Young couple making nearly £1million a year with sweet shop they started in their living room
- 2 months ago
A young couple say they are on track to make their first million - after launching a sweets business from their dining room.
Charlie Wells, 23, and Georgia Conlan, 25, founded Sweets and Sour during Covid.
They started off slowly but their popularity exploded after posting videos on TikTok - and they turned over £750k from 2021 to 2022.
And from 2022 to 2023 they turned over a stunning £895k - and the pair from Egham, Surrey, are forecasting 2024 to be their first million-pound year, they say.
They sell imported and exotic items from around the world - with bestsellers including cake mix and bagel seasoning from the US.
Charlie said: "We've just turned over £895k and now we're aiming for our first million.
“Our best sellers are usually the limited-edition new releases - we sell a lot of Lays, Cheetos, and American cereals as well as energy drinks like American Monster.
“We sell American groceries like bagel seasoning, pancake mix, Betty Crocker cake mixes, stove top stuffing mixes – they taste completely different from the products in the UK.
“One of my favourite products ever is Starburst swirlers – they're insane.
“Georgia’s is the new KitKat lemon crisp – it’s a limited-edition creamy KitKat with a lemon filling.
“We’re really proud of ourselves and our team for getting it as far as we’ve got in such a short time.”
Georgia and Charlie started their sweets business after Charlie lost his job as a holiday rep during Covid.
After considering other options including wax melts, they decided to start selling sweets after spotting a seller offering wholesale sweets cheaply.
They started selling the goodies online but initially were only making one sale per week on Facebook.
After making the switch to TikTok in March 2021, the couple quickly went viral with their livestreams packing orders.
They went from one order per week to 600 orders per month – and when they moved to a bigger space in June, they leapt up to 4000 orders per month.
The entrepreneurial couple then opened a shopfront in Egham in October 2022 where they now employ seven staff.
The business continued to grow and after a period of going viral in August 2023 they made a whopping £51k in just three days.
“We’ve got a website and TikTok shop which led to £750k turnover in our first year and now we’ve got a website, TikTok shop, high street shop and seven staff members who run the business day to day,” said Charlie.
“We always have the newest and rarest imported stock which takes up quite a lot of money as it’s not cheap to import.
“We’ve been refurbishing the high street shop so the online site will stay as imports, but the shopfront will be traditional sweets.
“Three years ago, we thought this was a temporary business and now it’s our full-time job, we want to keep it going and put the money back into the business.
“We’ve gone back to front and started on social media, and it’s been our own growth which has led to us being able to rent a shop.
“It amazes me every day that social media has allowed us to change our lives.”
Charlie Wells, 23, and Georgia Conlan, 25, founded Sweets and Sour during Covid.
They started off slowly but their popularity exploded after posting videos on TikTok - and they turned over £750k from 2021 to 2022.
And from 2022 to 2023 they turned over a stunning £895k - and the pair from Egham, Surrey, are forecasting 2024 to be their first million-pound year, they say.
They sell imported and exotic items from around the world - with bestsellers including cake mix and bagel seasoning from the US.
Charlie said: "We've just turned over £895k and now we're aiming for our first million.
“Our best sellers are usually the limited-edition new releases - we sell a lot of Lays, Cheetos, and American cereals as well as energy drinks like American Monster.
“We sell American groceries like bagel seasoning, pancake mix, Betty Crocker cake mixes, stove top stuffing mixes – they taste completely different from the products in the UK.
“One of my favourite products ever is Starburst swirlers – they're insane.
“Georgia’s is the new KitKat lemon crisp – it’s a limited-edition creamy KitKat with a lemon filling.
“We’re really proud of ourselves and our team for getting it as far as we’ve got in such a short time.”
Georgia and Charlie started their sweets business after Charlie lost his job as a holiday rep during Covid.
After considering other options including wax melts, they decided to start selling sweets after spotting a seller offering wholesale sweets cheaply.
They started selling the goodies online but initially were only making one sale per week on Facebook.
After making the switch to TikTok in March 2021, the couple quickly went viral with their livestreams packing orders.
They went from one order per week to 600 orders per month – and when they moved to a bigger space in June, they leapt up to 4000 orders per month.
The entrepreneurial couple then opened a shopfront in Egham in October 2022 where they now employ seven staff.
The business continued to grow and after a period of going viral in August 2023 they made a whopping £51k in just three days.
“We’ve got a website and TikTok shop which led to £750k turnover in our first year and now we’ve got a website, TikTok shop, high street shop and seven staff members who run the business day to day,” said Charlie.
“We always have the newest and rarest imported stock which takes up quite a lot of money as it’s not cheap to import.
“We’ve been refurbishing the high street shop so the online site will stay as imports, but the shopfront will be traditional sweets.
“Three years ago, we thought this was a temporary business and now it’s our full-time job, we want to keep it going and put the money back into the business.
“We’ve gone back to front and started on social media, and it’s been our own growth which has led to us being able to rent a shop.
“It amazes me every day that social media has allowed us to change our lives.”