EccoLights

As always you guys/gals come to the rescue!!! OK so the wine / cheese thing is in the plans as well We do have a few local winery's and I hadn't even thought of talking with them!! The laws here are weird and from what I was told, for us to have a "wine tasting / gallery showing" we would need a license if it is open to the public. So I thought of just doing a private showing and announce it only to our FB followers. Now the winery tho, getting them involved I think the legality of it would fall onto them and not us I'll be checking into that one very soon and thanks for the idea!!! The church bulletin part is just genius! I'll be headed down that way tomorrow to talk with the pastors and see what we can work out Sidewalk sign is getting ordered either tonight or tomorrow, so that will get that going. Also talked to the local paper here and can get a decent ad in their coupon section for about $100/month. Not bad to reach 46k people! And that $100/month covers 4 - 5 papers each month OK, so again, you all are just awesome! Thanks for the ideas and I'll be sure to implement them all very soon If you got any other ideas feel free to throw them out here

Thanks Silver! I do use CL quite often and did at the market we were at too. I like the ** idea tho and will use that as well Also going to get with the local schools and work out the details of doing a few fund raisers for them too. Now to figure out what to do with the churches... In this mile strip of road there are 4 of them, so surely need to promote to them somehow Thanks again everyone for your thoughts and advice. I'm always open to more ideas

Thanks David for the advice. We have built up a good following over the years at that market and many have already came over to the new place I'm thinking of doing a community cook out or something to get the "locals" in the door, or at least in our parking lot Tho I think that would be better suited for the spring/summer months.

Thanks for the good luck It's an adventure and we opened up this past Friday. So far so good but always looking for something I don't do already

So after 3 years inside a local market we took the leap of faith and got our very own store! It's not big, just over 300sq ft, but for a retail spot (sadly production is still done at home)... it works for us. So just wondering from others that might have a brick and mortar shop or may have worked in some, what ideas would you have to draw the local community in? We are going to run some ads in the local paper as well as the local school paper too. Aside from that a ton of online promoting of course, banners are hung and 8' wide, so very visible. I have a good friend that will even dress up in a Tweety Bird costume and run up and down the road A little about the city we are in, it's Akron, Ohio. So around 300k population, the area we are in are mostly 30s-70s, mid-high income levels and many churches around. So any advice, thoughts, ideas, events, etc you would like to share... I'm all ears TIA!

Well I remember back in the day when we would pour them in the clamshells, pull them out and bag them for $2.00, then we moved to $2.50 a bag... Then got tired of the bag and went strictly clamshells for $2.75. Now for the past 6 - 9 months we retail at $3.00 and wholesale at $1.50. Been thinking of raising it up to $3.25 or $3.50 and do as many said, 3 for $x. We just opened a retail store so the increase would be justified... I just hate raising prices tho... Oh I should mention that run with the 2x wholesale, 3x or 4x for retail price plan tho...

About a month ago I had to bring this up to NG and they made it right as well. As the OP stated, not all of them but an occasional leaker... just enough to annoy the **** out of me... Good to know Impact stands behind their products too, I'm about to order from them next week Thanks for letting us all know!

So are you wholesaling the candles to the store? (I think that's how I read this). If so, then she would not pay sales tax to you, but would charge her customers tax when they buy from her. Do also get a vendors number or license number (depending on your state of course) just in case Uncle Sam comes asking you questions. Hope things get better for you and yours! Rob

I have to agree with everyone in this thread but do have one more variable to add.... Who says the are getting X amount of time out of who's tarts??? Only reason I mention this is I have seen in some of the wonderful FB groups and other groups, the same folks rave and do dances over some vendors tarts saying the last eons... but little do we know... some of those "ravers" are being supplied with deals/freebies to rave for those vendors.... Just an observation and hope it doesn't offend anyone...

