MilosCandles

464 is too soft for Tarts, I use 444 and it works great.

Where I fall is along the lines of this Here in the States we have something called the “first sale doctrine.” It simply means that once a tangible copyrighted work (or something with copyright in it) is sold lawfully the first time, the original copyright owner no longer has rights over the physical item. After that, the buyer can do whatever he or she wants with it — sell it again, donate it, whatever. That’s why you can legally hold a yard sale or sell computers on eBay. The resale right applies only to the physical item sold, not copies. The first-sale doctrine is a legal concept playing an important role in U.S. copyright and trademark law by limiting certain rights of a copyright or trademark owner. The doctrine enables the distribution chain of copyrighted products, library lending, giving, video rentals and secondary markets for copyrighted works (for example, enabling individuals to sell their legally purchased books or CDs to others). In trademark law, this same doctrine enables reselling of trademarked products after the trademark holder put the products on the market. The doctrine is also referred to as the "right of first sale," "first sale rule," or "exhaustion rule."

@Quentin There is profit there. Depending on how you define profit. For me it is a profit on the product and a decent hourly wage. If I basically eliminate the hourly wage I could easily compete at a price point with him. If I sell 7000 tins at a $2 profit. $14k a year in profit. BUT how many hours did I have to work for that $14k? Did I work 500 ($28/hr) hours? or 2000 ($7hr) hours Excersie.... 7000 candles in a year is ~135 a week. I can pour about 60 small tins in 2 hours. (only 4 different scents though) That is unboxing, wicking, pouring, triming, labeling and then storing on a shelf. I can probably ship 15 an hour. So to ship 60 of them it would be 4 hours. So to make and ship 60 of them I am in 6 hours. 12 Hours a week I am at 120. (52*120=6240 candle a year) ($2 profit x 6240 = $12,480) 12 hours a week for 52 weeks is 624 hours Works out to be $20 an hour. Not too bad of a part time job. Some people would be really happy with that. I am not saying there isn't more time involved or more work involved. There is plenty of room for arguing my numbers. But "volume" can justify a slim profit margin. I know I am leaving out order supplies and marketing, and maintaining etsy/website.

https://blog.storyblocks.com/tutorials/wrap-image-around-item-photoshop/ or http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/3dtransform/3dtransform.htm Really you are just warping the picture some to "match" curve of the candle. In photoshop you just have layers with each image on a layer, and then you either have the layer visible or not.

I assume something like this https://medium.com/code-drunk-refactor-sober/how-to-put-any-design-on-a-shirt-using-photoshop-ffd015df6338 or https://creativepro.com/add-realistic-artwork-wrinkled-surface-photoshops-displacement-map/

Ohh how I love vacations and dread them at the same time. Just as the season is really about to start family is going on a little get away. Then right after we get back I have about 5 weekends of fall shows, gift shops will need stock, and craziness will begin. Sort of my last week to relax before 3ish months of increasingly less sleep. Some things I learned ETSY Never put your shop on Vacation Mode. I just change my processing time to 2-3 weeks. I do this about a week before I leave. Too many stories were sales do not come back to previous volumes after vacation mode. You just need to edit your shipping profiles to make this change. Amazon Same thing, Never put your shop on Vacation Mode. I was averaging a 3-5 sales a week, and then I put in away mode for a week in the beginning of June. When I came back it took 2 weeks to make 1 sales, and 2+ months later still not quite back. To change this was a major PITA. Required downloading a report, and then uploading a Price / Quantity spreadsheet. Should be easy to change back. Amazon can penalize you if you do not meet deadlines. Personal Website I just put a pop up saying that nothing will be made until Sept. Turn off ALL advertising, ETSY, AMAZON. Hope that helps some of you.

I also purchased a rewinder, as the labels print I can wind the up and I do not have 1000 on the floor. LOL I can just sit and watch this process. LOL

I wanted to bring this topic up again. I see no site of Belinda on Etsy anymore. The original link does not work. Maybe she was just getting rid of old inventory. BUT recently I found this person https://www.etsy.com/shop/MoonStoneCandleShop Always running a sale $3 for a 4oz $6 for an 8oz $8.80 for a 16oz Now those are tin size and not wax amount. The 4oz looks like a 8oz tin pic. a wood wick on a 4oz tin? The metal base will take up half the candle. 7700+ sales. 1st review was October 2018. This intrigues me on soo many different levels.

