Determining candle price: What are your rules?

[racolvin]

Just wanted to ask this question to see how others feel about this topic.

Some chandlers base their price on cold hard numbers based on cost of goods, G&A, etc, etc. Others just sort of stick their thumb in the wind and guesstimate what their market/customers will bear.

Of course the cost of raw materials to produce has to come into play for everyone, the question then becomes how much to mark them up. Some have hard rules about 2xCost for Wholesale, 4xCost for Retail, others will just say "oh, I'll mark these 8oz jelly jars up by $3 and that's fine with me".

The really interesting ones are the artists that will spend a great deal of time doing something like hand-painting their glassware, etc. How do you charge a fair price for what took you hours to paint, let alone make as a candle?

What say you folks? Any insights or comments to share? Does it make a difference to you if you make candles as a hobby for a little spare cash, or is it your full-time profession?

Personally I'm an engineer by training, so I find every penny of my costs before I start thinking about my markup - I want to be sure I'm not losing money somewhere just because I'm not factoring in all my costs of doing business. I have no illusions that my profit margins will be less on some products, more on others but until I really KNOW all my costs I would be just taking wild guesses. Somehow, somewhere, all the costs of materials, energy, labor, marketing, advertising, packaging, insurance, accountants, lawyers, gas, tires, etc, etc have to be covered. How much detail do you go into?

Discuss

[eugenia]

I make a great custom product and charge what the market will bear.

e

[HeavenScentU]

I have been doing craft shows since 1990 and have been in the candle business for 9 years. When I first started I was the only one selling candles at the craft shows I attended and was able to set my prices high and got it. As the years went by I saw more and more candle people popping up at the shows and selling candles for $5.00 which killed my profits. Now I sell my candles wholesale and do craft shows towards the end of the year. I have been lucky enough to do this full-time but I am seeing the ups and downs of the market this year especially. The past couple of years I have seen the market over-saturated with candles, but with the increasing costs of wax I am seeing more people move into other crafts like jewelry. It would be nice to see candles have a set price point across the board, but that would be difficult.