Valien

As I'm reading and learning about all these candle scents (FO's and EO's) I'm curious - are they edible? How are they made? I'm really curious... (and no I'm not looking to eat them...just wondering. )

You talk about how they keep getting customers back. Well, I imagine most people are like my wife and I (and our family). We love candles, but we don't know that handcrafted ones are better. hehe. We're big fans of Yankee candles. They have nice scents, always burn well for us, etc. Only handmade candles we own are ones that have been given to us and one I was burning the other day had a hot throw that was incredible. It was a small candle and smelled better than any of our others when burning and it's a 4 oz candle! So to say the truth, before I stumbled on this site I had no clue what candle difference are and how to look at each one to see which is better. Most people on eBay are probably just like me. They see a good deal and buy it. Not knowing that there are nicer candles out there to smell and buy. It's like board games. I'm huge into the euro style board games (Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Caylus, Ticket to Ride, etc). Everyone that we've taught to play these new and fun games have exclaimed - "I had no idea these games existed!". It's a niche market here in the USA and most Americans are used to the mass production drivel that you find at TRU and Wally world (Monopoly, Risk, Life, etc). Just takes a little education that's all and once someone sees the light (or smells it..hehe) they'll never go back (usually). ~Allen

You are most welcome. Starting a business with a limited budget is tough. I know cause I've done it and am still doing it. If you have a passion for what you do then keep on doing it. If you are burned out then maybe take a break and step back for a bit. There are thousands of businesses that start every year. Thousands more go out of business due to many reasons. If you keep working hard, controlling your costs, keep up great customer service, etc. you'll make it. I love what I do. It's a challenge every day and one I look forward to every time I walk into my store.

Here's some ideas/thoughts from the other side of the fence (ie I'm on the retail side of things. Not in candles, but it's all the same basic principles). As a retailer (and buyer) I get inundated with calls, emails, mailings from companies wanting me to carry and sell their products. It's hard to wade through things day after day. Especially when many of the products are similar. So how do I choose to go with when looking to add something to my store? One - Friendliness of the rep I speak too. Most of the companies I deal with are a little larger so they have multiple reps. If someone is helpful, not too pushy, and willing to build a relationship that goes a long ways with me. Two - Local business. I would much rather do business with a local company than someone 10 states away. Why? I'm keeping my local economy growing and also supporting someone locally. It all networks together. Three - Chamber of Commerce - can have it's ups and downs. We've been a member for a number of years and have gotten some good leads but more importantly it reassures my customers that I'm not a fly-by-night operation. Four - Pricing/catalog. I know you mentioned about getting a catalog together but even if you have a simple pricesheet whipped up in Word along with some decent photos of your products that will go a long way. Buyers tend to look at the bottom line when it comes buying things many times. Also check out this site - www.designoutpost.com - there are a good number of freelance designers that can do pretty much anything. I've used them in the past and have had great success. Five - Samples. These go a long way. Many times my manufacturers or reps will give me samples to play with, demo, etc. That's points in my book. Six - Online ordering. I love online ordering from my manufacturers/distributors. I can order at any time, see my status, etc. Makes life nice. Anything to simplify the complexity that the retailer has will go a long way to help you gain more business. The key is to stand out. Have something unique that will vibe with the retailers. Be it local business, hand crafted, technology, customer service, etc. Keep on plugging away is what it takes. HTH some. ~Allen (who is wordy today for some reason..hehe)

Don't be too discouraged about your site. The sales will come. Our Yahoo! store site went 4 months before we had our 1st sale and it's been wonderful since then. If you have a budget to do some basic google ads or something you might want to get some out. Oh, and keep your URL on all your products/mailers/email! Gotta build that brand awareness.

Hello everyone, I'm new to this site (as of yesterday) and have yet to make my 1st candle but I have been involved in e-commerce for a number of years (as well as running a small business for the last 4 1/2 years) and I wanted to share a few ideas/tips for those of you that might be new or trying to get into the e-commerce field. Many of you already have e-commerce stores and I've visited a number of them and am pretty impressed by the quality of your sites, product selections, etc. Keep up the good work! For those of you that don't have an online presence. How do you go about getting one? What if you don't have much technical know-how? Hopefully a few of these ideas will be helpful to you aspiring business folk. General Auctions sites (like eBay, Wagglepop, Ubid, etc) Pros: * Easy barrier to entry * Huge potential marketplace * Relatively inexpensive (if you just do basic listings) Cons: * Ruthless competition - possibly hundreds of competitors there. How do you stand out? * Can be expensive if you start listing a ton of items. eBay especially will nickel and dime you to death with fees. On top of that PayPal will get you too. Established e-commerce provider (like Yahoo! stores, etc) Pros: * Established name and brand * Tons of tools and merchant help built in * Easy to jump right in and sell items * Shipping integration * Credit Card processing all seamless Cons: * Monthly fees start at $39.95 (for Yahoo! Stores) * If you are new to e-commerce the options in your store can be overwhelming to non-techies * You have to actively market your store Web 2.0 E-commerce Provider (like Shopify.info) Pros: * Low cost to enter (they have a free trial) * Extremely easy to use. You can have a sharp looking store up in 30 minutes literally. * Wonderful integration with merchant processing houses like Paypal and Google Checkout * Free marketplace listing Cons: * To get more advance features you have to pay for a higher monthly fee * You still have to market your store actively * New technology and always being upgraded (can be good or bad) This is just a quick summary of some merchant options out there. Obviously there are many more store hosting solutions, many more auction houses, etc but the ones I've listed are ones I actively use with my own e-commerce sites and business. No matter which option you pick, pick the one you are comfortable with, find other users and ask them how they like their service, visit their stores, visit their forums (if they have any), etc. Now onto merchant processing! Most of us have used PayPal (or still use) for buying stuff, selling stuff, etc. PayPal is pretty slick although their fees can get you! I changed over my one store to use only Google Checkout and have been extremely pleased with the results. For one, they have a promo till the end of 2007 (AFAIK) where there are no PROCESSING FEES at all. That's right. Free merchant processing. That's a 1-2% savings per order and really adds up. If you can integrate Google Checkout on your site I highly recommend it. If you decide to use a standard merchant house like Chase Paymentech, Authorize.net, etc you'll have to see what their fees are like. One thing you will find is that online e-commerce CC fees are a good bit higher than a retail POS processing solution. Why is that? Because of fraud. In a retail environment the customer hands you the card, you scan it, and verify the info with their ID. Online know one knows you're a dog. So payment processing companies will charge higher fees for online processing than in a retail POS environment. I have had good success with Chase Paymentech for my Yahoo! store and Google Checkout for my Shopify store. I also use Chase for my POS environment as well. Many times a processor might give you additional discounts if you have multiple stores or processing needs. That's it for now. I'll try to do another thread on what kinds of credit cards to take, search engine ideas, etc. Hope this helps some! I'm no super-expert but I have been doing e-commerce and eBay for a number of years now and just wanted to part a little wisdom to others that might be going down this path for the first time. Have a great week making and selling stuff! :smiley2: ~Allen P.S. Hopefully I caught all my grammar and typos. My wife is a writer and she'll be abhorred if she saw my long post without her proofing it! hehe