There was a lengthy discussion about this end of last year. Take a look

It is now added. Take a look https://customwickholder.com/

Check out - https://customwickholder.com/

@Crafty1_AJI see both sides of it. Yes Charging for shipping may have made it overall cheaper, but most consumers online just click on buy. It is really amazing actually. For some of my products on Etsy the 2nd image use to be a coupon code. Well (I am guessing) half if not more would never use the code. I assume cause they didn't look further than the Main image. Use to amaze me. Fortunately for me I really only advertise my own domain. When I 1st started I pushed my etsy site but with the recent rate hikes I decide to do my own domain and start pushing that (about 1 year ago). My prices on my Amazon and Etsy site are 10-20% higher than on my website. PLUS I do offer discounts on my website. I have 1 link for Amazon and Etsy on my site just in case someone has a gift card or likes Etsy or Amazon better for their purchasing. I was crunching some numbers and came up with these stats My sales stats from 11/1/2018 - 7/1/2018 Amazon # of Sales % 23.40% Amazon Gross Sales % 19.61% Etsy # of Sales % 59.29% (Forget is this is sales or orders now LOL) Etsy Gross Sales % 57.69% Own Domain # of Sales % 17.31% Own Domain Gross Sales % 22.71% My domain is steadily increasing. Looking forward to comparing last xmas season to this year. But as you can see ETSY is still over half of my online sales. You have to re-invent yourself once in awhile. I did it last year and will see how long before I have to again. Maybe ETSY is on to something and before I know it I will switch my model on my website.

I did not have much luck selling on Ebay. I posted some listings in November last year and only had a few sales.

This is NOT to Bash Etsy, or complain. So before I quickly jumped on free shipping bandwagon, I wanted to wait and see. So that is what I did. With certain searches my items would be 40%-50% of all the listings on the 1st fold. A few days into it my listing were generally non-existent. So it was time to adjust. So I raised all my prices $1-$3 decreased my flat rate shipping by a $1 and offered free shipping over $35 as they suggest. It changed my search results back to what they were and orders started coming in again. Most orders on my Etsy site are for 1 candle. Well below the $35 threshold. But in the last few days I have had 2 orders for 3 candles which qualify for free shipping. Not sure if that trend will continue. It is welcomed. I appreciate ETSY is geared toward people that just want to sell stuff online. I wish some of its reporting would better within the site. I would love to EASILY know what my average sale is, along with average items per purchase is. And a better way to distinguish between "Sales" and "Orders". They use those 2 terms so interchangeably it drives me crazy. In the end ETSY did this to EVERYONE and did not just select certain people or groups. It is a level playing field. It will force people to rethink their pricing strategies. It will make people dive back into ETSY settings and shipping settings to think about them. ETSY could of done a better job helping train the seller base with shipping options and strategies. I am in NO position to bash or complain about ETSY, I make a lot of sales there. I will also say that I do not have all my eggs in one basket. I do not solely rely on Etsy.

After a few shows using them they work as expected. Yes they could be better. With my candles being a little different than everyone elses I have a few extra challenges. Most of the dust covers come off pretty easily even with out a pull tab. Some of my bottles with smaller openings do require a little extra effort. Yes they do absorb the oil when it was really hot. So some of them needed to be replaced. So yes they could be better. I am happy with them. I like they way they look and it is accomplishing my end goal. Trying to keep the all the dust from getting in them.

He has 20k subscribers on his YouTube channel. I am not criticizing him for him doing what he is doing, but rather how simple he makes it. If he was smart he would be selling kits himself and directing people to his site. He is no different than every other MLM, Direct Sales, or Infomercial. Promises easy income. He does promote a Facebook channel which I also joined. https://www.facebook.com/groups/diycandlemaking/ I have already had a few good chuckles. The beginner questions are amazing. I get it, we were all beginners at one point. But I have issues with people that just want answers with little to no effort put in. One reason I appreciate a message board over facebook is that is encourages searches to past questions, or atleast an easy way to link previous answers. With a FB group a question that was asked today is gone tomorrow. And then to find again it is another PITA

Ohhh my.. What a video I found. Just need to sell 100 candles a month. So simple. I wish it was this simple. Just set a table anywhere and sell. I should probably start wearing a trench coat with candles lined in it and stop people on the street also. I have only seen this video of this guys. I think i need to watch more for some comedic relief. He makes so many disclaimers in the video.

