Focus on These 4 Things If You Want To Make Money In Your Candle Business

Are you looking for the best way to market your small candle business? Do you wish to increase sales in your business? Below I share four key components that will help you make more sales.  Disclaimer: I’m not a marketing expert. I’m simply sharing the lessons I have learned as a small business owner. 

No. 1 Storytelling

There are several marketing strategies out there. However, storytelling is by far the best way to market your handmade candles. Now, what exactly do I mean by storytelling? Focus on selling the story behind your brand. Share the rationale and journey behind the creation of each of your handmade candles. This is what will make your brand stand out from other businesses. For example, I started my eco-conscious candle business because growing up I would get really bad headaches burning paraffin wax candles that contained toxic fragrances.. I couldn’t find anything out in the market made with sustainable and clean ingredients. For this reason, my brand is inspired by nature and we only use top of the line ingredients that are free of parabens and other harmful toxins. 

Pro-tip: My customers really love it when I share behind the scene footage of my brand. For this reason, I encourage you to start documenting your small business journey and share it across all social media. Your audience will appreciate it!

No. 2 Product Quality

The quality of your product is what is going to keep customers coming back to purchase your handmade candle over and over again. On the other hand, if someone purchases a candle from you and it didn’t provide a positive experience, the customer will not repurchase again. Most importantly, they will not refer you to their friends and family members. For this reason, my advice to you is to test your product to ensure that you are selling a good quality handmade candle that will not disappoint your customer. For example, before I launched my candle business, I spent many months testing different waxes, candle vessels, wicks, and fragrance oils. 

Pro-tip: Get honest feedback from family and friends to guide you in this process. Ask them how the candle performs? Is the cold/hot throw good? How is the melt pool? Does it start to soot and smoke? It took me many many trials and errors before I felt confident about the quality of my product. 

No. 3 The Profit Margin 

The foundation of your business is knowing how to price your products. When you are first starting your small business, you need to know the cost of goods because this will allow you to properly price your handmade products. Cost of goods refers to the total cost you pay for all the supplies you used to make one of your candles. A simple formula to help you in this process is to take the total cost to make a candle and multiply it by four plus add ten percent to get a realistic retail cost. For example, if it costs $5 to make one candle, sell your candle for $22 (5 x 4 = 20 + 10% = 22). However, if you want to calculate wholesale cost, you simply take the retail price and divide it by two. In the example above, you will divide 22 by 2 and get a total amount of 11. This means, if someone places a wholesale order, you should charge around $11 per candle. 

Pro tip: Try to purchase your materials in bulk to help you lower the cost of goods and obtain a larger profit margin. 

No. 4 Customer Service 

When you are first starting your business, it is imperative that you focus on providing excellent customer service. You can achieve this by providing your customers with an email address where they can reach you with their questions, concerns, order issues, etc. The important point here is that you need to make yourself readily available to your customers and community. Most importantly, you need to genuinely care to help your customers. 

Pro-tip: A great exercise that will help you improve your customer service is to simply think to yourself, “If I was the customer, how would I want to have the situation resolved for me”. Putting yourself in the customer’s shoes really brings clarity on how to go about resolving the issue in the most professional manner. 

In closing, if you want to increase sales in your candle business focus on: 1) sharing the story behind your brand, 2) have confidence in your product quality, 3) price your candles efficiently and effectively for a larger profit margin, and 4) put yourself in your customers shoes in order to provide excellent customer service. Implementing all these strategies will help you generate loyal customers. I hope you found this information helpful. 

-NANCY DIANNE/FOUNDER

PS We’d love to see how you style your #NANCYDIANNECANDLES. Tag us on Instagram @nancydianne_