Your Search For The Best Salt Lamp Supplier Is Over

So You Are Thinking Of Entering
The Fast Growing Salt Lamp Business

Thank you for giving us an opportunity to offer you our expertise in the importation of high quality Natural Crystal Salt Lamps for your company. We are certain we will earn your trust and respect as we develop a positive working relationship.

Many of you are new to importing from overseas or running a business, while others of you are seasoned in business or have experience in working with companies that provide imported products for resale to the North American marketplace and are seeking a business on the side.

Planned and executed correctly, importing Salt Lamps can be an incredible business opportunity. Immensely popular throughout Europe, where the market is more mature, Salt Lamps and Salt Tea Lights of all different sizes, shapes and colors are seen in homes, offices and Spas wherever you travel. They are sold in gift shops, boutiques and even in upscale grocery stores.

We are just beginning the growth curve of this category here in the USA, where Natural Crystal Salt Lamps have gone from a curiosity to a burgeoning trend over the past 3 years. Until recently you might only see Salt Lamps in Art Galleries and Museum Gift Shops and of course in the homes of people who have traveled the world. Now, with more importing taking place, people are buying and selling them both online and in Malls around the country they are showing up in Health Spas, Massage Studios, Salons, Chiropractic and Naturopathic Clinics and in your neighbor’s home. In a couple of years American consumers will grow to accept these Salt Lamps as the Europeans do… both as a decorative addition to the home or office and as a healthy addition to their personal indoor environment.

Positioning yourself today for that not too distant future and learning to profit from the existing market for these beautiful products, will pay off greatly. Being well established when this product reaches the “Tipping Point”, and enters the mainstream consumer consciousness as a “must have” rather than a novelty, you’ll be ready to capture your fair share of the market.

What we know for sure is that this is no Pet Rock, Mood Ring or other short lived Fad item that will come and go. Since Medieval times, Natural Salt products have been widely recognized as cures for many ailments, and, whether we use them for cleaning and purifying the air, for curing some health and skin problems or just as a beautiful and calming artistic display, Natural Crystal Salt Lamps are here to stay.

Please let us take you all on a little journey through the Natural Crystal Salt Lamp business. We have prepared a small, and hopefully educational, course to assist you in your quest for profit.
We call our introductory lesson:

Salt Lamps 101

What could be simpler…Importing. People do it all the time. You’ve decided you want a piece of the pie and would like to begin importing products at a low cost and then sell them at a higher cost, at an incredible profit.

You just do a little searching and researching, and find yourself a Salt Lamp supplier on the Internet. When you’ve found the one who offers you the lowest prices, promises the highest quality and the fastest delivery you are confident and ready to go!

You place your order, hopefully knowing exactly what you want, and how many of each to order so you can fill up a container. You get an invoice from the supplier, and, if you were not already aware, soon find that you are required to send 100% of the cost of the order, plus the estimated freight costs, to your new “friend”, and do so by wiring the money directly from your checking account to his. Now you wait…patiently.

You may start to wonder if you have made a mistake, placing your trust in a foreign based company that knows it will be difficult if not impossible for you to track them down if there are any problems. That’s normal.

If you are fortunate, you haven’t fallen prey to a fraudulent exporter that takes your money and then disappears, reopening his business under a different name with a new website, laying in wait for the next American entrepreneur in search of the deal-of-a-lifetime to contact him.

For the fortunate, you will however, still find the “quick delivery” date you were promised will come and go. When you contact your supplier to check the status of your order, you will be told common tales of bad weather or labor problems or delays caused by the shipping company that are out of his control. Then two to three weeks after that, you will receive notification that your container will shortly be arriving at port, and you will take care of clearing the shipment through Customs and arranging for the inland delivery to your warehouse. The day finally arrives when your container load is delivered. You smile and heave a sigh of relief.

You start to pull open the double doors at the back of the container and the contents of the load, which have shifted in transit, push the doors fully open. Torn cartons filled with Salt Lamps begin cascading out the doors and crashing to the ground. Don’t try to catch them, each carton weighs between 60 and 80 pounds! Don’t worry, only 30 or 40 cartons will fall of the 600-700 cartons.

