Help with Fall/ Holiday Scents

[Siren12]

So i have a very small booth @ an antique/ Vintage shop. I really dont need to carry a lot of inventory ( although this will be my first Holiday season selling and i actually am impressed with the constancy of my sales over the summer so i dont want to run out either, i'll probably be constantly making candles every weekend). There are so many scents!!! Of course fall is my favorite. 

I already have candles poured for CS- Blue Spruce , CS- Apples and Maple Bourbon, CS- Pumpkin souflee , and CS- Apple Harvest.  I have fear of missing out with all of the different fall scents that are available. How many do you guys tend to carry at one time for the seasonal scents?

any good suggestions/ tried and true sellers? I was thinking of doing an order from RE. 

I was thinking of Rustic Lodge, and a Pumpkin one - Im not convinced about the CS-Pumpkin Souflee - it smells alot like my cinnamon vanilla i poured (i like the sound of pumpkin cheese cake or pumpkin creme brulee )

any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. 

[Guest OldGlory]

I think it's easy to get carried away with the number of fragrances you carry. You want your space to be full, and you want to carry a variety of types of fragrances - not all bakery for example. Can you identify the type of customer you have yet? I live in the mountains of east TN, and my customers love bakery scents, like spiced apple, anything that is a pie, sugar cookie, etc. In the spring/summer they love the sweeter fruit type FOs, like mango, cherry, banana, etc. I know my customers so it's easy to cater to them. However, what sells here might not sell in Nashville, 150 miles down the road. I have a country/rustic customer, Nashville has a more sophisticated customer.

I like to offer a variety, for example - Cranberry and Spiced Cranberry, Pumpkin Pie and Spiced Pumpkin Latte, Apple Jack and Caramel Apple, Balsam Fir and Spruce and Citrus, Roasted Chestnuts and Maple Pancakes, etc. I find that if I have 2 different scents that smell a lot of cinnamon, that's usually enough, so I use that as a guide for the rest of my choices (except for the bakery items).

A good way to find out what sells in your area is to be a 'shopper'. Go to places that sell candles and ask them 'what's your best seller for the holiday season?', or ' I am trying to pick out some candles for my book club members - what do you suggest?' And ask why they suggest what they do. That can help you get a quick profile.

 

 

[Siren12]

great points Old Glory. My booth is in a shop within a larger antiques mall, the store I am in has a lot of re-purposed items or re-furnished furniture pieces. I suppose i would call it shabby chic as its not really rustic. The style of the shops vary so much that it draws also varying customers in, there are men that come in for vintage records, some vendors carry 1950's - 1970's items, others do the shabby chic items, vintage. 

This summer I sold out of my Raspberry Sangria candles, I also sold out of my Raspberry Vanilla. I sold a good amount of my bakery scents like blueberry cobbler and creme brulee, but the clean/ linen scents have not sold well at all. The Lavender and English Garden candles I had also sold well.  

(I am in Massachusetts) 

So based on the bakery scents from the summer it seems that the Apples and Maple Bourbon will probably do well.

[heartsong]

I'm not a chandler, but I do make tarts and I would highly recommend soapsupplies.net "Eggnog"  This is sooooo good that I could almost drink it!  As tarts, it really fills the room quickly. Less cinnamon and more allspice, with a really sweet buttery vanilla...in CP soap the buttery notes disappear and leaves a nice sweet vanilla spice.

[Scented]

As good as all that is ... understand that the preferences based on location may change. We go to shows all over and the only consistencies we have are no consistency. Our patchouli-laden areas are now Misbehavin' freaks. Our fruit places are now spices and florals have got gone to woods and patch ... it's dizzying for us at the moment. 

 

However ... everybody, no matter what the area ... likes the new stuff best. So Beautiful Day sold out all over throughout the summer till I decided to make it look different, but it still sells. In the fall ... I like about four new things. Rustic Lodge is a mainstay now after two seasons and Country Gift Shop ... it has found its way into our lineup year round. There are a ton of fall fragrances out there that I'm dying to try ... there have been some every year, but this year we're blending our own. True, a lot of that has to do with going crazy with must have fragrances and so I can't buy till I can make room ... and that means I have to use up more than one bottle. 

 

So one of my suggestions for just starting out goes against almost everyone else's thoughts, but here's what I've learned: 

-- Shoot to fill (be stocked) and don't limit yourself seasonally. 

-- Have enough variety, because someone will always want something you don't have ... and it's a hard lesson to learn ... you can't have everything everyone wants. I tell you that, but there's a good chance that you will think it won't happen to you. So the end line here is ... don't get lost in chasing after customer's desires and don't get lost in thinking you have to have this, that and a boat house plus a townhouse on the Riviera. 

-- In your mix, have enough of what you call the mainstays and have some fun fragrances. 

-- It's OK to have seasonals ... I never said it wasn't, but if you go for seasonal, understand you can be left with a lot of seasonal at the end of the season and trying to think of ways to rename it to fit the next season. Hope that made sense. 

-- Don't carry what everyone else carries if you can keep from doing it. So have what everyone else has and a little more that makes you more unique than the next person ... and this includes Yankee and B&BW and any other chain. This means basically don't be afraid to be a little more individual than the other guys. In this sense, don't be afraid to play around with mixes and coming up with your own variety of scents. If you stay around long enough, you will get around to doing this anyway. 

-- KEEP GREAT NOTES! This isn't just about your product, but start making notes as to what sells for you. How fast it sells and so forth. If you have various places that you end up with product you will start to see trends and then can better tailor your stuff to meet the need of the area till that need of that area decides to change. 
-- And really enjoy yourself, what you are doing and creating. 

