How to proceed

[DonnaP]

Have a question for all you wax chandlers. I believe I know what the answer will be....but want to check with the experts first.

The wife and I make gel candles. I've designed forever candle to burn either a gel votive candle or a wax votive candle. The wife and I know nothing about making wax candles. She is interested in learning to make wax candles as well as the gel's she does now.

The question is...for now we need wax votive candles to give our customers a choice between gel and wax when they buy the forever candle. We have no idea how long it would take to learn to make the wax votives with the learning curve and all the testing to turn out a good wax votive product. So I'm thinking...buy the wax votives from someone who knows what they are doing and use them with our forever gel candles and then at some point in the future work on learning to make wax candles.

We are setting up a permanent candle shop at a large local craft and flea market. There is a shop there that does pretty much only tarts and votive candles. I talked to the owner about buying his wax votives to use in our gel candles or would he prefer we just send people who buy our forever gel candles to him to get the wax votives if that's what they prefer. He said he has no problem with selling his votives to us to use. They are I guess what you would call normal size votive approx...1 1/2 dia...by about 2 in.. something close to that...He sells for $1.50 ea. Does that sound like a fair price...they are colored and scented...I have discussed with him maybe a discount if I buy volume from him, nor have I tested any of his product yet...but they do look good and smell good...but I don't know about burn or scent through yet.

So I've run on enough here....how would you all proceed.

Thanks much

Bill

Jacksonville Fla

[candlesprite7]

Maybe he can give you a quantity discount. You dont want to buy them from him at Retail and then have to add that price to your candles or try to sell them for more.

[chris77]

enchanted lites sells a box of soy votives...18 per box, unscented for 6.30....18 scented for 6.84....for what it's worth!

[Scented]

Well $1.50 sounds like retail for a 2 oz votive. You might look into if he wholesales and what his minimums are, maybe buy some product and burn one to make sure it is what you want. Learning to make a paraffin votives isn't terribly difficult, except for picking the wax, but that's like anything, right?

[Everito Bandito]

I'd make my own. It may take some time to perfect them, but it shouldn't take forever. Then, I wouldn't be dependent on someone else to keep me supplied and I'd know what my votives had in them.