September 24, 2025 • 33 mins
#019 and Part 9 of Build A Candle Business series.
**This special series is brought to you by ToAuto Wax Melters. Our listeners will get a special deal at checkout when they use this link. **
Wholesale strategies can transform a small candle business into a thriving enterprise, creating opportunities for expanded reach and increased sales without relying solely on direct-to-consumer channels.
• Understanding the crucial difference between wholesale (selling at 50% of retail price with upfront payment) and consignment (splitting sales proceeds, typically 60-40)
• Pricing candles correctly for wholesale requires working backward from retail price, ensuring adequate profit margins when selling at half price
• Researching potential retail partners thoroughly before outreach, including their price points, aesthetic, and customer base
• Crafting effective wholesale outreach emails that focus on how your candles will benefit the retailer's business, not just product features
• Following up consistently, as over 70% of wholesale accounts come from follow-up communications
• Being strategic with samples, reserving them for high-priority potential accounts
• Creating a digital wholesale catalog that's easily accessible via link rather than attachment
• Maintaining regular communication with wholesale accounts to encourage reorders
Download our free wholesale guide at candlebusinesspro.com/wholesale101 for more detailed information on building successful wholesale relationships.
SPONSORS & DEALS
💼 View exclusive deals only for podcast listeners
***
WHEN YOU'RE READY
📬 Free Candle Business Supply List
***
CONNECT
***
SHOW LOVE
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to our series on how to build a candle
business.
Today we are going to pausefrom moving forward with the
actual business that we'rebuilding out because we have
ordered and put in the purchasesfor our vessels, our boxes and
all of that.
We have approved that.
I will actually show you herein just a moment the final
(00:21):
product, and so that is on itsway to us.
They are being manufactured andmailed to us.
We're super excited about allthat.
So today we don't have muchprogress as far as that goes,
because we have, over the lasteight weeks, we have set our
foundation.
We have decided what our nichewas, picked out, who our target
audience is, and we've createdthose customer profiles.
(00:42):
We have talked about what weneed to do on our website.
We need to talk about how we'regoing to sell our product,
whether Shopify, etsy and all ofthat.
So if you're just now tuning in, I highly recommend going back
and starting this series fromthe beginning.
You can certainly grab that inthe show notes below on this
series.
So this is week nine, and sowhile we're pausing on moving
forward with the brand itself,pausing on moving forward with
(01:07):
the brand itself, I want toshift gears and talk about
wholesale, because we willcertainly be doing wholesale
with this new brand and I thinkit's very important to share
some of the tips and tricks withwholesale.
So we get asked a lot.
We actually talk aboutwholesale probably every single
week inside of the inner circle,which is our community of other
candle business owners.
Of course, you can find outmore information at
candlebusinessprocom slash InnerCircle or you can, of course,
(01:28):
get everything in the show notesbelow.
But today I wanted to gather upsome of the most popular
questions that people ask usabout wholesale.
How did we grow our wholesale?
How do you get started in it?
So that's what we're going tocover today, but first I do want
to give a big shout out toTuato.
Tuato Wax Melters havepartnered with us on this series
of building out this new candlebusiness.
(01:49):
They've been fantastic to workwith.
We highly recommend a Tuatomelter for no matter what size
you are.
When we first started wethought that we needed to have a
massive melter.
We spent over $3,000 on ourfirst big melter when we started
doing wholesale.
In reality, you don't need todo that anymore because Tuato
now has a wax melter that holdsup to 66 pounds for less than
(02:12):
$400.
So the next comparable one onthe market starts at $1,800.
So big shout out to Tuato.
You can actually get anadditional savings at the link
below for Tuato.
It is not an affiliate link, itis just because of our
partnership with them.
They are offering an additionaldiscount for you to check out
at checkout whenever you usethat link in the show notes
below.
(02:32):
Okay, so let's dive into some ofthe main questions that people
ask us about wholesale.
I actually put together a guidefor you.
You can download that guide atcandlebusinessprocom slash
wholesale 101.
You can get this guidecompletely free that I put
together and it's going to alsohave some additional information
besides just answering thesequestions, or you can grab that
in the link below.
