Hello everyone! Long story short, I have been making candles for about 6 years and decided to leave my full-time position as director of IT to try to take our (the wifey and I) hobby into a business. My wife is the aromatherapist in the family and I’m the cook. When we meet up she did everything under the sun from bath salts to lip balm. The only thing she didn't do was candles. I read up on it and ordered a test kit all those years ago and fell for it. I'm not sure if I’m going to get flamed for this post, but I chose to standardize in palm wax for many reason, but mainly it's hands down the most amazing and difficult wax I've worked with (and I’ve tried them all). I didn't use sites like this because I wanted to learn on my own, but now with a completed product I thought i would venture out a little bit to the candle community for some honest feedback (from the people who know). I'm a firm believer of giving back, and after this year of standardization I thought I would help those who are trying to make the same journey I have. For example to get a custom box for my candles I had to order 1500 of them to get them under $1 per box. This didn't include the plastic top which I had to make by hand with holes, cork dots, bend and ect... 1500 times 8000 cork punch holes... lol Cost me around $4k just for the boxes. (wow!) I looked around for palm wax competitors and have been amazed to find how bad they are from an appearance point of view. Anyways, I saw a nitch in it and it's been one hell of a ride. Got a box custom made for my votive sets, tested endlessly and finally got online to try to start to sell. I'm done with 2 (yes that is all I have so far....) I have my site setup to sell, Amazon, Etsy and Ebay is next. I have had 0 (yes ZERO) sales outside of friends and family from these venues. I thought I had low expectations, but obviously not enough. My next approach is the "Brick" side and deliver a package to local stores here in Orange County. I spent a lot of time making a brochure and researching my cost and wholesale cost to vendors. I should have this done next week and give that a shot. I have higher hopes for sales in this area. Ok, enough is enough. My site is www.orangecoastcandles.com. I'm not posting to try to get sales, more for connection amongst peers. My wife won't talk to me about candles or the business side of it anymore and my family still can't believe I left my 100k job to try this... sigh Something I would love to discuss is the wholesale market and how to get your products into stores. I'm and IT guy not a sales guy. I love making candles but the sales/admin side of everything is a killer. I've done some research and I see a bunch of sites that allow a manufacture (like us) to post your products at higher volume for retailers to see for $300-$700 fee + commission of ??. Well, Hello everyone this is my first post, so be gentle. But I want brutal honest opinions. ~Russell May the light of life burn within you!