Cost of making clamshell melts

[vickilee]

Hi everyone,

I have been reading a lot of threads on clamshell pricing. I am planning to get started making them to wholesale to local shops, but am a little concerned about profit margin.

I estimated my cost (based on prices from WSJ) at about $1.20 each, and it seems many people sell at this price to shops. Are there better prices out there for supplies than WSJ?

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks so much,

Vicki

Edited July 24, 2010 by vickilee
typo

[LuminousBoutique]

hi Vicki... it really all comes down to material costs. Alot of us who wholesale buy our supplies bulk which cuts costs... taking part in some of the clamshell co-ops can cut costs too.

I get my clamshells for .25c and that includes shipping.

average clamshells hold 2.5-3oz of wax... lets assume you pay around .08c per ounce for wax, (or 1.27 per pound). That puts you at $.24c for the wax...

and assuming you are using about 1oz pp FO in your wax, and an average (this might be high or low depending on the FO and your supplier) cost per ounce of FO is 1.25.... thats putting you at about another .25c per clamshell for FO.

that works out to around .75c each..

So, add in labels, liquid or chip color, time, effort... and I would say you are into each one for much more than that.. but when you are pouring hundreds at a time, it can be worth it. Its really 100% up to supplies, availability, demand, and the local market whether or not its worth it to wholesale. Here, scentsy is king. I'm not joking when a 30 mile radius search for scentsy sellers pulls up 500+ results, and we are also the home of a candle warmer company thats well known... so here, they dont wholesale well. Thats not to say people dont buy them, they do... but local stores already have relationships with the candle warmer company. So maybe in other areas, people can do better. Here, its simply not worth it to me to wholesale melts. When I can sell a clamshell direct to a customer I will, otherwise I dont mess with them anymore.

[Judy, USMC]

hi Vicki... it really all comes down to material costs. Alot of us who wholesale buy our supplies bulk which cuts costs... taking part in some of the clamshell co-ops can cut costs too.

I also buy in bulk and ran my numbers ... my wax (75% Ecosoya PB and CB135 @ 25%) runs a little higher than other waxes and my final cost with labeling runs about 83 cents ... but I aslo use the larger clamshells that hold 3.0-3.2 oz.

Scentsy is starting to get a foothold here but most users just get their melters from them and then get their melts from me. I have two exclusive places in this town where I sell on consignment ... larger profit for me ... and the shop owners appreciate the percentage they get.

I'd say compare suppliers and don't automatically rule out ones that are a little further away. Sometimes they can be cheaper even with shipping. And seriously looking at buying in bulk to drive down your bottom-line costs.

[Candybee]

Another thing to consider is if the clamshell is the right melt in your area to wholesale. In my area its hard to sell clamshells. But tart melts sell like hotcakes. I still have clamshell tarts left over that never sold. They only way I can get them sold off is to discount them to just about cost. Even then I am still trying to sell them off whereas all the tart melts I made have all been sold.

[RichardLOZ]

Here in Aus it is costing me approximately $1.20 AUD to produce a clamshell melt of 2.5 - 3oz. Yes the costs are a little higher as where we are everything has to be shipped, and now 90% of our oils are shipped from the States.

We wholesale @ $3.50 and sell at markets @ $5.00.

We are pretty happy with that as they are much easier to do than tarts which have to be shrinkwrapped, labeled etc.

[NaturallyTru]

My business is very small scale. My cost is $1.50.

Trudi