GermantownCandles

I have a few laying around that are about 3 years old that I still use every once in a while to make candles for family or myself, and they still seem to work fine for me. As for selling, I usually have moved onto a new fragrance line after a year or so, so I really have no need for the old FO other than for friends or family gifts :-)

I either have Apple Cinnamon or Pomegranate in my bathroom. I especially love pomegranate, it's such a strong and clean but not too sweet FO.

That really is a great set up... Congrats, it looks very professional. The decorations on the table give it a nice fall look, and it looks like it would be pretty easy to convert for spring time shows!

I have used Mals ecommerce - Didn't like it Agora Cart - Better features, but not real user friendly ZenCart - What I use now and I love it. It allows for real time USPS, UPS and FedEx shipping ( I use USPS ) And it has a coupon/redemption code feature that is awesome! Out of the ones I have tried, this one seems to be the best/easiest for me any way. JMHO

That's a thumbs up in my book! Good job!

I'm with ChrisR... If it doesn't blend, then out it goes! As for your chocolate fragrances, where are you getting them from? Try AtWixEnd and get their hot chocolate FO, it is AWESOME! It is definitely one of my best sellers this time of year, people love it!

Welcome to the club! There really are a lot of great people here who can give some great advice. Just remember, there is never a stupid question! We have all made mistakes, so if you ever need help, I'm sure there is usually one of us out there who knows the answer! Glad to have you here!

Day 2 was even better than day 1! I sold just as much in the first 3 hours Sunday as I did all day Saturday. And after all was said and done, I profited $237. That is after the cost of my supplies and after I subtracted my sales tax. I also gained a small wholesale account and 2 fund raisers, not to mention I had over 200 new hits on my website for the weekend and 4 orders from newly registered users! We have done many fund raisers and as for expanding into wholesale I already have 4 accounts, now 5, and all of which are private label accounts so there is no real conflict of interest. None of them were present at the festival so I was able to sell my candles at a lower price, I wouldn't have sold so low had one of my accounts been there. As for economics, many businesses sell product at discounted prices to attract new customers in hopes of creating repeat customers, so I really don't believe there is a valid argument against lower prices, unless I was losing a lot of money. My business has been a pretty successful side venture over the last 2 1/2 years we have been in business, it is not huge but we have averaged around $10,000 in sales for 2 years now. So I feel as if I am doing something right. I am just looking for ways to promote my business, and selling cheaper at local fairs seem to a pretty good place to do it.

I use ZenCart and I use USPS to calculate real time shipping. I also have a free shipping option for the people who live in town. If a local orders, I usually can have their order delivered myself the same day or the following day.

Hobby Lobby is where I go my first supplies also, and they really aren't the greatest. Especially their fragrance oils or their fragrance chips, they seem to be pretty weak. Check out the supplier by state link at the top of this forum and see if there are any actual candle suppliers that live close to you, they will be able to give you higher quality supplies and most candle suppliers are really good at helping you out if you have any questions about their products.

We have done a couple of school fund raisers and on our very first one we offered a limo ride to lunch for the top 5 sellers. We were excited about our first fund raiser and wanted to try and get everyone motivated to sell. The limo was only like $150 for the hour so it wasn't too bad, and we did have a really good fund raiser. The next couple we decided no limo ride... and we did pretty much the same thing in sales. So, no more incentives coming from us. If you have a good product that people like, then you won't have to worry about incentives to make sales, I always let the PTO handle that from now on. You already will have a lot on your plate trying to keep up with all of the orders, so just stick with what you do best, and make candles!

Going rate seems to be around $4-$5 on jelly jars around here. My 10oz I mark up about 2.5 times. My 16oz is marked up over 3 times cost. I am feeling pretty comfortable with my margins I am making. The reason I got into candle making was I was so tired of paying so much for good candles, if I can offer a good product at a low price and still make good money, I really don't see how my prices are too low?

haha! Don't feel bad... we were all there once! Some of my first candles were terrible. My first were 8oz jelly jars and I started off adding 2-3oz of fragrance oil and couldn't figure out why they never turned out right. lol, that was a long time ago though You did come to the right place for help, if you have any more questions don't be afraid to ask, because we have all "been there done that".

I did my very first festival today and it went great! I did about $325 in sales, I'm only about $50 away from making up my cost of material, and I'm hoping for at least $150 (if not more) for tomorrow!! I took room sprays (5 scents x 7 bottles) tarts (5 scents x 20 each) and candles in 7 different scents and 3 different sizes, a 10oz 16oz and 26oz. Since I had never done a fest. before I wasn't sure how much to take. My 10oz candles for $5 flew off the shelves, I sold about half of my 16oz at $10 and only sold a couple of 26oz candles, I also only sold a couple of sprays and tarts. So I got home tonight and I made up some jelly jars and more 10 and 16oz in the most popular scents to take back tomorrow. It has been a great day! Pumpkin scents were definitely the biggest hit today, let's hope for the same tomorrow!

I'm pretty good with excel, if you have anything particular in mind just PM me and I can put something pretty simple together for you if you want. Good luck!

Paypal is not very good to use with your your website when you utilize it as a shopping cart. It's great for check out, but its shopping cart features are definitely lacking. I would look into another program to use as a shopping cart, and just use paypal for your customers to check out. An option you can do that I used when I first started my website was to create a webpage on my site that I didn't directly link to. It was sort of a "special customer" page. I would put that website address on business cards and give them away at craft fairs or to people at work. It would have my normal selection, but at a discounted price. ie.. if your website is www.yourcandles.com, then you would just make a page call www.yourcandles.com/discountspecials, or something similar and put all of your specials on that page. Just an idea though. I still reccommend an actual shopping cart though. Hope this helps! If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Are you talking about the white background in the product pictures? Or the background of the website in general?

Yeah, I the $4.25 for 1/2 of oil is definitely not worth it. Saveonscents seems like the better choice, but with 3 different levels of strength I'm not sure if I will order or not. A 1lb bottle ranges from $21-$42, I don't want to buy a weaker scented bottle for $21 but $29 and $42 seems too much, IMO.

No, I appreciate it.. I wanted all the feedback that I could get! Thanks for your input!

I know it sounds a little odd, but I'm doing a festival in about a month and it is the Pretzel Festival. So I was wondering if anyone has ever seen a pretzel fragrance oil? I think it would be kinda neat to have one for the festival. Thanks everyone!

Ok, I changed my font size on the main page, cropped my product images to 300x300 ( hopefully that resolution is good for everyone) and I added my fragrance list as a drop down option to all of my products! What do you think now??

Now if I change the size based on percentage, that would change my font size according the the resolution the customer is using, correct? So that no matter what browser or resolution you use, everyone would see it the same?

ladysj - I PM'd you back. If you need anything else just let me know! Thanks for all the feedback, you guys are great!

Thanks so much for all of your help! I really do appreciate it. Today, I am going to up the font size, and crop my pictures and change them to a smaller resolution. As for the prices, based off of most candle stores around here where I live, they are only $1-2 cheaper than most. Also, I price my candles at about 3x my cost, so I still have a great profit margin. How much do you guys mark up your prices? I know some say 4x cost, but that just seems a little high to me. Thanks again everyone!

I haven't set up my fragrance options yet, but I should have them on soon. As for the font, I also thought it was a little small, so I will go ahead and increase the size. Also, what is it about the size that is wrong? Are the pics to small, too big? I use mozilla firefox and the larger image looks fine to me. Thank you all for your feedback!