Some helpful links, tips, etc: GoDaddy hosting: http://www.godaddy.com/hosting/web-hosting.aspx?ci=76393 All you need to run a site (unless your Groupon, Amazon, Ebay or get a TON of traffic to your site, and a TON I mean thousands - ten's of thousands a DAY is the Economy Hosting. Do NOT get the Windows hosting tho... Linux is the way to go with hosting to keep your site running fast! Cost: $4.99 - $5.99/month - you can even use some coupons to get this even lower. ***Note on hosting: You DO NOT have to use GoDaddy, I just mention & recommend them since they are one of the most "known". By all means tho, shop around and get what works for you. HostGator is another good one too. As for the shopping carts to use: Again, this is all personal prefference.... ZenCart: http://www.zen-cart.com =Free unless you buy a premium template or other add-ons (which really are not needed unless you need something special) OpenCart: http://www.opencart.com/ =Same deal, Free but you can upgrade if needed to other add-ons, etc. NopCommerce: http://www.nopcommerce.com/default.aspx =Not as well supported as say ZenCart is, but it shows lots of promise down the road. And yes, it's FREE. Another reason I mentioned GoDaddy before, is once you have your hosting set up, ZenCart can be installed with a click of a button... All you do from there is fill in some blanks, set up your payment method, shipping and add your products.... You can go deeper into it if wanted and do some design work to the HTML/CSS coding but again, out of the box it's ready to go. I think GoDaddy also has a "one-click" install for OpenCart as well but I never did ours that way. I have used NopCommerce in the past and loved it... the only down side is it's the "new kid on the block" so the support isn't there. To answer the question about GoDaddy having a site builder... Yes they do... but no you do not need it! To me, it's a waste of money... GoDaddy even has a "cart" option, but then your paying depending on how many items are in your shop.... Back to ZenCart, you pay nothing more if you have a bizillion items... it's still FREE **DOMAIN: Yes you will need to have a domain name to host your site on... GD sells them as low as $3.99 - $12.99... or you can even get the domain elsewhere too. Just to add, I talk alot about GoDaddy here, and for me it works... 24/7 phone support and I've never been waiting to speak to someone more than 5 minutes... Well worth it IMO

Can I just say... YOU GUYS/GALS ROCK!!! I support the handmade movement as well during the holidays and all year Our site is in the signature below but here is our FB page as well: http://www.Facebook.com/EccoLightsCandles We do candles (duh) and also hand painted glassware (wine glasses, beer mugs, plates, frames, cutting boards, custom painted tart/oil warmers, etc.) We can do any design or style you can imagine Feel free to contact us here or through our site or FB with questions Can't wait to see what else other crafts others do on here too!

OBI are NOT Made in the USA... China baby... That's where all our stuff comes from anymore... :/ Double thinking here but OBI did run a "line" of warmers a while ago (the 2-1's) that were painted by an artist... now were they made or even painted in the USA... that's another question in it's own... Best bet is to find a local artist or ceramic person... glass blower, etc and approach them about making them for you, but then your dealing with wiring them for the bulb and I would think that is a risk all it's own too... Bottom line is, $3.50 from China... is sadly the best bet... Or heck, import them yourself from China and pay around $1 - $1.50 + customs, shipping, etc... Like OBI does.

Well right off I will say I didn't read all these links simply due to I know flash websites. While yes, they do give you some control over the SEO aspect of things (such as Title, Meta Description, Meta Keywords), SEO is so much more than that now a-days. When looking at "on-page SEO" work in flash, it's just simply not seen by the crawlers (i.e. search engines). To show you this, go to your Wix site and right click on the page (usually to the right or very left to get the page and not the flash part) and select "view page source". See all that coding in there... That is what the search engines see when "crawling" your site. With flash you text on each page doesn't show up because of coding (i.e. Flash). Now this is not to mention that being a "free" service, your website is bundled into a larger server that hosts hundreds, if not thousands of other websites. Now say a few of those are "bad" sites (i.e. spamware, viruses, flagged for inapp. content), your site being hosting with them will take a hit too on the SEO side of things... I know this is getting deep but I myself used Wix in the past, then went to Weebly and then went to our own site hosted with GoDaddy (less than $5/month... ok so now we are at $8/month but we are hosting 5 different websites). So just trying to save someone a bit of time, frustration and in the long run... money. Feel free to PM with any specific questions or post here... I'm always willing to help others *PS: The Firefox, IE, Chrome thing... I've looked in each of them (all updated as of yesterday) and everything looks fine on my end.

