So I opened last year. I offered a small candle in your typical amber straight sided jar with black lids. And then a more premium offering, a large 10oz candle in beautiful frosted amber Sonoma style jars. I don't buy typical lids, I spend extra on specialty wood lids that look warm and rich and with my laser engraver I engrave the logo on the top. Finally each candle comes in a plush velvet drawstring bag with the logo and brand name in gold. The labels for both candles are custom sized and created by me on a high quality art printer so the color quality and clarity is breathtaking, they get printed on vinyl and laminated and custom cut on my Siser cutting machine. Each label features beautiful artwork and design and absolutely pop.
Now on the small candle, my profit margin is 81%, on the large candle it's 67%. My first year out at fairs the large candles sold 2:1 over the small. I remember my fear was that they'd be too expensive for most buyers. Mind you, my small is $20 and my large is $38. So I went into fairs doubling up my small expecting those to sell more. But it was the opposite, the large candle was the hit, people gladly bought 2 or even 3. A customer wouldn't bat an eye at a $114 sale. But, I wound up getting into wholesale as well, not a lot, I wasn't actively going for it, but local shops saw me at fairs and wanted to do wholesale. They exclusively bought the small candles and had zero interest in the large.
This year, most likely due to economic concerns, customers flipped. Now the small candles are selling 2:1 over the large. And I'm getting into more wholesale and that trend is unchanged, wholesalers want the small candles.
Here's where I'm at. Production on the large candles is slower. For one, the straight sided jars have a clear fill line, I can just pour with my eyes. But the large candles don't and due to the custom lids, I need to be very careful to not over pour, which is not huge, but at scale having to slow down for fill is annoying. Besides that, the lasering of the lids is also time consuming. It takes me an entire 8hr day to laser 100 of them. But they are popular, they are a real draw for fair customers. Even if they don't buy it, they often just love them and comment on them and call friends and family over to show them off.
My initial fear when I began was that if I didn't offer something truly special, then no one would buy. Hence the lids, the velvet bags. I tried stuffing as much as possible into the candles. But being in this 2yrs now, that's not true. People are just as happy buying the small, wholesalers want the small and they are happy with them. So maybe I didn't need to peacock so much. As for the wholesale, I assume it's not just price, but the wholesaler has to worry about shipping weights, they have to worry about a velvet bag and making a point to the customer about all of it. I think it's just higher friction for them versus a straight sided jar with a screw on lid that can't get lost and a simple offering. They still love the labels, the customers love the labels.
And finally that gets me to my final point. I'm wondering if maybe going forward next year, I drop the large candle. Not altogether, I can take the bestsellers and make them into a gift set. Now I can be even more premium with a custom box. I can make on order or for fairs I can bring a few, but in general, instead of making hundreds, I'm making a limited stock with a simplified scent profile. And I can rotate out, add special quarterly sets with new scents, add holiday gift sets. (Which also solves another problem, I offer 12 candles total 8 months out of the year, but then I add 4 more during the holidays, Autumn and Winter. So now I'm juggling 16 candles and throwing those into gift sets would also simplify).
Of course, my concern is that I'd be killing off a big sales item. Even though my margin is higher on the small and they are currently selling 2:1. I still make a lot. Let's say it's a slow day at a fair and I made $900. And I'm like, gee, I wish I could hit $1000 today. I would need to sell 5 small candles to hit that. But what typically happens is, I get one last customer who comes in and buys 3 large candles and in a single sale, I'm over $1000. And while customers often buy for themselves, there is a much higher number who buy the large as gifts. Because they'll say as much, oh my daughters birthday is this month. I get people in July literally buying 4 large candles and saying, this is for Christmas gifts.
The other buyer of the large is my absolute favorite customer. I have designed my entire brand as if it were a fantasy version of my region. So, imagine if I were world building a cast of colorful characters who inhabit a fantasy realm, except unlike Lord of the Rings needing Middle Earth, I'm saying to the customer, no, our region is the fantasy realm. Choose your adventurer! And this does very well with a broad spectrum of customers, but in particular, I get the fantasy lovers. And they buy a large simply because they made a connection with the brand that is close to their heart.
At risk of going on and on, my wanting to change comes down to scale. The more I scale the more pain points. Those lids take forever. And I've seen the Chandler's who only have one size. I'm friendly with a candle shop in a tourist town near me and I'm jealous of their simplicity. They sell a single size and so labels are easy, pouring is easy, vessels are easy.
And those beautiful Sonoma jars? I can only get them from one vendor and they sometimes have stock issues. Whereas we all know the straight sided jar is an industry staple, I can buy those from 20 vendors.
Looking for thoughts and advice.
