We're Not Closing. We're Doubling Down.

How two years of losses, shipping strikes, Amazon and some difficult decisions changed the direction of Old Soul Soap Company.

If you've been following Old Soul Soap Company lately, you've probably noticed a few changes.

We're clearing out the gift shop, discontinuing products, rearranging our factory and making some pretty significant changes to how we operate.

Naturally, people have started asking if we're closing.

Not a chance. We're doubling down.

But to understand why we're making these changes, we need to rewind a couple of years. Because the road to where we are today hasn't exactly been paved with sunshine and lavender essential oil.

Nine Good Years. Then Reality Came Knocking.

For the first nine years, Old Soul Soap Company was profitable. Every single year.

Then we lost money.

And the following year, we lost money again.

After nearly a decade of steady growth, we suddenly found ourselves facing a reality we hadn't experienced before. Our business was consuming more cash than it was generating.

Something had to change.

The problem wasn't that we didn't know how to make great products. We'd proven that we did. The problem was that we'd built an increasingly complicated business around those products, and the economics were no longer working in our favour.

And then, just when we needed a break, along came Canada Post.

The Christmas That Wasn't

For a small business like ours, Christmas isn't just another season. It's the season.

And in November 2024, Canada Post went on strike right when we needed them most.

It was devastating.

The uncertainty surrounding Canada Post carried into 2025, and by the following Christmas season, customers had lost confidence in whether their orders would arrive on time.

Frankly, who could blame them?

We were watching our direct-to-consumer sales decline while courier companies raised their rates. Shipping became more expensive, less predictable and increasingly difficult to justify.

Meanwhile, our wholesale business continued to grow. It was becoming the anchor that kept us steady.

But there was a problem.

We were still operating a business designed to support a much larger direct-to-consumer market.

And that business was expensive to feed.

Death by a Thousand SKUs

At some point, Old Soul had become a manufacturer of just about everything you could imagine putting in a bathroom.

Soap, bath bombs, lotions, sprays, body products, gift sets. You name it.

Every product needed something. Specialized ingredients, packaging, labels, equipment, inventory and labour.

We were constantly buying something.

And here's the kicker: even when sales were slowing, the spending didn't necessarily slow with them.

We'd run out of one ingredient needed for a slow-selling product, so we'd order more. But we couldn't buy just enough to make five units. We'd have to buy a case, a bucket or some other minimum quantity.

Then we'd need more packaging.

Then another ingredient.

And before you knew it, we'd spent hundreds of dollars to make a product that might sit on a shelf for three months.

Our inventory was consuming cash faster than we could replenish it.

And that was becoming a serious problem.

Surely Amazon Will Save Us!

Somewhere in the middle of all this, we decided to explore Amazon.com.

We hired a U.S.-based Amazon marketing team to help launch our soap into the American marketplace.

We were told that Amazon.com was selling somewhere between $7 million and $10 million worth of soap every month.

Well, heck. We didn't need much of that!

Half a percent of a market that size sounded pretty attractive.

Our plan was straightforward. Make a bigger bar, offer four bars for $20 USD, and let Amazon's enormous customer base do its thing.

What could possibly go wrong?

As it turns out, quite a bit.

First, we discovered the wonderful world of Amazon returns.

Customers could claim they didn't like the smell, or that the product wasn't as described, and receive a refund.

Suddenly we were seeing return rates of 30% to 40%.

Now, keep in mind that we manufacture approximately 200,000 bars of soap annually. Through our own business, we might hear from four or five customers in a year with comparable complaints.

So those Amazon numbers weren't making much sense.

But we learned something important.

All that free shipping, overnight delivery and convenient return processing?

It isn't free. Somebody pays for it. And quite often, that somebody is the seller.

Then the United States elected its 47th president, and the tariff conversation began.

We tried to get ahead of the situation by shipping additional inventory across the border.

Unfortunately, that meant even more money tied up in Amazon's warehouses.

Storage fees, marketing expenses and other charges kept accumulating. Sales weren't materializing as we'd hoped, and getting our inventory back to Canada wasn't economically practical.

Eventually, after another month of paying Amazon several hundred dollars for the privilege of storing soap we couldn't profitably sell, we made the decision to liquidate the remaining inventory.

Our grand plan to conquer Amazon was over.

We didn't conquer Amazon.

But Amazon certainly taught us a few things.

And unfortunately, those lessons weren't cheap.

Something Had to Give

By this point, we were deeper in debt, our U.S. sales were declining, and our cash flow was under serious pressure.

We arranged financing to give ourselves some breathing room.

But borrowing money doesn't fix a broken business model. It just gives you some time to fix it yourself.

So that's what we set out to do.

We began looking at the expenses we could actually control.

At the beginning of 2025, one of our employees gave notice that she was moving on.

Rather than replace her, I took on additional responsibilities, including making soap.

