Forrest

I have an Indian Summer from Nature's Garden, but I bet yours smells better

Well everybody keeps raving about the ones I rejected, so I'm going to have to retest them, I may get to 90% before this is over.

Starting a business to feed an addition just doesn’t seem like a smart thing to do; but people do stupid things. And I have been thinking about names, but I haven’t come up with a good one yet. I won’t have much trouble getting rid of candles at Christmas, after that I may start looking for a way to sell enough to feed my addition and test the market.

I can’t remember all of them off the top of my head but the Bamboo and White Grapefruit is my favorite, not sure I’ll get good throw, but I love the scent, I want my office to smell like that. I think Caribbean and Tropical Blast were the fruit scents I liked and I really liked the Potpourri Spice. Black Raspberry & Vanilla was another good one. I need to hurry and burn through the 8oz of Vanilla Champagne so I can place my second order. I ordered a couple of designer fragrances that I rejected, I’m going to stop doing that, I never like them.

Y’all have done it to me now. It all started with Trappeur and her Vanilla Champaign forcing me against my will to order from Nature’s Garden. So I search the board and then ask for recommendations, and boy do I get recommendations. So I whittled my list down to 17 sample size and only ordered the 8oz Vanilla Champaign because I would have to place another order. Well thanks to all of you my “hit rate” went from 15% to over 60%. Now I have too many FOs on the “Nice List” and a bunch more I need to try. I just don't know what to do about this; I am going to have to make a lot of candles. This is not a hobby, it’s an obsession.

In my testing I couldn't see much difference between a CD6 and a CD8 and I think someone else on the board had the same results. Have you seen a difference.

Now if Forrest would just follow his wise advice

There is no way 46 fried pies would stay in my freezer long enough to freeze, unless I started with 60.

Beautiful, If I saw them I would buy one, except at Mercier's I would spend all my money on fried pies, it is a weakness I have. Maybe you should try a Mercier's fried apple pie scent, I bet it would sell.

You could cover the area you walk on in those interlocking squares, Amazon calls them Puzzle Exercise Mat. These have the advantage of being easy to replace. Our granddaughter’s room is covered in the ABC ones and they are nice to walk on. Or you might go down to Lowes and look at all of the peel and stick options.

I went down the candle aisle at Target yesterday, which led to this theory. People buy colored candles because it is what they are used to. All of the high end candles that I can think of don’t have color, but they aren’t seen by the candle buying public nearly as often as the candles in the big stores. To put it the simplest terms, people buy what they are used to. To take this a step further it is possible that when people see candles without color their brains link them to the high end candles and equate high end to high priced, and that is a negative trigger for them. I suspect if you did a study on people who frequently bought candles that the majority would find uncolored candles to be more visually appealing, but they would still buy colored candles even if uncolored were available at the same price.

Great market research! What containers are you using. I'm curious if it is the same for jars and tins.

The book is Contagious: why things catch on by Jonah Berger. He is a a professor at Wharton, and this is his area of expertise, but the book is an easy, and interesting read.

Great post! I try to look at these books for their applicability to candle sales, but I haven’t ever sold a candle so my experience is lacking. Perhaps having occasional sales would be a good idea for someone who is just getting started, then as they built a customer base they could switch to other forms of promotion.

The time I picked up an order at Flaming I noticed the lady in the office was counting out wicks and putting them in bags. I hadn't realized this was being done by hand. Obviously some people are better at it than others.

I just finished another audiobook about what makes things catch on. Form the standpoint of selling craft products there was particularly interesting chapter on having sales. The author referred to a study done by a major catalogue retailer where they mailed two versions of the same catalogue, except in one a group of dresser were listed as Preseason Sale. The prices for those items was the same in both catalogues but sale were 50% higher for the ones listed as preseason sale. There was a lot of information in that chapter but the gist of it was people like sales. Let’s say you have a candle that you sell for $10, why not sell it for $12.50 and put it on sale for 20% off, you would sell more of them. Another thing increases sales is limiting the quantity people can buy. So sell that $10 candle for $12.50 for 20% off with a limit of 3 per customer. Another thing that increases sales is having something available for a limited time. The McRib at McDonald's was a total failure as a regular menu item, but a huge success as a limited time item. So maybe you have some spring scents that you don’t sell in the fall, that’s a limited time. You have to be careful not to over use these strategies as people will start viewing them as the norm, think Hobby Lobby. Your big retailers always overprice their merchandise and use sales to increase volume. They only make money at Christmas, or when they have a big sale. I once went to the grocery store to buy coffee and was shocked that the price had gone up so much in a week, then I saw the BOGO sign, when I calculated it out I saved about 35% off their regular price. So that is what I got out of that book that is applicable to selling craft products to the public. There was one other thing, Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point has some good information, but a lot of it doesn’t match the research that has been done since it was written.

Thank you, I don't need any yet, but one day I might take you up on that. I was very impressed with the labels on your candles I saw in Blue Ridge. For somebody who lives in the back woods with her two pet skunks you sure know how to do "high end".

You certainly have the unique down! Just stick to the theme and you should do well.

If I go into the candle business can I hire you to design my labels? Yours are always so pretty and eye catching.

Maybe each student should be given a craft project at the beginning of the year. They should have to report on it a few times during the year and present it at the end of the year. I think it would do them a world of good to make something with their own hands.

The areas I have improved in since I got serious about candle making are attention to detail, organized documentation, and planning. All of those are important things for engineers and good things for anyone to learn. Perhaps candle making should be required for all high school students.

It certainly sounds like you are on the right track. One interesting concept from the book was that you should pick a single person and design your marketing specifically for them. In a crowded market that gives you a specific demographic that will buy from you first. Perhaps you have a friend with similar taste who would help you. This would also might keep you from doing too much. The other thing that TT's display got me thinking about is having a theme, your products might be perfect for that. Remember, you don't need to sell to everyone. It is better to own a small part of the market than to share the whole market with a lot of people.

This is what I think the author of my book was trying to say. Your product and display will draw the customers in and many will buy, but having something they can't get anywhere else keeps them from walking away. The "last chance" mentality will get people who are on the fence to make the decision to buy and it will get some people to increase the amount they purchase.

I love those names and it saves you the problem of trying to come up with a name that describe the scent when you have no idea what it smells like. After all Volcano does not smell like a volcano, but it sells.

Then according to the book I read having unique scents that aren’t available anywhere else should be the cornerstone of your marketing. So my follow up question would be do the people who buy your products know this? If not what could you do to make sure they know?