MilosCandles

This is the reason I LOL when I see people wanting to sell 2oz-4oz candles. I sold 4oz tins for like a year. When I looked at my costs/profits. My cost to make a 4oz Tin Candle was like $1.85 and the 8oz tin was like $2.10, but I charged $4 more for the 8oz tin. Hmmmm Waste of time and energy. I make Melts for me to sell, but will not sell them wholesale. Until I get a machine to pour candles for me and cut my labor costs, and then buy in BULK and can make them for pennies, just not worth it.

You need to find your niche and where ever you are comfortable selling, there is no one right way. Some people sell just at fairs, some on Etsy, Facebook, Instagram, there own website, Esty, eBay, Amazon, Work, giftshops. Everyone one has pros and cons and they differ person to person. Amazon does have a larger learning curve that some, and I may not suggest starting on Amazon. I started at local Craft Shows, and then added Etsy, and then my own website and then Amazon. That was a 3 year process. Just understanding 1 platform at a time, and making sure I have a solid understanding and not overwhelming myself doing too much at one time.

What a crazy year 2020 was. Not sure how I managed that many sales. Just over 2 months 2300+ sales. As of right now I have no open orders on any of my ecommerce sites. Deep Breath... Now to keep things lively I sold my house and bought a new one. 4 years ago I moved and I said I would never move the business again. WELL, here I go again. I wish I knew how to sit still for a bit.

Here is just a sample, I have of some mail over a month old still moving through USPS. The 2nd week of December I switched to only using priority mail, mostly for the insurance. Most of the items have been delivered but still a few that haven't been. 1st Class Packaged mailed 12/7 - Still not there https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction.action?tLabels=9400109205568210493293 https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction.action?tLabels=9400109205568210526366 Priority Mail mailed 12/17 - Still not there https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction.action?tLabels=9405509205568229280276 Priority Mail mailed 12/22 - Still not there https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction.action?tLabels=9405509205568236094118 https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction.action?tLabels=9405509205568234205332 Priority Mail mailed 12/31 - Still not there https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction.action?tLabels=9405509205568939079597 https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction.action?tLabels=9405509205568241030378

I am not getting buyers on Amazpn messaging me cause Amazon is telling them that the package must be lost. WTF. I have numerous packages from 12/6/2020 still not delivered. Almost all the packages after that are atleast slowly moving through USPS, but those from that date are crazy slow. Most of the Priority Mail ones I have shipped in the last 2 weeks have been taking about a full week to arrive.

I wonder if anyone will file a class action lawsuit against them for all the delays.

@TallTayl From our previous posts I have enough "meat" on the bone to suck up the extra $2.50 for the next week. Since I know this isn't permanent I will just deal for now. The joys of "Customer Service".

60+ First Class packages from Dec 7th are "at the sorting facility" which I get, but ones from Dec 8th have already been delivered. I would mind if it was truly first in first out. but clearly that is not the way it works. Now shipping everything priority mail. Add $2.50 to the cost of each item now. The is over $300 in postage and $1200 is revenue.

I did not know about the affiliate program until I started getting traffic. Etsy affiliate program page is awful vague, and I am sure they are pretty strict who they allow in. Sometime I just see people writing an article and linking to my Esty page with out being an affiliate.

Here is where I have truly benefited from Etsy. - https://www.etsy.com/affiliates Everyone that "Advertise" or writes and article about my candles are Affiliates. So they make a percentage of all the sales they drive to Etsy. I do not pay anything extra for these sales. Not the 12% ad fee, nothing extra. THIS IS HUGE for me. In the last 30 days 60% of my traffic to my etsy shop is from Affiliates. THANK YOU ETSY. So because I make them money, they keep reposting the articles, I keep getting sales this way. (never look a gift horse in the mouth)

Often I have the opposite problem cause people do not know how to price their items. Take for example my pricing above. Me charging $15 +$7 shipping. Net Profit of $11.20. No labor or overhead yet, no mileage. None of my time on the computer doing marketing, customer service, driving around picking up items, taking out the trash, and breaking down all the boxes. No Insurance cost in that, no electric, or internet. There are listing for basically the identical candle for $17 with free shipping. $5 less than mine. If I priced that way I would I have a profit of $6. If it is a hobby that price might be OK. For me this is well past hobby level. I have raised some of my prices to try and curb sales. Someone else has $11+$9 Shipping. BUT they also have $35+ free shipping. So if you buy 4 of mine Plus shipping (60+7 = 67) My shipping cost goes from $6 to $10 total, so my profit on $67 purchase is about $37 for 4 candles. ($8.25 each) If you buy four of theirs if would cost you $44 (Cost them about $25 in expenses like me) and now has a profit $19 for 4 candles, less than $5each. What are these people thinking? Some else is selling them for $7 + $8 shipping. Do not even know where to begin. Just found someone else selling them for $6 +$6 shipping. Maybe I will just start using her to drop ship my items for me. That is a steal. LOL

Unfortunately it is the cost of doing business. Not too much you can do. I use STRIPE to process credit cards on my site. I have had people Dispute the charge with their credit card company. Well for a $20 purchase that I would of been happy to refund, I am charged a $15 dispute fee plus will loose the $20 I received. Just sucks.

In the beginning for with Etsy I paid for https://erank.com/ for a few months. I combined that with https://welcome.getvela.com/ I looked at the various keywords I was using, others were using how they ranked via erank.com. Vela allowed me to MASS Update my listing, removing bad keywords and replacing with better keywords. Once i learned what keywords were good and worked and which ones didn't, I was much better off. $6-$10 a month is a good investment for a few months to help you along. WARNING - Vella is awesome free tool to mass update etsy. There were a few times I updated a few too many listing and didn't know it for a few days. WHOOPS. Just be 100% sure what you are updating is what you want.

