Starting a business selling sweets on Facebook can be a great way to earn some extra pocket money from the comfort of your own home.
Whether you’re looking to make some cash on the side in the evenings or want to start working around the school run, starting a home-based sweets business on Facebook is a simple, cheap way to get started.
However, there is lots of competition, meaning it’s easy to be hidden in the huge amount of options people shopping for sweets have.
In this guide, we’ll talk about what you need to do to set your business up before providing expert tips on how you can start selling.
Setting your business up
Of course, before you get started selling, there are a few administrative issues you’ll need to take care of.
Register as a sole trader
If you make more than £1,000 per year from self-employment, HMRC’s requires you to register as a sole trader, and failing to do so could land you with a hefty tax bill.
Registering yourself as a sole trader early on means you’ll have one less thing to worry about as business picks up, allowing you to focus on meeting your orders and growing your business.
It’s also incredibly simple to do, gov.uk has all the information you’ll need to get registered and start selling here: https://www.gov.uk/working-for-yourself
Call your local food safety team
As you’re running a business selling food, you may be required to meet specific standards set out by the Food Standards Agency and your local council. A failure you meet these standards could result in stiff financial penalties.
Fortunately, your friendly local food safety team is always on-hand to provide guidance and support. Call them and speak to an advisor, explaining your plan, to establish if you’ll require any certifications (a food safety qualification, for example) and if there are any specific expectations on your business in your constituency.
You can find the details of your local food safety team here.
Arrange your insurance
There are risks involved in starting up any business, many of which you can’t control and accept as part of being an entrepreneur. Having proper insurance in place, however, ensures you’ll be covered should some of these avoidable issues occur.
Product liability insurance, for example, covered you in the case of someone getting injured or their property being damaged by a product you’ve sold. Although these risks may be small with sweets, a small insurance premium can pay itself off a hundred times over should the worst occur.
If you’re having people collect their sweets packages from your home or an office, it may also make sense to get public liability insurance. This covers any legal or compensation claims if a member of the public is injured or their property is damaged and the fault lies with your business.
Find the right supplier
Finally, you’ll need to find yourself a supplier and buy some sweets. At Kandy King, we sell a huge range of bulk sweets at wholesale prices, meaning maximum profit for your sweets business.
Click here to browse our range of wholesale sweets today.
Starting to sell on Facebook
And now the boring stuff is out of the way, it’s time to start selling your sweets! And the great news is, you can get your sweets up and available for sale in just a few clicks with…
Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace is a favourite of many small online sellers today. It allows you to get your products out to a huge number of local people in just a few minutes, without worrying about paying fees.
Getting products up on Facebook Marketplace is a simple process and something you can have done in just a few minutes. All you need to do is go into the Marketplace section on Facebook, click “Sell Something” and fill in your product name, price, location, category and description before adding up to 10 photos and you’re good to go.
Do your research
However, the ease of putting products up on Facebook Marketplace does mean there are a lot of people doing it. This menas it’s important to do your research if you want to stand out.
Take some time to go through other sweets listings to see what people offer, noting down trends and potential opportunities you think are being missed. Doing this will allow you to discover both what people expect from sweet sellers on Facebook whilst also discovering where you can differentiate yourself from the competition.
For example, if everyone sells marshmallow sweet cones, you may want to try adding different sweets to your sweet cones to stand out. Alternatively, other sellers may have low-quality descriptions, giving your products an additional opportunity to stand out from the pack.
Set up your Facebook Business page
In addition to selling through your personal page on the Marketplace, a Facebook Business page provides an alternative avenue for selling sweets on the platform whilst allowing you to keep enquiries separate from your personal account.
An additional benefit of having a Facebook Business page is the ability you will gain to use Facebook’s powerful targeting tools to do some paid advertising for your business, something which can be started with as little as a £10 budget. Doing this will allow you to reach a much larger audience, providing additional growth opportunities for your burgeoning empire.
And setting your page up couldn’t be easier. Simply click ‘Pages’ in the menu on the left before clicking ‘Create a Page’ in the top right and following Facebook’s simple instructions. You can be up and posting in a matter of minutes!
Build a community
Once you’ve set your Facebook Business page up and your friends and family have shown their support, it will be time to start promoting it. As well as using paid advertising, it’s important to post standard posts regularly. These will help more people discover your page without you having to pay and inspire them to keep checking in.
Ultimately, there are no hard and fast rules on what you should be posting – you can use it to introduce new products, remind people of your current selection and make posts which are just entertaining.
Have a look at what your favourite brands are doing on social media and take some tips from them; and be sure to respond to messages and comments as quickly as possible!
Photos are key
High-quality photos are a key part of selling anything online, but this goes double when you’re selling food. All your pictures need to look appetising and get people wanting more.
Before you put your products online, take the time to take the best photos possible. Make sure you use a good camera; neutral background and the sweets are neatly arranged to maximum impact. With a little practice you’ll be a food photography pro in no time and people will be queueing up to buy your sweets.
Ask for reviews
So, you’ve got everything set up, have been promoting your sweets and have finally made some sales. Congratulations! It doesn’t stop there, however, because now you’ll need to approach your buyers and ask for reviews.
Seeing positive reviews has a massive impact on people’s decisions on where to buy from, meaning collecting them is a vital part of growing your sweets business and keeping the orders rolling in. You should develop a system to ask for reviews and keep track of who has provided one early in the process, so you don’t miss out on some great feedback and get as many reviews as possible.
Looking to start your own sweets business? We stock a huge range of bulk sweets at wholesale prices. Browse our range online today.