So I've been making my own eliquid for a few months now and now my juice is starting to get a little bit of attention... My question is if a shop wanted to pick up my line of eliquid what legal steps would I have to take to protect myself?
Corporation. S or LLC.
Don't take cash. Checks only. In the business name.
Register a domain name and set up an email server. Don't use your personal email.
Cash checks immediately. Always, always, always payment on order received or at the very latest, delivery.
I actually give all vendors NET60 because my margin is killer (this isn't on vape stuff). I can afford to lose some accounts unpaid because even if they go under, my product is still getting marketed by them "for free".
In the past year, vape shops accounted for maybe 7% of my gross sales (not a vape product) and around 15% of them never paid me. Still made money, still had my product marketed in retail stores. Was worth it.
Liability insurance, business license, foodhandler's permit (in some states), and most likely a clean room.
Thank you very much. Would there be anything else?
Instead of creating my own line I'd sell the juice recipes for royalties. Try to get 10% of every bottle sold. Let the shop deal with the clean room, bottling, labeling, and legislation changes. You've already done your share of the work by creating the recipe. I'd rather come up with different flavors with my time than start a line, bottle, label, etc. for 50% commission on sales
Don't do it.
If you are happy where you are just keep doing that, otherwise it will be a full time job of you just making one flavor over and over.
If you really think it's going to take off, get a co-packer. As long as it's an original flavor and it's got purchase orders they will take it.
Otherwise you are going to turn a hobby you love into a job you hate.
How much money are we talking here? Serious question.
Roughly 1,000-2,000 a month
Uh huh. How are you going to generate that much juice? Is this your new day job? How are you going to get them to fork over that money before the juice is moved? Do they expect exclusive rights?
Check what cwinthrop said and do that first if you really are serious about this.
Do you know how to read/write a contract? There's a lot of ways you can get screwed in this, get a lawyer if you can't handle it. Might consider a lawyer to read over it and produce a counter offer if you feel they aren't giving you a fair deal. (Be careful, once you sign it, you're gonna be on the hook for some of it).