David Fields

We are blessed. Our business is doing very well. We don't look at day to day sales but look at where we are compared to last year. So, far June is 12% up. May was 4% down, April was 17% up. May was the first down month we have ever had. We have an in-line store in a mall and have a lot of wholesale accounts. We pay very close attention to what sells, and what does not and devote shelf space to good sellers. We discount and remove slow sellers. We also go to Dallas Market twice a year to see where trends are going and adapt. We have found that we have to be proactive and light on our feet. One interesting note...cash sales are way up; seems cc purchases are slowing.

We have two 65 lb direct heat melters from CES. Love them!!! One is I think 10 years old and the other is 12, i think. Never have problems with them. We use them six days a weem. We looked at the type of melter you are considering about 3 years ago. As I remember, we decided against it because cleaning was a bitch. You have to basically empty the melter each time you use it because of the waste. That's a lot of jars. And, unless you have the ability to sell hundreds and hundreds of jars a week, it's not cost-effective. So, we stuck with the five pounds/batch method. HTH

Dana, just read your story. Wow. My heart goes out to you. Sounds like this dude is a very poor business man. 80K/month revenue in the carpet business, and he can't make it? That's a million/yr. Before branching out, he should have had deeper pockets. From our personal viewpoint... small towns are tough. We had a candle store in a small town for 3 yrs...rough. Opened up another in a larger town and hour a way; this was a sucess, so we moved there. Seven years ago. Have you considered this? We get customers from the first town who drive here (and pay more). Shake off this guy and woman (can't call her a lady); remember what the Bible says .... Vengeance is mine says the Lord. Trust in that and get on with your life and business. Good candles will always bring customers back; lousy attitudes and poor products drive the customers away.

My two cents worth. We do lots of wholesale. Treat your wholesale customers just like the companies you buy wholesale from treat you; it's just business. If they like your products, they buy at your terms and prices. We have found that the smaller the customer, the more problems for you. Ordering below your minimums. Ordering today and wanting the products today. Special deals for them. Free delivery. Different colors. Terms, even though you have stated your terms as COD. Just stick to your guns. Small wholesale customers ususally order only once. Again, treat prospective wholesale customers just like you are treated by your suppliers. HTH

We do tons of business with them....love all their oils...

IGI. Bad word for us, Janet. Long ago they contacted us to use them. No minimums, lower prices. So, we switched to them. Then the next year they went to pallet orders only with a minimum of one pallet. Next year, minimum of three pallets per order. The next year they stopped taking orders from small guys and gave us the closest distributor in our area; IGI said the prices would be "about the same". Also, if we still wanted to order from them, we could with a new minimum of, as I recall, a trailer load. We don't have that kind of room, so forget it. We contacted our distributor and found that 1) they didn't carry all of the waxes we used, 2) the price was considerably higher, and 3) we couldn't get pallet loads unlesss we prepaid; then they would add our prepaid order to their next order from IGI. As you know changing waxes is a bear; we found a new distributor further away who was just getting started and would keep the wax we used on hand. That has been a blessing! And has been for two or three years. So, IGI is still a bad word around here. In talking with them early on I found they had the same problems we and everyone else has: small orders take up almost as much time to process as big orders do. I just feel that IGI could have handles the customer service end a little better. Just my rant. sorry.....

We have the same problems. More so shipping out than shipping in, though. Whomever we order from we spend more time on shipping than we do on the order. Volume discounts. Which shippers are available. etc. Larger companies have contracts with shippers to get lower shipping rates. We always ask about that. For instance: I recently ordered a pallet of wax from one supplier at a slightly higher price/case because the shipping was $112; the other company I was dealing with charged $270 (as I remember). We all have to pay a lot more attention to shipping than we use to. On shipping out, I sent out three 50 lb boxes yesterday to a customer at a cost to them of $90 (UPS). I hate it, but we have no choice; we don't have the outgoing volume to get lower rates from UPS or freight companies (and believe me, palletizing the order yesterday and letting a freight company pick it up would have been heaven).