When you compose yourself, and finish unloading the container, you may find yourself the not-so-proud owner of 40,000 pounds of wet, moldy and dirty salt, with wood bases that are cracked or discolored, that will need to be destroyed or re-stained and polished. You will likely find rusty screws attaching the bases to the Salt Lamps, nearly impossible to replace because no washers were used and salt is not easy to drill into without cracking. You will find your Salt Tea Lights have irregular sized holes that don’t fit candles and broken or brittle plastic feet.

This is the worst case scenario to illustrate the pitfalls. Your experiences may be different.

You just learned Lesson #1 in the course: Salt Lamps 101.
You DO get what you pay for!

How can we say such things?
We must be exaggerating.
This can’t be true!

Actually….We’ve been there, done that.
Not once, not twice but more times than we really want to admit to. But…through every mistake we learned valuable lessons. Lessons we know will benefit you as you enter this growing marketplace.

We are the first to admit it: We are not the cheapest supplier. But we consider ourselves to be among the best and by far the most reliable.

Natural Salt Lamps, like gemstones, are available in an infinite range of purity and quality. As you have just read, the, old adage “You Get What You Pay For”, most certainly applies to this category of products.

We are an American owned and operated company based in the Pacific Northwest, and we have invested time, energy and money in raising the bar on what should be expected from our Salt mines and artisans. We have established solid face-to-face partnerships with the mine operators and with a selected group of skilled craftspeople who create the finest quality products and provide them to us, to our specifications, at fair prices. Again, we pay more than most exporters and importers to be assured of a higher level of Quality Control and a better overall product to offer our customers, whether they are at the Retail, Wholesale or Import level.

The lamps we reject are sold to our competitors, who have lower standards, and who are happy to make a quick buck putting them in other customer’s containers. Later you’ll find them being sold at ridiculously low prices on ebay or the Internet. PT Barnum of the Barnum and Bailey Circus is most famous not for staging his Greatest Show On Earth but for being credited with the quote “There’s A Sucker Born Every Minute.” Our competitors in North America, and other suppliers in the Himalayan region, know that even if you and your company don’t come back for more, they’ve already got your money and the next sucker is just an Internet minute away.

While we can easily beat anyone’s price on low quality Salt products, and our mines would be happy to supply them (they involve much less labor and scrutiny) we suggest you pay a little more to get a lot more value for your money. Like us, you will want your customers coming back for reorders.

Lesson #2: The General Details

Container Capacity: A container load of Salt Lamps and Salt Tea Lights is 20’ long by 8’ wide by 8’6” High and can hold a maximum Gross Weight of 40,000 pounds. When planning your assortment keep in mind that Natural Salt Tea Lights range in weight from approximately 1 to 12 pounds. Salt Lamps range from approximately 3 to 150 pounds, with the most popular weighing between 3 and 20 pounds. So, depending on the items you select, the number of lamps is limited by the size and weight capacities of the container. A full container is the most efficient and least costly way to import salt lamps as they can be shipped directly from the mines to your warehouse using the most direct means possible. If you require palletizing, an option some of our larger customers desire, we will use 40’ containers that are 40’ long by 8’ wide by 8’6” High. Based on US Department of Transportation regulations they can still only weigh the same 40,000 pounds.

Timing: It takes from 6-8 weeks to manufacture a typical container load of Natural Salt Lamps products, a bit longer for Geometric shapes (Spheres, Cubes, Pyramids etc) and customized shapes (Suns, Moons, Hearts, Fire Bowls…use your imagination), a bit shorter for a container filled with all “basic” shapes. Timing is also partly dependent on our order backlog. We can give you a better idea of the timing of your order when you are ready to place it with our company.

Consistency: No two Natural Crystal Salt Lamps or Natural Salt Tea Lights will ever be the same. Natural Crystal Salt is a rustic material and some products will contain natural fractures, veins and chips. That is actually what makes them so special, and why people collect them. Variations in colors from neutral beiges and whites to pink, peach, orange and even red are found within the salt veins in the mines. In the carving process, each piece is individually etched and sculpted to maximize the beauty of the particular slab of salt, so the shapes, are never identical from lamp to lamp.

Most people sell their lamps strictly by weight. We try our best to keep similar sizes and weights under the same classification. This affords us, and you, the opportunity to offer standardized packaging that won’t have bulges from being overly wide or overly tall for their specific weight classification.

