Everyone loves a sweet treat, and starting your own sweets business from home to help people satisfy their cravings has never been easier – you just need to have the ability to put in a little time.
We understand that there can be a lot to worry about, however. There’s a lot to think about when starting a business and ‘selling sweets’ is still quite a broad business concept when you have minimal start-up capital.
At Kandy King, we have been selling wholesale sweets online for many years, and we’ve been helping people start their own businesses for almost as long. Our team have got together to break it down into a simple process for you to follow, so you can focus on starting to sell sweets online!
Decide your target market
The first decision you need to make is a simple one on the face of it: who do you want to sell to?
While the answer might well be “anyone who wants to buy from me!”, having a specific audience in mind will make it much easier to promote your sweet shop on a small budget. You can start as niche as you feel is necessary and build from there, with common examples of target markets including:
- People getting married
- Anniversary presents
- Birthday presents for children
- Sweets for people with certain dietary requirements
Ultimately, your options are only limited by your imagination, just take the time to do a little research to see what you think is viable.
Once you’ve made this decision, you’ll be in a much better position to…
Choose where you want to sell
In addition to your target market, this will be impacted by your technical abilities and how much time you have available, amongst other things.
If you’re short on time and looking to sell in your local area, setting up a Facebook sweet shop is a simple, quick way to get selling. However, if you’re more comfortable with technology (or you’re lucky enough to have help from someone who is!) setting up your own shop using a service like Shopify will help to broaden your reach and give your business a shop window owned by you.
Of course, if you’re able to venture offline then you could also look to sell at local markets or relevant fairs.
Pick a range of sweets
Now you’ve got the big decisions out of the way, it’s time for something a little more fun: sweet shopping!
You don’t need to try and offer everything, so focus your search on the types of sweet you’re confident your target audience will enjoy for now. A simple way to do this is to search “sweets for [my audience]” online and see what consistently appears on the top-ranking websites and pick a handful of their best sellers. Those businesses will already have years of data built up, don’t be afraid to use it for yourself!
Promote yourself
Once you’ve got your sales platform set up and your sweets purchased, it’s time to start promoting yourself. There are a few different tactics you may want to use for this, which could include:
- Social media advertising
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- PR
Social media is usually a good place for beginners to start, simply because it’s something we all use and have a knowledge of. When advertising on social media, be sure to focus on the channels your target audience uses, rather than what your favourite platform is. If that happens to be Facebook, we have a great Facebook advertising guide.
PPC advertising is another once everyone will be familiar with, just from seeing the ads whenever you look something up online. Google and Bing have their own ad platforms, choose the search engine your target audience is likely to use and try a small campaign focused on “sweets for [your niche]” to get started. Reaching out to people exactly when they’ll be looking for you is likely to generate good results quickly.
SEO and PR and longer-term strategies which, while not necessarily making huge impacts immediately, will play a key role in building your brand over the long term. Once your business has begun to generate revenue, you can look into working with a specialist to help you out with these channels.
Final thoughts
Starting the process of selling sweets online isn’t the easiest thing to do, but it’s certainly much easier to start your own profitable business than it’s ever been before.
Simply follow this advice, find your niche and open your shop on Facebook or Shopify then get selling! The sooner you start, the sooner you can start learning and building your business.