I've restarted this msg several times. So, here goes my two-cents worth. First, we have been pouring candles for 15 years and have a very successful business. I seriously doubt that many chandlers produce their products the same way. We actually use weight and volume. So, don't get hung up over anything you see in the posts. What works for one person may not work for you - at all, and may totally confuse you. Just test, test, test, until you get a candle you like. FO's are VERY different and behave differently. A great candle is a perfect blend of wax, wick, FO and container. Try to make mistakes to gain understanding of the delicate relationship between all of the components in a candle. Try all of the wicks to see which ones you like. Keep notes of your trials, and again, test, test, test. Oh, and don't sweat the small stuff like wet spots and such. They don't matter. HTH

I hate getting in a hurry and messing up. Like putting the wrong FO in a pot of wax; or, while wicking, not sure which wick I,m using; or, not remembering if I put the additives in a pot. Oh, wait. maybe those are signs of getting older? I can't remember.

Guess I'll weigh in on this thread. We have an in-line store in a mall; this is our fifth year. After the first year, it has been the best thing we have ever done. Doing very, very well. The first year almost sunk us. Now, we can't make our products fast enough. My advice. Put it all down on paper. Rent, labor, CoG, Credit Card machine cost, cc processing costs, telephone, display equipment, initial stock. Now, what is your profit margin? Add that in to see how much you have to sell each month to break even. Can you make that much product? Oh, signage. You will need a nice sign. $3-5K. General liability insurance policy is required by malls. Another cost. Without borrowing, is this really feasible? We see businesses come and go all of the time. Lots of people open in Oct or Nov. Many close after one or two weeks. Be prepared to completely change everylthing to get sales. Lots of people have come in to talk to us and ask for advice. Actually, none of them could be talked out of it. Some have made it fine. Most don't. Bottom line. good luck, No one could have talked us out of it. Glad they didn't. Best thing that has happened to our business. Oh, we are retired, so that helps A LOT. And we are blessed. pm us for advice

Mind sharing where you got those cute Stickem's?? Joyce

Where on EARTH did you get those Cute stickem's on the Candles??

First, there is a big, big difference between product liability ins and liability ins. Every business needs liability insurance, plus, it is required at lots of places where you sell your stuff. Very few businesses need or have product liability insurance. It insures you against liability that results from the contents of the product you sell, not slips, falls, etc. Insurance underwriters will literally check every ingredient in your product before they will write you a product liability insurance policy. So, ill bet you only need a simple liability policy HTH

We dont use pumps. we simply pull out the spout that comes with them and pour into smaller, more manageable containers (1-4 pound). Works best for us. We have 40-50 of the 25-35 pound tubs. Considered using pumps, but this works best for us.

Im a retired Postal manager; so, thought I'd throw in some thoughts. The mail service is slower nowdays and will get worse. Same problem most businesses have. Money. By law, the Postal Service cannot have a profit or a loss. When they have losses, they generally raise rates, knowing that rate incrases decreases business. They also look for other ways to cut costs, like eliminating Saturday delivery. Oh, I don't remember the exact numbers but for every penny increase in gasoline prices the Postal Service spends an extra $24,000/day, $7mil/yr. They have a fleet of 800,000 vehicles. It used to be that service was their job one; but the economics of business has killed that. Now, they have a lot more latitude at cutting costs to make ends meet. So, again, expect service to get worse overall.

I both laugh and shake my head when I read all of these posts. We have had credit card processing for 10 years and have used 6 processors in that time. We have learned A LOT over the years: 1. The credit card processing industry is UNREGULATED. They can do anything they want at any time. 2. There are only a few primary processors and lots of seconday processors who have to go through the primaries. Dont go with a secondary processor. 3. We all have people who come by or call and say they can save us money with their service and will analyze our current processor to prove it. Back to 1. above. Most will show you on paper how good they are and how much they will save you until you sign up. Reality hits later on. Most are higher. They lie. 4. The good processors will not "nickel and dime" you by subtracting their charges as they occur; they charge you at the end of the month. Plus, their statements are easy to read and understand. 5. Run if your processor does not have your funds in your account the next business day. They float for from 48 hours up to a week. 6. Run if they say you have to sign a long-term agreement with stiff penalities if you bail. We use Bank of America now. Best we have found. They batch out at 11PM each day, and the funds are in our account the next day. There is no long-term agreement; we can leave any time without penalty. We don't have any connection with them to make me say all of this. They are just the best we have found. Shop around! Oh, and there are no fees attched if we use our company debit card at least once a month. Last note, if you use gift cards (which cc processors push), you will have a big problem switching processors because the cards are not transferrabe. We made that mistake a while back, and even though we asked the bank exec if they were transferrable, he lied and said yes. (Refer back to 1. above). HTH And yes you are paying way too much for cc processing.

