A Comprehensive Guide to Starting Your Essential Oil Business

It seems like everywhere you turn, everyone has at least heard of essential oils whether they’ve tried them out or not. They’ve grown in popularity so much over the years that some sources claim it will be an industry worth over $7 billion by 2024.

We can clearly see that this is something people are interested in and are demanding in droves.

So, what do you do if you’re interested in starting your own essential oil business? Is it the same as starting any other business or is there more to it? 

Today, we’ll show you the important things to remember and do before starting your own essential oils venture! 

Know What You’re Selling

There’s a lot to be said about the power of salesmanship regardless of your knowledge or mastery in a product or industry. But if you want to know how to sell essential oils, it’s probably a good idea to have a foundational understanding of the product in the first place.

Essential oils are distilled liquids from various parts of plants with strong aromatic compounds. These aromatic compounds are integral to the aromas of the plant, much like terpenes for vape oil are.

In fact, essential oils are largely used for aromatherapy, which is the idea that the chemical compounds that make up a fragrance can relax and/or heal you. The oils can come from various parts of plants, such as flowers, leaves, bark, roots, fruits, etc. 

Popular essential oils include:

  • Lavender
  • Peppermint
  • Rosemary
  • Jasmine
  • Eucalyptus
  • Lemon

Different essential oils can hold different properties and be used for different reasons, too. For example, bergamot can be used for mental health and emotional wellbeing through encouraging relaxation and optimism. 

While skills in selling will ultimately be most important, you still want to have a firm knowledge of the product you’re selling. After all, why will people spend their hard-earned money with you if they’re not convinced you even know what it is?

Define Your Business

Before you go purchasing essential oils, creating a storefront, or any of that, you need to have a game plan. 

You need to think long and hard beforehand about what your business is all about. This means you need to come up with a few important things first:

  • Company name
  • Company logo
  • Company mission statement

Your name, logo, and mission statement will be the “face” of your essential oils business. Not everyone is going to know who you personally are and may never even meet you face to face. Therefore, you need to let these other elements speak for themselves. 

No one can tell you what to name your business or what your logo should look like, so consider starting with your mission statement. Your mission statement may lead you to a company name, logo, or design. 

When coming up with a mission statement follow these rules:

  1. Know your purpose
  2. Be as clear as possible
  3. Inspire people
  4. Be as brief as possible

You want to be quick and to the point, but you want to make sure that you’re clear about what your goals are. In your mind, your goal might be “sell as much product as possible,” but we’re talking about the goal you want to relay to your customers. 

The essential oils business is all about living your best life. Mission statements usually focus on sharing the joy, wonders, and health benefits of the product. 

This also will hopefully lead you to a name, logo, and brand that is equally as lofty and inspirational. 

Be Reasonable

Maybe you’re eager to learn how to sell essential oils right away and just hit the ground running, but you need to be reasonable with yourself at first. 

Don’t invest too much money up front. Instead, start small and test small. 

Begin by sharing your product with friends and family. These will be the groups of people most likely to take the risk in trying out your product at first anyway, and they’ll even hopefully be able to help you out with word-of-mouth advertising. 

All in all, remember to keep it simple in the beginning. Focus on only selling individual essential oils, and preferably in typical sizes like 5mL or 10mL. 

Don’t worry about selling bulk amounts of product, samplers, variety packs, gift sets, etc. Start small and be reasonable with your expectations. 

Consider Packaging

Will your essential oils have droppers for exact measurements, or will they be in spray or roll-on bottles for direct application? 

Most people package essential oils in colored glass bottles (usually green or amber), which is smart because oils can degrade when in direct contact with light. You can feel free to mess around with bottle shape and label design though. 

After all, while the fragrance is important, the label is usually what draws customers in. Something that – much like your mission statement – inspires something within them or catches them off guard. 

No matter what, just make sure that you’re abiding by FDA requirements for what should be listed on your labeling. 

Create a Website and Get the Word Out

As with most businesses today, you want to have some sort of online presence. Start by creating a website, whether you have the skills to create one yourself or outsource the job. 

People need a digital representation of your essential oils business and it makes for a good starting point when you get into advertising and marketing. Create social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) and maybe even consider video marketing through these platforms as well. 

Word of mouth is a great way to get the word out about your business, but at some point, you need to focus on building up your online presence.

Starting Your Essential Oil Business

There’s no doubt that people are clamoring for essential oils. They’ve blown up in popularity over the last few years, and so far, it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. 

If you want to be part of that industry and start your own essential oil business, hopefully, you learned a few key points here. One thing we covered was the importance of product packaging, so if you want to learn even more about that, check out some more product packaging tips here!