, but no amount of love suspends the basic rules of business.
 
Meanwhile, most of the rest of us are still wondering what we can compare our Wickhams to in order to provoke the " I'll send you one free " response. Nope, no good, my conscience and basic honesty won't permit me to have a go at a fine soap from an honest maker. Grab the offer Billy ... I do believe it may just tickle your chakras m8.

JohnnyO. o/
 
JohnnyO said:
Meanwhile, most of the rest of us are still wondering what we can compare our Wickhams to in order to provoke the " I'll send you one free " response. Nope, no good, my conscience and basic honesty won't permit me to have a go at a fine soap from an honest maker. Grab the offer Billy ... I do believe it may just tickle your chakras m8.

JohnnyO. o/
Click to expand...
Yes I was thinking last night what do I have to say to get offered a free tub of wonderfull artisan soap, but as you say apart from my thoughts on these soaps being known my conscience would also not allow me to do such things.
 
Fox said:
Am I missing something? This is more expensive than my 1912 shave soap, do the maths Billy.

60g puck plus postage = £8.88 divide by 60 = 14p per gram
140g container plus postage = £18.49 divide by 140 = 13p per gram

But! I hear you say...

Buy a couple of pucks of Haslinger and receive a discount.
Type tsr-10 at the Wickhams website and get the TSR forum discount of 10%

I'm still cheaper, and it seems you get a free container as well Billy.

Go to my website look at the available scents for the 1912 shave soap and send me a PM of which one grabs your fancy, send me your address and I will send it to you FREE on the basis you put it head to head with Haslinger. No need to post back your thoughts. As a soap maker who takes what he does seriously and with the amount of competition out there I benchmarked 1912 against all the top soaps including this one before I was satisfied I had a product to sell. Why would anyone in their right mind, Artisan or not put a substandard product on the market place at a more expensive price than the market leaders? To me this does not make sense.

This was the reason I discontinued Super Smooth, it was no longer IMO a market leader that commanded a price I could charge over breaking even. Yes I could of kept selling it but eventually the decline in Super Smooth customers would of been the indicator of this fact. Why try to fool your customers and more importantly why try to fool myself, again it don't make sense to me.

It's not just shaving soap you can argue about price Vs quality and how they don't seem to add up with different companies. This is not specifically an Artisan Vs Mass produced or even a small company Vs big company debate, it's much more global and complex than this, it's seen in all sectors between all sizes of business. It's not just size that matters, it's also location, law, politics, finance, plant, operational set up, management, goals, skills, knowledge...

An example of some companies you can argue the same with and where locations play a part.

British Airways - Virgin flight to same destination
Thompson Holiday - First Choice same holiday package
Nike - Adidas same shoe style
House on the south coast - house in London same size
Shirt made in India - same shirt made in China
Car hire with Avis - same car with whoever
...the list is endless.

Here is something that many people here don't know. Because I buy bulk from one of the major suppliers my natural ingredients fluctuate regularly in price. My prices are linked to market prices, so when there has been a bad harvest or quotas increase/decrease or exchange rates go up or down I see price adjustments. So far this year I have seen an eye watering jump in the price of Cocoa Butter. The last price adjustment was an increase of £3.60 on the Kilo or on my MOQ of 25 Kg an extra £90. What do I do? Do I keep changing my prices to maintain my profit margin or do I swallow it in the hope it will go back down along with the other rising prices of ingredients I use?

https://www.mintecglobal.com/2016/07/cocoa-butter-prices-trend-upwards-2016/

You see it's not just about how big or small you are that dictates your price or the level of the quality of your goods produced. Just because I am an Artisan, (one man making soap) don't think of me as a small business doing business with other small businesses. Open your minds and think bigger! Only small minded people think small. :)
Click to expand...
Well..Thats a Very Kind Offer Sir...Thank You...I Will Take You Up on that Kind Offer..I Would be Honoured to Try You're Soap..:D

Billy
 
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