Shipping: It will then take another 3-5 weeks of transit time from when they leave the Port of Origin. It takes longer for partial container loads as they will need to wait for cargo heading to the same port before they can depart. About 10 days into transit you will receive documentation detailing the shipping line, and specific vessel upon which your container is crossing the seas along with an estimated arrival date. Delivery time to the Port nearest your warehouse is dependent on some factors out of our control including US labor strikes, random National Security document review once the ship enters USA controlled waters, Customs inspection backlogs, and final inspections at the Port. Once the container clears Customs it takes only a few days to deliver your container anywhere in the Country.

All our orders are shipped FOB Point Of Origin and you will be billed for sea shipping, insurance, Customs clearance and inland delivery directly by the providers of these services. We do not profit on this part of the process but will gladly assist you in any and all aspects of these final steps in getting the product delivered to your door.

Payment Terms: With pre-approved credit, we require 2/3 of the total cost upon placing your order and the balance of 1/3 upon receipt.

Lesson # 3 Attention To Details

Complete and comprehensive attention to detail makes your job easier and improves your opportunity for success.

Our prices include these high quality components. (If you prefer a different set of options please contact us with your specific requirements):

For Lamps

• Richly Stained, Polished and Sealed Harwood (typically Rosewood) bases with 2-3 grooves for options in cord placement.
  
  
• Stainless Steel Screws, Fasteners and Washers for attaching the lamps to the bases
  
  
• Our exclusive EZ Change Lighting System, nestled in the hardwood base of each Natural Salt Lamp, makes changing bulbs a simple under 30-second task

• A UL approved power cord with an on/off switch and a bulb assembly with spring clip that is a companion piece to our EZ Change Lighting System *
  
  
• A 5-15 watt, size appropriate bulb for each lamp *
  
  * Note: These items are delivered to you from a domestic supplier with whom we have volume discounts, which you can take advantage of. Your accessories will be timed to arrive at approximately the same time as your container order. If you wish to source these items on your own, or buy them on an “as needed” basis please check with us for specifications to insure compatibility.
  

• Silicone or Composite Rubber “feet” that help prevent scratching the surfaces on which they are placed.
  
  
• Uniform sized holes centered in the top of the Tea Light to accommodate standard scented or unscented tea-light candles.

Preparation and Packing

Each of our Salt Products is individually pressure washed and thoroughly dried before packaging to insure nearly total removal of carvers dust and to prevent mildew and mold.

Each product is labeled with the Country of Origin in compliance with US Customs law. US Customs will verify compliance before you are able to ship even a single lamp from the container. Most exporters fail to label their products correctly.

Your products will then be individually shrink wrapped and then surrounded with bubble wrap to prevent damage in transit. Other companies will wrap lamps in thin brown paper and cram them into cartons to maximize the number of lamps in your shipment and also their profits. The damages you will experience due to moisture in the hold of the ship will ultimately reduce the salable lamps you receive, and, become a source of more pre-sale labor for your company.

At this point a set of options is available to you

Packing Options (Individual Lamps):

A) Shrink and Bubble wrapped products, marked with Country of Origin are packed
in bulk into master cartons.

B) Shrink and Bubble wrapped products are individually boxed in unprinted heavy duty 3-ply white cardboard boxes.

C) Shrink and Bubble wrapped products are individually packaged in Heavy Duty white cardboard printed with our recognizable and respected company name and logo. Each style of lamp will feature a full color picture of the enclosed lamp along with use and care instructions, “in use” pictures and other helpful information that will interest your customers. They are shelf ready with Bar Codes for an easy integration into retail store computer systems.

Container Loading Options (Complete Order):

A) Boxes are stacked in alternating directions in layers and then shrink wrapped together to prevent shifting while in transit. By tightly grouping boxes together you will have an easier time unloading the container.

B) If you choose to have the cartons palletized, they can be easily removed from the container with a forklift or pallet jack. NOTE: This palletization often requires the use of a 40’ Container that has a slightly higher shipping cost, (though not twice as expensive) than the 20’ non-palletized container.

The Nature of Nature

As we have said before, but feel it is important to reiterate: No two Salt Lamps will ever be the same. Variations in color, ranging from natural white to deep red, with varying shades of peaches and pinks in between, will give you a full range of shades and hues in every shipment. Each Natural Salt Lamp has natural veins and striations as are found in the walls of the Salt Mines.

