According to The Florida Times-Union, the barbecue sauces, salsas, mustards and rubs are on the shelves. Now the owners of Sauceaholics just have to hope for business.
They opened the small shop in Lakewood, Florida, last week. It’s a simple operation by most business standards – one employee and 900 square feet of jars and bottles for sale in a shopping center. But they still face the same obstacles every new business does.
The idea started last Christmas when Don Smith went online to buy salsas for his partner in their CPA firm.
“The further I went, the more this exploded,” he said. “There’s a whole cult out there of people and their salsas.” “A $30 order might cost $15 in shipping,” he said. “So wouldn’t it be nice to have a store that had all that salsa?”
He talked to his wife about it. She talked to Sandra Hazen, a longtime friend, about it. Smith talked to a neighbor, Jack Gibney, about it. And they decided to go for it.
The process was simple: Search the Internet for makers of the products, e-mail them and ask about wholesale prices.
They created a corporation, got a credit card and started ordering. They order mostly in cases of 12, with most costing them $80-$150.
“Our competition,” he said, “is who we just bought it from.”
Generally, he prices the items a little higher than the manufacturer’s retail price and generally a little more than twice what they paid, but there’s no shipping. Prices run $3-$10.
Photo by The Florida Times-Union.