At the beginning of 2026, another employee decided to move on.

Again, we didn't replace her. Robin took over additional work, including manufacturing our bath bombs.

And just like that, we'd reduced our annual payroll costs by approximately $100,000.

Without laying off a single employee.

Of course, there was a catch.

Robin and I were now doing a whole lot more work.

That wasn't going to be a sustainable solution forever.

We needed to change the business itself.

The ABCs of Getting Our Act Together

My background is in industrial operations and manufacturing, so I'm a big believer in using data to make decisions.

In 2026, we started taking a serious look at our product catalogue using an ABC inventory analysis.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, it's a way of identifying which products contribute most to your business and which ones consume resources without delivering much in return.

And boy, did we have some C products.

Products that hadn't moved in 90 days or more. Products requiring specialized ingredients or packaging. Products we were keeping around because we'd always made them.

Some were personal favourites.

Some had loyal customers.

Some even sold reasonably well, but were simply too complicated or expensive to justify continuing.

And that's what made the process difficult.

It's one thing to look at a spreadsheet and decide something needs to go.

It's another thing entirely to discontinue a product you've spent years developing, perfecting and promoting.

But we started cutting.

And cutting.

And simplifying.

We began focusing our attention on what was working: handmade soap manufacturing, Canadian wholesale, private label and fundraising.

Robin put her creative marketing talents to work developing those opportunities.

And slowly, something remarkable started happening.

The plan was working.

We Could Finally Breathe Again

As we moved through 2026, the changes began showing up in our day-to-day operations.

We weren't constantly ordering expensive ingredients for products that barely moved.

We weren't tying up as much cash in specialized packaging.

Our production schedules became simpler.

I stopped making monthly supply runs to Toronto and began relying on more efficient logistics arrangements.

Our wholesale and manufacturing business continued to develop.

And most importantly, our cash flow began improving.

We were meeting our loan payments and even beginning to pay down principal.

For the first time in a few years, Robin and I felt like we could breathe.

Not because all our problems had disappeared.

But because we could finally see a sustainable path forward.

Investing in People Again

By the summer of 2026, we were confident enough in our direction to start planning something we hadn't been in a position to do for a while.

Hire someone.

We created a full-time production assistant position for September.

And I have to say, our hiring experience this time around was probably the best we've ever had.

We welcomed Khushpreet to the Old Soul team, and she's been a terrific addition to our manufacturing operation.

We've also been making changes inside the factory.

We redesigned our workflow and moved April, our longest-serving employee, and her shipping and logistics operation into the main production area.

Previously, she'd been working out of a separate room. Now she's closer to the action, with better access to the large doors for courier pickups and deliveries.

It's a simple change, but one that makes the entire operation more efficient.

And speaking of April, Robin and I are taking her and her husband to Cozumel, Mexico, in January as a thank-you for her years of dedication to Old Soul.

She's pretty excited.

So are we.

And Cody, our master soap cutter and labeler, finally has a brand-new kitchen and lunchroom where he can make grilled cheese sandwiches and Kraft Dinner without doing it inside the soap factory.

Sometimes continuous improvement looks like a major manufacturing overhaul.

Sometimes it looks like a grilled cheese sandwich.

Both matter.

So Why Are We Closing the Gift Shop?

Well, we're not closing Old Soul Soap Company.

We're transitioning away from operating the gift shop ourselves so we can concentrate on manufacturing.

For years, retail was an important part of our business. It helped us build our brand, connect with customers and introduce people to our products.

But running a retail gift shop and operating a growing manufacturing business require two very different sets of resources.

And we've learned that trying to do everything doesn't necessarily mean you're doing everything well.

The gift shop is changing hands, and we're clearing out products that no longer fit our direction.

Our soaps aren't going anywhere.

In fact, we're working to get more of them into stores, businesses and communities across Canada.

A Little Better Today Than Yesterday

There's a philosophy I've carried with me throughout my career in manufacturing.

Try to be a little better today than you were yesterday.

It sounds simple, but it requires being willing to question what you're doing, acknowledge mistakes and make changes.

And we've made mistakes.

Amazon was an expensive one.

Carrying too many products was another.

We probably held on to some things longer than we should have.

But we've also learned an enormous amount.

Today, we're becoming leaner, more efficient and financially stronger.

We're investing in our people, improving our processes and building a manufacturing business that can weather the inevitable challenges ahead.

And yes, there's still plenty of noise coming from south of the 49th parallel.

We'll deal with that as it comes.

Because after everything we've been through, one thing has become pretty clear.

The answer to our problems wasn't to make more products. It was to become better at making the right ones.

So no, Old Soul Soap Company isn't closing.

We're not giving up.

We're not winding down.

We're not shutting down. We're doubling down.

And we're just getting started.

Trevor Vienneau
Old Soul Soap Company Inc.
Hanmer, Ontario