SSR Candles

I have found that many people buying hand made candles don't mind at all if they are frosted, lumpy, or otherwise not "store perfect". If your product is perfect, some will even suspect that it's not really hand made. As a small business selling hand made products, your niche is the fact that you care about your product, and you care about your customers. In most cases, no matter what it looks like, your product is far superior to the others anyway. I have just learned to live with a little frosting, cracking, or lumpiness - it gives my candles character, and it in no way affects the quality or burnability of the product.

207 for a short amount of time shouldn't hurt anything, but if your plain wax has a burnt odor to it, then there's definitely a problem. A common thing I have heard and experienced is that scents will not throw right, or will smell burnt if you use too large of a wick. If I get my wicks too big, I lose almost all scent throw.

Technically, just about everyone is required to collect takes for ANY sale, online or not, in their own state. With Zen Cart, you'll need to first create a zone that is for your state only (Do this under the "Zones Definitions" section), then you'll need to specify a tax rate for that zone (under "Tax Rates"). You might also have to create a tax class for taxable goods (under "Tax Classes"), if it isn't already there. HTH!

The bottle of it I have does say that it is for both candles and b&b.

Most of the suppliers offer 10 pound bags to try things out with. Due to the shipping costs of wax, it is highly suggested to you find a local place to purchase it, or search out a supplier in your area to order from, elsewise the shipping costs will eat you alive.

The only tealight wicks I have had good luck with are the ones from CandleScience. I use the TL28's and TL31's, depending on the particular fo/color combinations. I tried quite a few other ones, and they just couldn't handle the soy wax - they behaved much as you just described, or just never got hot enough to melt more than half of the tealight in the first place. HTH

20% isn't a bad share for that kind of thing. You gotta figure that they're providing the place and the customers, so they're deserving of something. The local shop that I'm in charges me 20%, so I think it's pretty fair.

PM'd you.

I just bought a Dell 3100cn - it's not even here yet, but I'll let you know how it does after I get it up and running.

You're welcome. Glad to help.

Any MySQL database you create using the GoDaddy control panel will have those permissions by default. I have Zen Cart running on GoDaddy hosting, and everything works fine, with no customer service contacts at all. Also, GoDaddy will not offer assistance on "script" installations, which is what a shopping cart is considered. Firstly, make sure you are running "Linux" hosting, NOT Windows. This one got me for a few days until I realized that I had the wrong hosting account. If you have Windows hosting, call customer service and request a swap to Linux. It should take about 12 to 24 hours for the swap to complete, but you won't notice any difference, aside from a few directory structure changes in your FTP client. Go to your account, then hosting accounts, then open the control panel for the domain that the cart is in. Once in there, find the MySQL button under databases and click on it. Now, you'll need to create a database. Make a username that is simple, but secure - ie numbers and letters. Then make the password similarly secure. WRITE THESE DOWN! Also, note that the username you create will also become the database name. Once you have this done, leave the control panel, wait a few minutes, then log back into it. With the database setup, you will be able to get the connection strings that your Zen Cart will need. Once again, from the control panel, click on MySQL, which will bring up the list of databases, which should now have the one you made a few minutes ago. On the line for that database, under actions, click the first (leftmost) of the three icons. This will popup a java window with all the information and connections strings for that database. Copy the following information: $hostname= $username= $password= $dbname= Zen Cart will need these items for it's installation. With this done, hopefully the Zen installation routine will go smoothly. Good luck!!

The best weapon against postal worker ignorance is knowledge, in my experience. I had our local postmaster try to tell me all kinds of bull***t about what I could and couldn't ship, what each service cost, and so on. The sad part is that she really didn't know any better - the postal service has virtually no training, and the smaller offices don't even get some of the new shipping manuals and information. What to do? Go to the postal service online site (www.usps.com), and read the rules or price your shipping there. If necessary, print the relevant things and take them with you. I had to print 2 full sections of the IMM (International Mailing Manual) and literally shove them down my postmaster's throat before she shut up and realized that she was, in fact, completely wrong. Now, I price everything except for basic services online, write the price on the box, and take it in that way. At least I KNOW the prices are right that way. Also, for those that use it enough, you can order all of these wonderful Priority and Express boxes, labels, and so on FREE from the website. I never have to get boxes from my post office - actually, I have more variety and sizes here than they do. Some of the smaller offices actually can't get some sizes of boxes, which is absolutely stupid in my opinion. EDIT -> one more thing you CAN do - call the 800 number for the postal service and ask to speak to a customer service manager. They can (and will) open a complaint about your local post office. The LAST thing your local postmaster needs is this - complaints usually result in the postal inspectors coming out and going through everything, and that's a disaster. They always find things wrong, and sometimes people get fired for it. It's VERY unpleasant for the local office to have this happen. HTH!

Relax. Take a deep breath. Count to 10... you know, all those things. Little things like this are never worth getting yourself worked up over - bad for your health. Now, for the good news - the USPS refunds have always come back to me within a day or two, sometimes much faster. I've had a few bounce like that in the 3 years that I've been shipping through paypal. It always comes back, so don't worry. Relax and don't worry about little things like that. I've found that the "mis-communication" between the paypal and USPS servers is quite uncommon - happens to me a few times a year. For the people that are having issues with the window never appearing - if you have a popup blocker, it will stop these windows. Try either disabling the blocker (if you know how), allowing the site, or holding down the CTRL key when you hit the button that would make the popup window appear. Usually, holding the CTRL key tells your popup blocker that you want this window to appear. I've shipped (and gotten refunds) from both paypal and Click-n-Ship for years - all systems have a few bugs, and the internet itself doesn't help, but it usually works out just fine. This time of year, the USPS servers are going to be pretty busy, so a little more patience may be called for. HTH

Might work - might not, too. I've never tried it... Plaster is very porous, and it might tend to stick to the wax. It will also absorb wax, scent, and dyes. I work with ceramics, which uses plaster molds, and I can tell you that plaster will absorb anything that it can, and most of it never comes back out. One of these days, I'll take a old mold that I don't use anymore and pour wax in it just to see what happens, but until then, I think I'd have to say that I really don't think that plaster is a good idea for candle molds. There are a lot of silicone and urethanes out there these days that should make a decent mold that isn't going to absorb wax, dye, or scents. Most of them are fairly expensive, though. I honestly don't know where to send you to look for them either - perhaps try searching for "silicone mold making" or something like that... HTH!

Yet another Zen cart user here - there's plugins available for about everything, including live shipping calculations. It's kind of a bear to modify sometimes, but it's free and it works, so I'm not complaining.