Edited September 10, 2016 by Scented

[Moonstar]

Scented - thats excellent advise . Thank you for sharing your experience  

[Moonstar]

I have Fillmores Citrus + Spruce and its really nice  or Elements Citrus + balsam is a good one too. I ordered Pumpkin Cheesecake (RE) but 

haven't tried it out yet but it smells pretty good, OOB I don't get a lot of the graham cracker crust though maybe that will change once I put 

it in my wax. I think that Indianna Candle has one too but Im not certain. I really like her bakery scents. I bought her Lemon Ice box Cookie that

OOB i thought  it was just OK - then in wax with a cure its super duper yummy IMO Pie Crust is a good one too  

[puma52]

On 9/8/2016 at 0:57 PM, Siren12 said:

So i have a very small booth @ an antique/ Vintage shop. I really dont need to carry a lot of inventory ( although this will be my first Holiday season selling and i actually am impressed with the constancy of my sales over the summer so i dont want to run out either, i'll probably be constantly making candles every weekend). There are so many scents!!! Of course fall is my favorite. 

I already have candles poured for CS- Blue Spruce , CS- Apples and Maple Bourbon, CS- Pumpkin souflee , and CS- Apple Harvest.  I have fear of missing out with all of the different fall scents that are available. How many do you guys tend to carry at one time for the seasonal scents?

any good suggestions/ tried and true sellers? I was thinking of doing an order from RE. 

I was thinking of Rustic Lodge, and a Pumpkin one - Im not convinced about the CS-Pumpkin Souflee - it smells alot like my cinnamon vanilla i poured (i like the sound of pumpkin cheese cake or pumpkin creme brulee )

any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. 

You have some awesome scents Siren12. For ALL of the years I have been in business since 2000...at Christmas time...my all time best-seller has ALWAYS been Christmas Memories from Cajun Candles...just a delightful Christmas time scent! If you decide to purchase from them.....put a big ole bottle of their Spiced Orange and their Cinnamon (other great sellers)  in your cart too! Awesome...awesome!

[Terry]

Great advice, thank you.  I will be sure to keep it on hand for future reference for when my time comes

[Siren12]

Thanks you so much or all of the great advice! 

[Daisymay66]

On September 11, 2016 at 9:27 AM, Moonstar said:

I have Fillmores Citrus + Spruce and its really nice  or Elements Citrus + balsam is a good one too. I ordered Pumpkin Cheesecake (RE) but 

haven't tried it out yet but it smells pretty good, OOB I don't get a lot of the graham cracker crust though maybe that will change once I put 

it in my wax. I think that Indianna Candle has one too but Im not certain. I really like her bakery scents. I bought her Lemon Ice box Cookie that

OOB i thought  it was just OK - then in wax with a cure its super duper yummy IMO Pie Crust is a good one too  

You use soy, right? I get you two Moon girls mixed up  ICS definitely has a lot of great bakery scents. Aztec has a good lemon too but I think Kathy would be cheaper shipping so I'll have to try it. Her 1 oz samples are a great price and she ships super fast!  

Edited September 17, 2016 by Daisymay66

[GoldieMN]

5 hours ago, Daisymay66 said:

You use soy, right? I get you two Moon girls mixed up  

LOL  Me too, but then I'm old.  Love ya both!

Goldie

[Trappeur]

On 9/11/2016 at 0:10 PM, puma52 said:

You have some awesome scents Siren12. For ALL of the years I have been in business since 2000...at Christmas time...my all time best-seller has ALWAYS been Christmas Memories from Cajun Candles...just a delightful Christmas time scent! If you decide to purchase from them.....put a big ole bottle of their Spiced Orange and their Cinnamon (other great sellers)  in your cart too! Awesome...awesome!

Well, if you have been selling it for 16years Puma that must mean something!  You know I always get frustrated when I read descriptions of fragrances and they say they have notes, of berries, cooking spices, oranges, etc because I have ordered so many different kinds of scents like that and out of the bottle, they don't smell like much to me and I never put in wax......lol...But I believe too, that you can actually have a scent that you may not like and just the plain old name sells the darn candle.....I find that a lot!  Like Mistletoe from Candle Science.  Now I know everyone loves that scent and Candle Science has good quality scents but I just don't care for it......I really don't.  Don't know why but don't.  I offer at Christmas and all year round plenty of pines and each and everyone sells.  And I do make Mistletoe and it sells also.  The other day when I was at one of my good accounts finalizing their order she didn't have a Mistletoe.  As soon as I said that word, she said yup she wanted it and said she knows it will sell because of the name and it does.  I'm the type of person I need to smell the actual things that are in it and I lean towards something that has maybe 2 to 3 notes in it that I can distinguish, not a gazillion things in it......  Like Country Chistmas from R. Esc.  The description is a wilderness pine with cranberry.  I sniffed it and I don't smell much of the cranberry but probably will when it gets in wax and burns.  But it was a fragrance that my customer loved and I ordered it.  It's one of RE best sellers so I got it.  And too, you know what is funny?  When I read descriptions and it says it smells just like Christmas and smells like opening packages on that day.   So now, what does a Christmas package smell like??? lol, lol  It's a great play on words and to get people to order......lol  But all is good!  Still is fun!

 

Oh yeah, b/4 I got side tracked, I am going to order in a little while the spiced orange that I didn't the other day and will order Christmas Memories.  It is a beautiful name.

 

Trappeur