Selling Cloth Pads

Lots of women make the switch to cloth pads, and then decide that since they can sew, they should make cloth pads to sell.

That's fantastic - the more cloth pads out there, the more they will be seen and that increases the number of women switching to cloth, which is a great thing.... but I just wanted to give some advice on this, and some points to consider

• Reputation - the thing that sells pads the fastest is reputation.  If a pad brand has a good reputation, their pads will be well respected and people will be more likely to want to buy them.  You can't buy reputation, your quality of product and customer service, and word of mouth brings this.  Of course there is good reputation and also bad reputation.  If a product has a bad reputation, it will be less appealing to customers.
• Word of Mouth - A huge part of small businesses like these.  When a customer tries your product and likes it, they will tell others, who might be inspired to buy your product too and so on.  It also works in reverse.... if someone tries a pad and doesn't like it, and tells others, then people might be less likey to buy your product.
• Quality - Have a look at the cloth pads that are around... look at the average quality of the pads you see... Look through reviews on places like Moon Hut Naturals and you will see how important good sewing skills are to customers.  They will specifically say when a seller has good sewing skills, and will say so if its bad.  Then have a good look at the quality of product you can make.  If you don't think its quite up to scratch, then you really should do more practice.  I'm not trying to be mean - we all have to start somewhere, but think of your customers - I'm sure they would rather you spent a bit more time and perfected your sewing... also think of your reputation... wouldn't you rather be praised for good sewing than have a reputation for bad sewing?
• Something Different? - While a pad has to be a certain shape to do its job, you don't want to just bring out a copy of what someone else does.  Think about what you can do to make your product unique... from fabric choice, to shape or even style.
• Product Testing - Its a very very good idea to make some pads to give away to people as "testers" while you are testing your design and sewing... so that when you are ready to sell them, you'll know if your product works, and you've had sewing practice.  What works for you, might not work for others, and it can give you some insight into what you might need to do to make pads suitable for others. See more info below.
• Pricing - Why are some brands more expensive than others?  A part of that is reputation, they have worked hard for a long time to build up their reputation, and their quality, and they may be using more expensive fabrics.  When pricing your product you should make sure you are covering your costs (see below on this), and allow some "time" component in there to make it worth your time.  However you want to strike a balance with making what you consider is enough money, and keeping your product at a reasonable price for your level of skill and reputation.
• Variety -Just because you like one sort of pad, it won't suit everyone.  Do you want to just specialise in what you want to do, or do you want to cater for other preferences too.  Have a look in the Flow Gallery to see how a variety of women bleed, as this might help you in your design, and show you that you might like to offer a variety of lenths to help your product to be useful for a wider range of women.  Once you are in business, and find more of one type/length sell more than the others, then you can simply just make more of the ones that sell better, and keep a few of the others for those who prefer them.  This is coming from a customer who needs a long pad, and has found several businesses who just don't sell long enough pads.

Working out your costs
Its not simply a case of working out that the fabric cost you a certain price, so charging that.. there are other things to consider.

To work out fabric cost - work out how much the fabric cost per metre/yard.  then work out either how many pad shapes you can cut from that, which will give you the amount per pad cut - which you can then add together to get the cost per pad... or you can work out how many square cm/inches you get in a metre/yard, and work out then what the cost is per cm/inch and how many square cm/inches there are in your pad shape.  (this won't account for slotting the shapes in to get better cutting effectiveness though.

So... you'll find it works something like this:
Top flannel costs 50c per pad
Baking PUL costs $1.00 per pad
Terry inner costs $1.00 per pad.

So together your pad might cost $2.50 to make.  You would want to double that to make your pad cost $5.  Then you might like to add a little extra to each pad to account for things like: thread, sewing machine repairs, electricity, business name registration, domain registration, store fees...etc.  So you could say a base price would then be about $6 per pad.  So that would be the lowest I would charge.  If you feel you should charge more for your product then by all means do so.

Testers
 You can offer testers at the cost price to you, so that you're not out of pocket, or you can accept that it is one of the expenses of business.

Ask your testers what they liked and disliked.  Perhaps give them a sheet of questions to answer.  How do they find the shape, length, style, fabric, absorbency etc.  If your tester group is large enough, you will get a good idea of if your product is suitable for several women.  Use their answers to further update your product.  Try to choose testers who will give their honest opinion, not just go "they are great!", as that isn't helpful.