@Courtney You do NOT have to but info like that into ETSY. It only helps if you are really charging by the size and weight. With USPS there are so many options for either Flat Rate OR Flat Weight (I use this loosely, but about 99% true). USPS has many FREE shipping supplies from their site - https://store.usps.com/store/home PirateShip is GREAT and FREE. If you items are under 1 Pound, 16oz, you can ship USPS First Class mail. No more the ~$5.50 (No Insurance, with Tracking) Need to use your own box. I ship many candles this way. Look into the Priority Mail Flat Rate Bubble Envelope. Anything you put in there cost $7.55 to ship anywhere in the USA (including HI AK). If the candles weigh more than 1 pound this is my option. I usually use my own box and then put the box in the bubble envelope. Bubble Envelope is free from USPS, and PirtateShip gives you $100 of insurance. Regional Rate A and Rate B boxes are my next choice. The Rate A start at about $7.85 and co up from there. This is more of a flat weight box. So the "A" box you basically pay the 2 pound weight and the "B" box you pay the 4 pound weight to ship. The further is has to go the more you pay. This tend to be cheaper than the Flat Weight boxes. Though I just ran into a situation where is was cheaper to ship the Large Flat Rate box to Alaska than it was a Rate B box. Boxes are free from USPS and PirtateShip gives you $100 of insurance. Anything that I ship that doesn't fit in those boxes usually weighs more and needs bigger boxes I find Fedex or UPS are cheaper. Pirate ship you can just print shipping labels on plain paper and tape them to the boxes. I use a Dymo 4XL to pint shipping labels which works AWESOME. Just depends on how much you are shipping. I charge $8 flat rate shipping for my candles. I need to get over that $5-6 shipping cost PLUS time and Materials (Boxes, tape, labels, bubble wrap) hump when someone orders 1. After that there is enough profit in each candle to cover any extra costs for larger orders. Generally I get my boxes on ebay from theerb (https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=threerb) I get 6x4x4 boxes which ship USPS First Class mail, fit in the Flat rate Bubble Envelope and I can fit 2 in a RATE A , and with a little squeeze I can for 4 in a RATE B box. Hopefully this gives you some direction.

And what erks me even more is when someone buys more than 1 of an item. You pay a listing fee on each one. REALLY? You charge me for the listing fee for 3 months, who cares how many I selll in that 3 months. Atleast with amazon is it s flat 15% and only when it sells. No listing fees, no credit card fees, no selling fees. Just 15% on every sale. Yes it is high, but it does not seem like they are nickeling and dimeing you.

I have a show this week. and it is suppose to about 90. I will have a much better report after this. Some will just pop out pretty easily others will require a little finagling.

I started with 464, and ended up switching to 444 for the higher melting point. Had some issues with outdoor shows.

Had them made. See I am getting to my to-do list. 6 months later. UGH. This will totally help at my outdoor shows that are just dust storms.

Every site has its pro's and cons. Both as a host and for marketing. Not easy decisions, and not a 1 size fits all. I make a ton of sales on Etsy, yes their fees suck. BUT I have my own website and an Amazon Handmade and Etsy out sells bot of them. I do everything I can to drive sales directly to my site where I am just paying a credit card processing fee. I have had my own website for just over a year, I am always working on content and SEO. Every month I see my rank grow, and visits grow. It is a slow process. Facebook, Instrgram, Pintrest.

@Laura C & @TallTayl I agree with you both. I am very OCD with stuff like that. But few factors play into this. The amount of variations, time to setup, and size of my space. Add the fact that the items get moved everywhere by shoppers. Those things just make it near impossible to have a organized display. In an ideal world I would totally do it Yankee candle. Grouped by scent. I dream of that. LOL. I do have some organization by rows. Top row is liquor bottles, next is melts (alphabetized), next is tins and jars(alphabetized), then beer/soda below that. Almost more organized by price point. It is amazing how people shop/buy in my tent. Some just want a scent, some just want a particular can/bottle some want the perfect combination. There are some items and scents I have way more of cause I know what sells and what people ask for. It is very interactive tent. Touching, holding and smelling, showing their friends. Usually have some music playing. There is nothing serious about what I am selling.

@Laura C Thanks! It is totally random. Some many different bottles and scents. Never could come up with a "logical" method. There is a label on each one.