So the first question I havehere is what's the difference
(02:55):
between wholesale andconsignment?
So this is a great question.
A lot of times when we're firststarting out, we use those
words interchangeably, but theyare in fact very different.
Wholesale is going to be when aretailer or a boutique or any
classification of a businessbuys product from you and pays
you in full for that product ata reduced price.
(03:19):
So we're going to look atpricing here in just a moment.
But wholesale is a transactionof you are providing your
candles to a business and theyare going to pay for all of
those up front.
It is a transaction.
Consignment is when you takeyour products and you give them
to someone else to sell on yourbehalf, and really on their
(03:41):
behalf as well, and then you'regoing to split the sales as they
come in.
So there's pros and cons ofboth of those right.
Wholesale, generally priced, isgoing to be at 50%.
So we're actually kind of goinginto the second part of the
second question here in theguide.
Wholesale is going to be at 50%of retail.
So if my candle is $ dollarsretail, that's what I sell this
(04:05):
candle for.
Someone that's going towholesale this from me is not
going to want to spend more thanthirteen dollars on that,
because if they spend thirteendollars they want to make one
hundred percent profit on thatpurchase from us.
So you know, doing it atfourteen dollars, fifteen
dollars, that's not going to belucrative.
You are going to miss out ontons of opportunity.
(04:25):
Uh, people that are not goingto do it.
In fact, us in our stores, wecarry other brands.
We carry some soaps, we carrysome, you know, matches, we
carry some coffee mugs, thingslike that we always we're going
to, are going to mark up atleast a hundred percent.
That's just.
That's the standard in retail.
You purchase something you'regoing to market up 100 percent
and sell it to the public atthat.
(04:47):
So make sure that you'repricing your candles correctly.
So wholesale is generally goingto be at 50 percent.
So back to the wholesale versusconsignment.
Where a wholesale you are, asthe maker, are going to sell
this at half of what it is atretail.
When you're doing consignment,there's a little bit more lead
way and a little bit moreflexibility there.
(05:08):
Now, when we do consignment,when we first started we
actually had our candles in somedifferent locations that were
on a consignment agreement andthe split for that was for us
was always either 60-40 or 70-30, with us as the maker getting
that higher amount.
(05:28):
So on the flip side, in ourstores we do a consignment with
a couple makers.
Generally we'll start out withdoing consignment to make sure
that we can move that product,because if you are doing
wholesale as a retailer, you'retaking on a lot of risk when you
do wholesale because you'rebuying all of this product and
you're not quite sure if it'sgoing to sell in your store or
(05:51):
not.
For instance, we've purchasedsome things that I thought were
going to do fantastic when wefirst opened our store.
So I bought a bunch of thingsfrom different wholesalers and
then we couldn't move it.
We have some shirts that Ithought would sell really easy
to our local shoppers.
They didn't.
We still have some of thoseshirts.
We've not made our money backfully on those.
So that's why consignment isthe way that a lot of retailers
(06:13):
want to operate, because they'renot buying that from you up
front, but on the downsidethey're only going to get 40% or
30% of that sale once thetransaction goes through.
40% or 30% of that sale oncethe transaction goes through.
Now, with consignment, theperson selling the boutique, the
store that is selling yourcandles, they are collecting and
remitting sales tax.
So you as a candle maker, donot need to worry about sales
(06:36):
tax.
Now, of course, you do have toworry about income tax when you
file your taxes at the end ofthe year, but you're not
collecting sales tax becauseyou're not the one actually
selling that product to theconsumer.
So that is another nice thingabout doing consignment.
So if you're going to go into aconsignment agreement with a
boutique or store.
This is what I recommend.
I recommend a 60-40 split whereyou as the maker is getting 60%
(07:00):
, the store is getting 40%.
That's pretty standard.
I recommend not going into aplace where you have to pay to
have your products in there.
There are companies andbusinesses, like the Painted
Tree and others that you know in, like antique malls that have
like a ton of different vendorsin them that will say, oh sure,
you can put your products inhere.
(07:20):
It's going to cost $300 a monthor it's a hundred bucks for the
shelf or whatever it is, andthen they might take a reduced
percentage.
