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Placing large wholesale orders.


dipped

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I called a few wholesalers this week looking to buy 10,000 to 20,000 pounds of unbleached capping beeswax by the pallet. I also wanted to fill the rest of the truck with comb beeswax (yellow). Looking for a total buy of around 38,000 to 40,000 pounds.

 

Every company that I called or emailed thought I was joking. No one wanted to make a sale. Yes I know were looking at a $201,000 to $300,000 order shipped to my door and most likely would leave them low on beeswax till early summer.

 

The place I get my wicks from wanted me to email my business info with my request and would be passed on to there sales manager. I buy a few thousand in wicks from them every year and did buy a truckload of wax from them 2 years ago so I did not think they would take it as a joke. I got en email back from the sales manager that took my request as a joke. I wrote her back on Wednesday with a list of invoice numbers from the last 5 years, what I bought, and how much I spent. Still no response by close of Friday.

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It's very hard to talk to bees. I buy out 6 to 10 bee farmers summer and fall every year, but my stock pile is running low. I bought out 8 large farmers in the fall, but there numbers were not as high as everyone planed.

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I obviously was talking about large wax manufacturers, NOT bees. And not suppliers, but places like IGI who actually do the processing of the wax and then sell to suppliers who then resell to buyers.  

 

I wish you luck, but sounds like you are asking for too much and that is why you are not having any. I don't personally no anybody who is not a huge conglomerate that would need that much wax, and they probably don't either, which is why they consider your request a joke. 

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Yes I talked to a couple of processors and there larger resellers. The info I got from the processors is there is still a good size stock pile of USA product out there.

 

At the point you spend the money on shipping for a couple pallets you might as well pay for shipping on a full truck load. Right now I’m working on a new contract and if I take it I will not make it to the spring harvest with the amount of capping wax I currently have. They will let me lock in my prices in early spring for the new harvest, but will not sell what they have on hand.

 

If I get the new contract my wife is going to quite her job and work with me making candles.

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No I do not have a web site. With doing 90%, 95%, and pure beeswax it's very hard to ship without issues. I make everything from .5” x 6” tapers to 4” by 5' alter candles. I mostly wholesale to churches and 5 religious stores around us. I get at least 3 different churches call me a week that want me to supply them on the east coast.

 

I did find a farmer that has 2 tons of capping wax and 8 tons of yellow wax. Now to work out the details...

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Guest OldGlory

I have a friend who works for Will & Baumer (huge religious candle manufacturer) - sounds like they left quite a void when they moved out of New York to Tennessee. They buy large quantities of beeswax but she can't give up her sources. One style of their candles sells for several hundred $$. And shipping has to be horrid because the really long candles have to be crated in wood to ship. Yikes.

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Every 2 months I make a 500 mile road trip to hand deliver my candles to different churches. Even with wooden crates you can still have a lot of issues with sending large candles. My temp controlled box truck is a life saver.

 

Each religion has a different standard on how there candles are to be made. Very few religious candle makers know what most of the standards are. I think it's best if I do not finish this paragraph.

 

I buy between 120,000 and 200,000 pounds of beeswax a year. Most of the time the cost of the wax is set months before they even start to process the wax and the amount of wax that your buying is just a wild guess until after the honey harvest.

 

Yes the cost of some of the candles is horrendous. Some of our candles are about 27 pounds. Bees wax is about $13.00 a pound. Candles that large have to be made by spinning the wick and pouring wax over it. If you send a box over 50 pounds or 4' long most shipping companies charge you for a drivers helper on each box.

 

Well it's time to get back to dipping red candles. I need to get about 9,000 done today so switch over to blue tomorrow.

Edited by dipped
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  • 2 weeks later...

Interesting....I have never thought of a church using red and blue beeswax candles? Especially 9000 RED and BLUE!? Must be some very eccentric churches in your neck of the woods! So how does one dip 9000 candles in 24 hours? I would hope you have MANY employees!

Edited by Dana
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The red and blue candles are prayer candles. Very few religions use colored candles in there services and mostly for special occasions.

 

With the right setup dipping 9,000 12” by '.75 candles in 24 hours is not that bad. Once you get in a zone you just work. My wife and my mother both work with me from time to time.

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I know that "zone" ! I was also wondering, if you do not have a website how do your customers find you? Especially getting customers from the coast to the mountains of VA? Do you advertise in a church directory of some kind?

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I would love to see your dipping system!

I hand dip hundreds of colored beeswax chime candles and dread it. Have seen a few Youtube videos of various dipping racks and think i would dread it less with a better system. A good dipping system would make the bayberry candle-making process less frustrating too.

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I do not have a web site. I sell to churches and a few religious stores. I do not want to deal with selling to the public, but I’m sure I could make a lot more money if I did.

 

This lady has a sweet frame system and would be the bomb from what I can tell if she switched up the candle dipping head to something that you can switch out.

 

I learned how to make candles in an old school church candle shop. They had 20 dipping heads and you worked with 10 at a time. You would take each head off the rack dip and then hang back up. As you dipped on set you would let the other set hang to harden up all the way.

 

I up dated a bit. I use a 10” dipping frame that holds 16 pair of candles. If it's a .5” candle I will not take them off the frame part way though. When I’m doing the .75” candles I take them off the frames after about 8 dips and put them on a set of racks that just have the top ring to save weight.

 

The thing I hate is cleaning the wax off the old racks and cleaning the wick ends out of the old wax.

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