Are you a chocolate enthusiast who loves to share your passion with other people? What if I say that you can make some profit out of this passion too? Whether it is just a hobby or a business idea, this article will show you how to make money selling chocolate online in just a few simple steps.
Ways to Sell Chocolate Online
(1) Chocolate for Friends
If you are good at making chocolates, your family and friends are the first people that you should share your yummy creation. A good place to promote this is through Facebook because most people on that network know you personally thus getting them to buy directly from you is easier.
The other method is to collaborate with community events or fundraising projects that can feature your work during their online campaign. This will give your work some exposure and allow you to receive more orders prior or on the day of the event.
In the old days, people make posters. But now with the internet, you can create a webpage containing your contact information and a simple catalog featuring your chocolate creation. Promotional work is done through sharing this webpage link on social networks or online campaigns.
- Pros – Great online project to do during the weekend or on school holidays with the kids.
- Cons – Your customers are limited only to those people that you know.
Selling chocolate on a small scale will not make you a lot of money, but it can certainly showcase your skills to family and friends.
(2) Chocolate for Business
Let’s say you own a small chocolate shop that serves the local community and you’d really like to see more sales in the coming month. The first thing that you need to do is to create a business website with WordPress.
Why WordPress?
Well, it’s a free publishing platform that comes with a variety of plugins and widgets that can customize a site the way you want. In addition, you can create an online store that enables visitors to make orders and have the chocolate ship directly to the buyers for convenience.
Here’s an example of a chocolate business website from Compartes. Doesn’t the online store look appealing? Wouldn’t you want to buy one as well?
And it gets even better. As a small business, you want to be listed in the local directory so that whenever someone searches for “Chocolate shop in California” for example, your shop will show up in their result page. Not sure if you are listed? Here’s a little experiment.
Type “chocolate shop (your locality)” on Google Search and see what comes up. Sometimes, your business could be featured because some customers have mentioned about it on the web before. However, to get better control, you as the owner will need to claim the listing by clicking on this tab here.
Listing your business on Google offers a lot of advantages;
- Customers can easily find your shop through an exact location.
- Allow easy access for mobile users.
- Share photos and videos to build customer’s trust and confidence over your product.
- Highlight coupons and on-going special offers.
- Bring more traffic to your online and physical stores.
These are all small marketing efforts that can have a tremendous impact on your ROI. So if you haven’t already started, find out how you can list your business on Google here.
- Pros – Sell your chocolate 24/7.
- Cons – Make sure your customer service is tip top otherwise it will get mentioned on customer’s reviews.
(3) Chocolate for Reviews
What if you don’t own any business, but just like tasting a variety of chocolates? Well, you can write reviews, recommend them to online readers and when someone makes a purchase through your link, you earn a percentage of the sales. This is called affiliate marketing and believe it or not, there are a lot of chocolate companies that offer a lucrative commission for your work.
One way to search is to type “(Chocolate Brand Name)” + “affiliate program” on Google Search. The list below is a summary of some popular brands and their payouts that I have researched for you;
- Godiva – 7.0% of every sales commission
- Hershey – 7.5% of every sales commission
- Lindt – starts at 8% (private rates are available for performers)
- Ghirardelli – starts at 8%
Another method is to create an affiliate account with Chocolate.org which is a huge marketplace that offers a variety of brands for affiliate marketers. Here’s a snippet of what is inside.
And their commission rate? 10-15% 🙂 Sweet.
Now, all you have to do is to create an affiliate blog, write a good review about a chosen chocolate product and get readers to buy from you.
- Pros – There is a ton of reputable chocolate products that you can write about, or even cross promote with related items such as gift sets or chocolate drinks.
- Cons – It takes a while to build traffic to your site before you can start seeing some profit.
If you can master the technique of bringing good quality traffic to a website, you can earn a pretty decent income as an affiliate marketer, full-time.
What’s The First Step to Get Started?
All the 3 methods of selling chocolate online have one thing in common; they start with a website. But before that, you’ll need to select a domain name. For example, if you want to call your site or blog The Chocolate Flavor, then your domain would read as “thechocolateflavor.com”. Domain extensions such as .com, .org or .net are generally easier to remember, so I would encourage that you pick one of those.
At SiteRubix hosting, you can purchase a domain between $13.99 to $15.99 which also INCLUDES full privacy domain protection and email account. Right after the registration, you can connect to WordPress immediately to create your first website. It is very easy. Read this page for more information on how to build a WordPress website step-by-step.