Complicated question: IMO...if you are dealing with fragrance mfgs, price can mean stronger oils. Their price is determined by the cost of the ingredients; usually essential oils. You can have them produce stronger scents for you (strengthening some or all of the notes in the oil), but the price will climb. They sell to distributors who rebottle and add a surcharge/profit. There, again in my opinion, is where you find big price to quality discrepancies. And some distributors cut their oils to improve their margins. So, when dealing with distributors you have to be very careful until you are satisfied with the price vs quality.

Wow, I don't know how to start answering your questions. Unfortunately, in my opinion your business is too small to really even think about retained earnings. Without going into debt, you will really need to be plowing every dollar earned back into the business. Greater profits means you can invest in other products and take advantage of buying in larger volume to get lower prices; also, you can invest in equipment that will save time. All of this is designed to increase your profitability and productive capability which hopefully will translate into greater sales. Taking profit out now will slow your growth a lot. As far as your long term goal, back into how large your sales have to be for you to quit your job and go full-time. Yearly amount you want to put into your pocket plus cost of goods sold plus expenses (really variable number here... full-time craft shows? or full-time wholesale? or a brick and mortar store? or web sales only? or a combination of these taxes, labor, insurance). Now, what's your plan to achieve this large number? HTH

As my wife posted earlier, we are not newbies and have been pouring candles for 12 years. We pour A LOT of candles and run around $18-20K a year just in scents we purchase; we use an elaborate and expensive testing regimen that has worked for us for years. Some distributors and all fragrance mfgs we don't bother testing because over time we have never had a scent that did not have great cold and hot throw. Some of these we swear be are: Peaks, Nature's Garden, Just Scents, Candle Chem, and Bitter Creek. Others we test and test. We find poor scents at times. The last time, after much discussion with the manager, he fessed up and said they did cut their scents to bring the price point down. His were exactly like Soap Supplies...good cold throw and almost no hot throw (midnotes). We post these rants to save beginning candle makers money and frustration. We had lots of that when we began and wish we had more feedback then. New candle makers don't sell enough and haven't poured enough to understand good scents from poor ones. We understand others love SoapSupplies' scents and more power to them.

Don't buy from SoapSupplies.net....BAD oils!!! Won't call you back..or even respond.... David & Joyce

Thought this was a FREE board.....I just want to Make sure this does NOT happen to someone else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Free World!

Ok.....We tried the Bendel Vanilla Bean...and it has NO throw at all??? We have been making and selling Candles for 12 years...so we are NOT new on the block....and I have to say....I purchased the Cherry Blossom, Bendel Vanilla Bean and the PearBerry...and absolutly NONE of them threw for us at all.....Just wanted to RANT!! Joyce & David

Thank you, Deb. We called AllCan, the tin mfg, that sold to Papermart, to see if they would sell to us. They said that Papermart quit buying from them,and they didn't know why. We explained what we had found out about their new Chinese source.

FYI, we've been buying 8 oz tins from Papermart for a long, long time. The tins are made in the US and are very nice. Papermart quit buying American and have been buying from China. Our last order was obviously lesser quality. The tins are very thin - almost tissue thin. The lids don't fit well. We called Papermart to complain and "someone will get back to us" - not! Oh, and the price went up at Papermart too! Chinese quality at higher prices. We buy lots of items from Papermart and are going to switch to other suppliers. Enough is enough.

We have two reed diffusers in our home with the original reeds; they are four years old. We change the scents every six months. Don't know if they will ever get clogged.