Yup, What Beth said.

First off I have to say you have done a great job with your site! I like the colors and flow of everything so kudos to you!! With that said tho, Wix sucks on an SEO standpoint... With it being a "flash" website, it has no SEO value what so ever... Personally if going with "free", go with either Weebly or shell out the (less than) $5 bucks a month to get basic hosting and use Wordpress or ZenCart or OpenCart... Much more functional then any free site... Just my $0.02

Sadly I have looked into manufacturing them in the states here and there is no way in H#__ that we can compete with China on this one.... OBI sells the clear warmers (when bought by the case) for $3.50/each... Cost to get all the parts here is over $8+ then add in time to manufacture so your around $10-$12... The poly-resin ones are even worse! Good luck hunting!

I think your numbers sound good rose and I won't even tell you how many we carry now LOL

While we don't have this model I cannot say enough how much more speedy it is having one of the large melters We got a direct heat (100lbs) melter off of another candle company that closed shop a while back but still use our little turkey fryer from time to time

Thank you both for your thoughts! It does mean alot to us I know it's only 2 of you so far but already you got me thinking about this change AGAIN! LOL

As the title states, after 3 years with Ecco Lights we finally did a new logo What do you gals/guys think?

We have toyed with this as well and found that they both sell. The trend I noticed is the "YC" customers tend to go for the singles and the "Sent---, PL, WalMart" shoppers go for the clamshells. If that makes any sense

Oh the great debate on how to set up your website... Been there and done that about 4 times now (don't ask!). So we have had it where we had a page for our products with a drop down to select the scent. It worked and on the back end was by far the easiest to set up. Since then we have redone the site to have each scent/product on it's own page and find it to work much better. To make things simple for those that want simple, we added a "quick order" page with the classic drop down menu. Sadly, most seem to order from that page but will research on the other pages. Now to get a bit deeper here, having each scent/product on its own page does work wonders on an SEO aspect It's a TON of work but totally worth it Best of luck and happy typing LOL

First off might I say, nice candles Now for pricing, as the 2 above said: 2x = wholesale 3x = retail (is the general rule) But, with that said, your market should also dictate what you can get or offer your products for. If you live in a small town where your the only candler (aside from "big store" brands that cost more), then you might be able to get $15.00+ for your jar. Now if you are like us in an area where there might be a candler every 5 - 10 miles, then you might need to adjust your prices a little lower to compete. One hard lesson learned early on with our company was under pricing what we do. Yes, we got our 3x cost for our product (saying tarts for the moment here), but others were charging $4+ per pack when ours were only $2.50. Now-a-days we adjusted a bit to an even $3 but it's still not the cheapest (i.e. Wal-Marts brand) and were not the most expensive either. Boy this so wasn't supposed to be this long but hope it helps some

Oh how we all change over time. In the beginning I used to spill the beans on everything and be Mr. Helpful... well that time has passed and I understand why some on this board (and others) get the attitude / snarkyness with some people. It's work to do what we all do and to just give that info out... Hell no! Not anymore! Just like the bags mentioned (or foil too) in the OP. When you think about the time spent in finding some of our supplies in this industry at a decent price and a reliable supplier.. I know I have spend hours upon hours researching for the most minor things and ta hell if I'm just giving that up anymore... Maybe the wax or the FO's have gotten to my head over the past year and I'm infected with a FO bug or something but this just isn't happening anymore... Hope you recommended WSP (I LOL'd at that comment as well) and told them to FIND THEM YOUR DAMN SELF! =) <--- Notice, I still said it with a smile tho LOL

It's been like this for as long as I can remember... which isn't very long in my old age I know I'm not holding my breath for any updates. Heck, I remember how long it took them to fix the search... oh yeah, it still doesn't work right...