How to turn your candle making hobby into a successful business.

Perhaps by day, you're an accountant, a lawyer or a teacher. However, in the evenings and on weekends, you've begun dabbling in the craft of candlemaking.

Candlemaking has allowed you to reconnect with the left side of your brain, once again you can feel the creative juices flowing - like you haven't felt since high school! As time passes, your candlemaking hobby begins creeping into your day-to-day life, you find yourself scanning your email at work for supplier delivery updates or visiting weekends markets to see what the candles for sale look like.

At this point, you begin wondering if you could break away from your 9-5 and turn your candle making hobby into a successful candle business. The answer? of course you can! Every successful business had to start somewhere.

Amazon launched in Jeff Bezos' garage, Chanel started by selling handmade hats and Yankee Candle originated from a sixteen-year-old that used melted crayons to make candle wax! Okay - so it's possible, but where do you start?

Define your unique brand identity

Come up with a list of names for your new brand - here's a great article on coming up with a brand name.

Start to craft your brand's identity - what will your brand's values be? Will your range be cheap and cheerful or luxurious and exclusive? Will your brand be earthy and organic or modern and industrial? 

Decide what your brand will stand for and define your ideal customer? (Remember, when you talk to everybody, you talk to nobody - it's crucial to choose a niche and nail it).

You'll need to create a logo that fits nicely with the brand's identity (check out our candle business logo guide). 

You'll also need to define your brand's unique selling proposition, something that truly sets your brand apart from the rest such as the replaceable candle inserts like The Luxuriate or how Wicks & Stones uses embedded gemstones, or perhaps you pledge to donate 10% of your profits to a charity that aligns with your ideal customer.

Develop your product range

The best candle brands provide their customers with consistency and reliability. This builds trust which, over time, creates customers that evangelise or promote the brand to their friends and family.

To do this, you must define what your product range looks like, that might mean cutting back from 15 styles of glassware to just five, ensuring all packaging is the same or selecting a handful of scents your brand will be known for.

Some things to consider when developing your product range:

• Your vessels (glass, concrete, marble, metal)

• Your scents (earthy, masculine, perfume)

• Your packaging (brown craft screams earthy, matte black exudes class and luxury)

• Your wax (pure natural soy, coconut, beeswax or a paraffin blend)
  

Create visual content

Visual content creation is a vital step in turning your brand's vision into something tangible and transferable that a wider audience can consume online.

At this stage in your business, The $79.00 Kogan lightbox and an iPhone camera will probably do but if you've got an SLR even better!

The most important pieces of content to create in the early stages of your candle business is to have:

• High-quality product photography:
  each item in your range should have 3-4 different images taken from different angles for your customers to browse through online

• Lifestyle photography:
  high-quality images of your products in settings that align with your brand identity and vision

• Video content:
  video content gets twelves times as much engagement across social media than static imagery and text posts combined.

  While it's a little more effort, apps like InShot make creating video content far easier than it once was.
  

Build an online presence

Everything we do is now online (and even more so due to COVID19). We shop on our mobile devices, we connect via Zoom, we work and relax with our laptops, we even book and sometime's visit doctor's appointments through our computer.

The harsh reality is, if your business is not online - your customer's may not find you. Your online presence is also probably the first time you'll really feel like you have a business, not a hobby. 

There are two online elements which stand out as being absolutely essential when building a candle business, and they are:

• Your website: 
  Your business must have a website (once you've settled on your brand name, double-check the domain is available!). We suggest starting out with a web platform which really simple like Squarespace, Shopify or Wordpress. 

  These platforms all offer eCommerce functionality - so your customers will be able to purchase and pay directly via your new website. If you don't have the time or expertise to do it yourself, be prepared to invest $2,000 to $10,000 to create a high-quality, functional eCommerce website.
  

• Your social media presence:
  Social media is critical to engage with your audience, build a community and expand your brand. Choose which social media channels you start off on wisely, as time is a precious resource when starting a new business.

  Don't create accounts and leave them empty, this defeats the purpose. We recommend to start off with Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. 

  (Handy tip: On Instagram, aim to post 1-2 times per day, Facebook 1-2 times per fortnight and Pinterest 10-15 pins per day is the sweet spot between visibility and spam).

Set achievable goals

The mental wall of building a 'business' is often one many fear they will never overcome. Instead of using the 'B' word, perhaps shift your mindset and think of your new business as a project or something you're doing on the side to learn and up-skill, this way, you won't feel as hesitant to dive in and try things.

Set yourself small and achievable goals. Don't get wrapped up in making your first million, or being stocked in Myer just yet. 

Some goals to set:

• First candle order

• First 100 visitors to your website

• First non-friend or family candle order

• First repeat customer 

• First $1,000 made
  

Understand basic unit economics

It's important to have an understanding of your fixed and variable costs as well as profit margin and break-even points.
For a direct-to-consumer, retail candle product, you should be aiming for at least a 100% profit margin (wholesale and bulk orders will likely be less than this).

It's also going to greatly aid you to have a basic knowledge of the unit economics of your business. For example, if your average customer buys three candles from you per year, and each one sells for $40, your yearly lifetime customer value is $120.

You've calculated the cost of goods at $15 per candle, so for each customer, it's costing you $45 to make $120. If you knew these numbers intimately, you wouldn't feel bad investing in marketing as you see it as an investment rather than a cost.

Having the answers to these questions will help you grow quickly and profitably.

Start local

When creating a candle business, things will accelerate much faster if you start local. Contact some local businesses you have an existing relationship with.

Your hairdresser, your local school fete, a nearby weekend market or your favourite cafe are all places you should be reaching out to to get things moving.

The more eyeballs across your product range, the more visits to the website or your Instagram the faster momentum is going to build for your new business.

Use your network

Similarly to starting local, the ability to leverage your existing network is a vital step when creating a new business. You want to start forming strong relationships with your suppliers as well as any potential partners. Have you got a friend or family member that runs a small business or even works in a business you could connect with?

Imagine you had a friend that worked as a plumber, and every time they repaired a broken bathroom sink or toilet they left behind a beautiful, scented candle - it would be a win-win for their business and for yours!

Partnering up and utilising your network is a much faster and smarter way to grow than trying to start from scratch all on your own.

Offer a great product and unrivalled customer service

There may be other talented candlemakers or brand's with bigger advertising budgets or nicer market stalls, but nobody should be able to offer better customer service.

While business is complicated, it's also simple, have an incredible product and treat your customers with care and respect and they'll keep coming back. 

Bonus tip: Ensure your response times to questions on social media are under 20 minutes and you have a fair returns policy.

Follow up product reviews

An often overlooked, but vitally important component of growing a business is having significant social proof. Some of the largest and most successful brand's in the world rely on reviews to fuel their growth.

Take a look at brands like Koala mattresses or AirBnB - both companies regularly follow up customers for reviews post-purchase or post-holiday, sometimes offering discounts or other special deals in exchange for your review.

Yotpo is a great website plugin that helps you generate reviews automatically and places them on your product pages.

In summary

Turning the hobby you love into a business that can support you is an incredibly rewarding experience. The team at All Seasons Wax Company is here to support you on your journey, whether it be through our diverse range of high-quality waxes, candle making and business guides like this or general customer support. Consider the team at All Seasons Wax Company part of your new business' network for life!

The team at All Seasons Wax Company is dedicated to building the world’s largest, free database of candle making information. If you’re finding the content educational, informative and even a little bit fun - the best thing you can do to help us is to share our articles with your friends and family that may be interested.

Thanks again!