I have a rather complicated spreadsheet set up for this. Basically I have 1 page of ALL my costs. I can update any of my costs on per unit of measure on that page, and then all my individual products up date, and then I have a SUMMARY page for ALL products. I haven't updated in over a year. Some of the prices I am sure are off some. NO LABOR is included. How I break down my costs.

Etsy is interesting. last year when the started the $35 or more free shipping I delayed enabling it. I went from the top of the searches to the bottom. So I enabled it. Then came the social media craze for me when my sales sky rocketed, I disabled free shipping around then. Since then I still charge $7 flat rate shipping and haven't left the top spots. The big sellers def get perks which makes it hard for the new sellers to get involved. I put my time in with low sales. I got super lucky and just try to keep riding the wave now. On Amazon I charge $8 flat rate shipping, Etsy $7, my website $6 and during the slower months orders over $50 get free shipping on my site. Just a little way I can try to balance out the cost differences.

And just like that 11,000. It has been a busy 2 weeks.

I suspect I will have a higher profit margin, but lower profits and way more sanity. I was losing it a bit last week.

I have looked on AliExpress for pouring pots, can never find them. Probably called something totally different than what I am searching for.

This time last year I basically had 2 fullish time people working for me and 3-4 other people stopping by when they could to help out. It is SO much more difficult this year. I had to re-think the product I want to sell, and how I am going to keep up. I went from having over 125 "Customized" candles on Etsy to 25 NON customized ones. I have done this on Amazon as well. For now my website still has most customized candles, but I for see me taking that list down to 25 as well. I have a few stay at home parents come over during the day to help out. Because of Covid, their kids are only in school part time, so they can only work when they are at school. Plus I try to limit people working with each other. Buffalo, NY is on the edge of being shutdown again as our Covid numbers keep increasing. Many schools in the area have already gone to full remote learning. The little help I do have may be cut even more. My online orders are way up this year and it is just sad to have to limit my line cause I can not get the help. Fortunately I work out of my house so my overhead is low. I think of all these little gift shops I am in and they may be shutdown again in the next week. A time of year that generates most of the money they need to live off for the next year. I suspect many of them will be closed once life resumes back to a new normal .

Demographics is key. I have taken many calculated gambles. I have tried some "fairs" and other events. 3 years ago I did 40 shows in 1 year. Last year I was at like 8 or 9 and was only going to do like 6 this year. Some shows early in the year I would have 1 to 2 sales. Which sometimes in Feb and March was 1 to 2 better than people around me. EEKK.. The cost usually was like $20-$25 and my time. Live and learn, cross that those off the list. Other shows in the fall was going home at night to make more to bring more the next day. So if the show is cheap and you have some time to spare give it a try, but do not be surprised if no one buys anything. Do not have hurt feeling and wonder why do they not want it.

I wish this were a simple answer. Some many pieces to this. I have done everything from manually doing it, to paying some one at Fiverr to do 5 of my products, to paying someone on Fiverr to write "Catchy" descriptions, to someone at Fiverr to writing a few blogs for my website. Various different ways bring people to my website and then show some of my own "ads" for my products in the blogs. There is not just 1 solution I use to drive traffic to my website. Here is my newest form of driving traffic to my website - youtube, but not in the way most people think. https://youtu.be/ip0hMk5eooQ?t=1122 Here is one of the latest. This channel has 129k subscribers, at this moment 12k people have watched the video, and I get a live "testimonial" about my candle, usually shown my postcard. All this is priceless. It is almost like a 15-second TV commercial for me, all for the cost of the candle and postage. Figure people are on a "computer" while watching it and they can easily search for my site. I have done this like 100 times this year, I usually send them one of my less than 100% perfect candles that I would give to a friend or family member that will not complain about a little dent or less than perfect wax. If you can personalize the message and send them something they like, even better. This has been amazing for me.

@TallTayl As we have discussed in other chats. "Launching" does not mean you will sell. I spent countless hours trying to improve my Etsy listings. SEO, Improved Pictures, looking at other listing and why they might be ranking higher than me. Hours and Hours and Hours, and then lots of luck along the way. I watched more videos, and read more articles on how to improve my listings. Understanding what makes me truly profitable on Etsy. My costs, shipping, Etsy fees. Time is Money. Value your time. Find a unique market and take advantage of it. People get to caught up in what they like, rather than what sells.

So a year later after talking about https://www.etsy.com/shop/MoonStoneCandleShop And that shop is no longer. The people that sell cheap do not last long. No surprise

This week I reached the 10,000 Sales Milestone at Etsy. 5 years and 10,000 Sales. I remember my 1st sale and how excited I was, and how quickly I made it and then followed up with the user to make sure they received it and all was OK. Somethings have changed but in general not too much. Just many streamlined processes. The stats below are according to erank.com

The 9 cases I order is on a pallet. I have got quotes before for pallet shipping and after 9 cases the savings is not enough to justify ordering that many. The saving per case is usually less than a dollar. I have ordered 18 cases before but that was just more cause I was going through so much at the time. I have contacted Golden Brands Wax directly, and almost spit out my drink when the reply email stated "We do have a minimum of 21,600Lbs of wax that must be ordered per order." (432 50lbs Cases, or in my case 12 Pallets) I do not have the space for that much. LOL Unless they can just leave the trailer in my driveway for a year or 2. Not sure my neighbors would appreciate that.