Teach Soap

I am new to candle making and have ordered a few kits to practice and test out the finished candles. Now, how much should I order if I wanted to start selling them? I don't want to not order enough and have to have people wait until my new supplies gets here but I also don't want to order to much and have it just sit and go to waste.

It's hard to tell without a lot of additional information that you may or may not have. What's your market like, how much will you be promoting them, and where, and how soon do you expect to see returns on that promotion, what's your competition and what sort of business do they do, what's your starting budget, how long does it take to get supplies & to restock, etc. If you have all that information, maybe someone else with a similar customer base, promotional plan, market environment, etc. could give you good numbers. Without that, the best anyone can do is broad estimates.

My suggestion would be to pick a starting quantity that's relatively high, then keep an eye on the rate you make sales at. For example, f you have 50 candles, you sell on average 2 a day, and it takes 9 days to get more supplies then 2 more to make more candles, you have two weeks before you absolutely have to order more supplies.

You should aim high. I know you don't want to have supplies sitting around, but unless they go bad, it's much better to have more than you need than to run short.

Sometimes fragrances will go to waste. I bought sample bottles to test in my wax. If they behaved and I liked the scent, then I bought a bigger bottle.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

You have quite a ways to go with testing before you'll be ready to sell anything. Pick a wax, a variety of wicks and some fragrance oils you'd like to test. You may want to start with smaller jars, maybe 10 lbs. of wax and go from there. You'll need to test every FO in your candles and you may find the same wick doesn't work for all the different FO's. I wouldn't start with more than 5 FO's till you perfect them and I would buy in at least 4 oz. quantities so you have enough for more than one test.

Before you sell anything, make sure you have your liability insurance in place. You need to cover yourself just in case there is a problem with one of your candles causing a problem.

Have fun!!

Also be aware that if you are making the candles in your home to sell, you may not be covered under your homeowner's insurance due to the fire risk.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!