In collaboration with Nature these variations in color, patterns, shapes, sizes and even blemishes are what make each Natural Salt Lamp a unique work of art.

It is important to understand that Salt Lamp creation is an art, not a science. Natural Salt products are not mass produced injection molded plastic items, but individually mined, etched, carved and polished Natural Crystal Salt works of art. As with any hand-crafted product imported from overseas, there is a certain percentage of products that will arrive and not fully meet the standards we set. A small percentage may also be damaged in transit. We count on about 95% of the order to be in great condition. The profits you will make on the container will more than offset this reality of doing business with hand made products and overseas transport.

We have learned to take the lemons and make lemonade…crushing any damaged, or less than acceptable lamps and creating Natural Bath Salts which sell for $9.95 to $14.95 per pound, sometimes making the rejects worth as much or more than the lamps themselves.

In the Office, Salt Lamps are both nice to look at and are thought to reduce radiation from Computer monitors In your Bedroom, Salt Lamps are a warm pleasant night light and thought to reduce pollen, dander and other irritants in the air

 
As votives to remember loved ones or a lasting gift for someone special

In and around the bath as a soothing end to a stressful day.

Health Claims
Note: We make no specific claims and are only reporting what we see on the Internet and have read in “scientific” studies.

There is a long list of claims we have seen about the usages of Natural Salt and Natural Crystal Salt Lamps. While we are not doctors or a part of the medical or scientific community, we have many clients who swear by the curative and air purifying properties of these products. The list includes but is in no way limited to:

Negative Ion Generation

Negative Ions are what scientists say you experience when around a powerful waterfall or during a thunderstorm when the air around you smells it’s cleanest and freshest. In today’s industrial world our personal environments are filled with positive ions (which sound better but aren’t) that are pollutants to our health.

Negative Ion Generators are said to purify the air, reduce Airborne Pollutants (pet dander, allergens, pollens, bacteria) and reduce the radiation emissions from Computer Monitors. Some even find them helpful as natural cigarette smoke filters.

We have read reports of increased energy and a reduction in fatigue and ADHD and anxiety that, when combined, improve mental performance while calming and relaxing the user. These claims are based on the same Negative Ion generation principle.

Curative Powers

Natural Salts have been used by the medical community since the Medieval times, and to this day are thought to reduce Bronchial Congestion, Asthma, Insomnia, Depression, Allergies, Viruses, Sinusitis and Migraines.

Skin Care

Crushed Salt Crystals are used for relaxing soaks in the bathtub and for reducing the healing time for burns. In Bar form Natural Salts are said to aid in reducing and relieving the effects of eczema, psoriasis, warts and other skin inflictions.

We just like them because they are beautiful!
Any other benefits you may experience are definitely a plus!

Product Assortment

We have a “Best Sellers” container load prepack available that is based on our sales experience. This is the quickest way to get into the business and be assured of success. You can order it as suggested or customize it, by selecting from our Product Assortment list, for your particular market. The number of Salt Lamps and Salt Tea Lights that will fit into a container varies with the assortment selected. We will work together with you to maximize the container’s volume capacity.

You should also feel free to ask for our suggestions and opinions on items that may be commonly seen offered by Salt Lamp Importers, Wholesalers and Retailers, that we are also able to supply but may not be great selling items.

If you have specific items, shapes, sizes or weights you are looking for we can assist you in creating any assortment you desire. We offer the following standard items and have the capabilities to take your custom designs and produce them for you.

Our Natural Crystal Salt Collection

Natural Salt Tea Lights

Smaller Orders, Wholesale and Distributor Opportunities

The Natural Salt used to product our Salt Of The Earth Lamps comes from the mines in Khewra, used since the days of Alexnder the Great. Removed from deep below the surface of The Himalayas, the Salt is in large pieces weighing up to 1000 pound each.

The Mined Salt is separated by Size, Color and Quality

A hole is then drilled to accomodate either the Light assembly or candle

They are then given a preliminary washing and sorted again.

Mounting our exclusive EZ Change Light Assembly™ to the bottom of the Lamp Base provides your customer a safe and efficient way to remove and to replace the Light Bulb. We encourage you to compare this to the other alternatives currently available in the marketplace.

The lamps are given a final inspection, then shrink-wrapped and bubble wrapped and, depending on your specifications bulk packed or individually boxed for shipment. They are then scheduled for delivery to your warehouse.