I hope you’ve learned a few things or two from this article about how to make money selling chocolate on the internet. If you like to know more about turning your passion into something profitable, then you should check out the online training at Wealthy Affiliate. I’ll be inside to help out too so just give me a shout, okay?
Do you have any thoughts or questions about this topic? Just ask them in the comment area below and I’ll get back to you.
Hi,
I have already made my website for selling home made chocolates, cookies, cup cakes and doughnuts. Please could you give me tips to market this and make it a successful opportunity. I live in the busiest cities in India.
Thanks for reaching out Kripa.
Sounds to me like you are trying to build an online presence for your local business.
Here are a few suggestions;
1/ List your business on Google
2/ Create a Facebook business page and grow your social audience
3/ Get customer reviews for your food products
4/ Blog about your business frequently to achieve organic search ranking
Most of these tips can be found within the Wealthy Affiliate training area, so if you are interested, go check it out and I’ll be able to help you more from the inside.
Thank you.
What do you need if you make chocolates at home and then sell them in shops? As it would be my own business… what legal requirements would I need x
Hi Jennie, most likely you’ll need to get a home-business state licence, a permit from your county and a certification for food handling if you are planning to sell commercially to retailers or online. Please read this page for more information.
Hi there, this is great information for anybody interested in starting a business and setting up online. Your information is clear and easy to follow. I’m afraid if I were to set up a chocolate company I would eat up all the profits- however I would certainly enjoy it. I have recently started making sweet deserts but have not yet tried making chocolate, maybe I will someday.
Hi there Paula,
Dessert making is a great niche, but I found some trends that might surprise you. Look at the graphs below; blue for chocolate and red for dessert.
Looks like a lot of people are more keen to learn about chocolate so it’s definitely something you can consider in your food niche.
Hey Cathy, I was wondering if I get my website through SiteRubix and want to buy my domain name later, will I be able to keep my free website or do I have to start all over with another domain name? And does SiteRubix have a support system if I have any questions or need help. Thanks!
In response to your questions William,
1) Yes, you can still keep your free website, but make sure that the content aren’t duplicates. If they are, then have everything transfer over to the paid website and delete the free one. If they aren’t, then you basically have two different websites.
2) I would give SiteRubix support system a 5 stars because I’ve encountered technical problems in the past and they were very fast at rectifying – usually in minutes to hours. I lost an entire CSS file and they restored everything for me. That was a huge relief! Hopefully you don’t have to use it, but if you do, rest assured that they are very efficient.
Hi Cathy,
What a nice article, not just I love your article, but chocolate as well! I really enjoyed the reading, it was very interesting and the domain name is great!
I would have bought it now if I wouldn’t already have a website. I grew up in Belgium and I use to eat a lot of Godiva chocolates 🙂 When I think about it, I am a passionate of chocolate and maybe I should consider starting a website about it.
Thank you for all the information you have given.
Hi there Daniella,
The chocolate niche is huge and there’s certainly opportunities to start a business around it. Even though you already own a website, it doesn’t hurt to buy a domain that you think has market potential because the value of a domain name appreciates over time.
If you decided to start an online business on chocolate later on, at least you already have a good name in hand. If you decided not to, you can still sell it for profit. So think of it as a win-win situation. The SiteRubix platform is a great place to register, so do check them out.
What an amazing article! Thank you so much for writing this. I can’t believe how thoroughly you’ve explained this. I can’t imagine anything I’d rather write about than chocolate! Finally an excuse to try every type.
One question though, if I were to set up a chocolate website, would I be expected to have tried all the chocolate I write about. I don’t think my waistline would thank me…
Good question Anne and yes, I don’t think it’s practical or feasible to try every single chocolate that you want to review. However, what you can do is to get your friends and families to test them out and give you their opinions. Besides that, you can also check out other reviews or comments on other food blogs to have a general idea about a chocolate product.
Hope this helps.
Hey, Cathy! You had me at “chocolate”. ha ha But, seriously, great info here to get started with my very own chocolate business! And, really, these same basic suggestions could work with so many other products, as well! Nice job providing everything we need to get rolling, even suggested free web hosting!
Welcome to my blog, Barb.
Yup, you can certainly apply these techniques with other niche product as well. The free SiteRubix builder is great to help you get started, but if you are thinking of starting your own online business, then it’s better to use the paid hosting as they generally provide better support.