They might or they might noteven take a percentage.
I know, like the painted tree,I think, takes five, 10 or 15%
of your gross sales that theyring up, um, but you're also
paying that monthly fee to haveyour candles there, which means
(07:41):
you may be at a loss at the endof the month.
If you go into just a straightconsignment agreement where
you're doing like a 60-40 split,you shouldn't be paying
anything upfront and it's on thestore to help promote and sell
that product and then therefore,you both get paid.
That's pretty standard.
That's what we do inside of ourstore.
We do not require any of ourmakers to pay us anything
upfront.
I select the products that Ithink will do well.
(08:03):
They come into our store.
If they do really well, I willthen go back and go into a
wholesale agreement with themwhere they're making a little
bit less, but they are usuallyup for doing it because they're
getting their money up front.
With consignment they're onlygetting paid whenever we sell
their product.
Of course, for us we pay out ourconsignees Consignees, I
(08:23):
believe, is the right word forthat.
Consignee, I believe is theright word for that consignee.
I think so and we're going togo with that.
So we pay them out once a monthand on the first Monday of
every month I sit down and I paythem all out for all of the
sales from the previous month.
So that's.
Another downside is you're onlygetting paid probably once a
month.
Maybe some will do it every twoweeks.
It's going to be just dependenton which retailer you're in.
(08:54):
But with wholesale it is a.
You buy it at half price andyou kind of wipe your hands of
it as the maker whenever you'redoing wholesale With consignment
.
The other downside with that isthat there might be breakage.
People are never going to careabout someone else's product and
treat it as their own unless itis their own.
That's just kind of the realityof it.
If I buy a hundred of thiscandle and I put this in my
store, I'm going to make surethey stay in perfect condition,
(09:19):
that people aren't peeling thelabels, they're not picking up
the wax things that kids do,especially in the stores.
It's my product.
I am going to want to take verygood care of it.
If my candles are just sittingin, let's say, an antique mall
doing a consignment arrangement,the person working up front
that's checking people out, thereality is or to say, like at
the painted tree, if you, if youlook them up, you may know what
(09:40):
I'm referring to here right,they're not going to care as
much about the product'scondition unless they have a
vested interest in that.
So just keep that in mind.
The other thing that happens alot of times with consignment is
the store that you put yourproducts in they're going to
want to put possibly their ownpricing stickers on it.
(10:01):
That's what we do, because wehave tons of different products
in our stores now from differentpeople, so we have to put a UPC
code on all of those.
If you end up taking yourcandles back now, you've got all
these UPC stickers that you'regoing to have to remove because
the store's not going.
At least from my experience,the store's not going to go and
remove all of those labels foryou.
(10:22):
It's just not the reality of it.
So those are some of the prosand cons.
Wholesale you might make alittle bit less upfront, but you
are going to get paid upfront.
It's a transaction.
You don't owe them anythingafterwards.
If something breaks, if acustomer doesn't like it and
wants to return it to them, thatis all on them.
You have wiped your hands ofthat product and this leads into
(10:42):
that pricing that we started totalk about.
So with wholesale pricing,retailers are going to want to
spend half of retail.
So if this is a $26 candle,they're not going to want to buy
this for more than $13.
You might be able to get somethat will pay a little bit more.
But when you're looking atscale and you're wanting to go
national with your candles,you're going to have to have a
structure that the majority ofpeople are going to work off of,
(11:04):
and that's going to be 50%.
They want to get at least ahundred percent markup on that.
So that's how you have to makesure that your products are
priced.
For that, this $26 candle, wewholesale this for $13.
This costs me about $5.50 tomake this.
I do a lot of talking aboutpricing of candles.
Many people say that you needto do like a 3X or 4X on your
(11:27):
prices whenever you're pricingout your candles.
If you're thinking about doingwholesale, 3x will absolutely
not work and 4X is going to makeit really tight.
So let's work backwards here.
So this candle cost me $5 tomake.
That means if I'm only going todo like 4X, that means it's $20
is what my retail would be, andthen, working backwards off of
(11:50):
that for wholesale prices I meanwholesale would be $10.
That means I made this for $5.
I get wholesale pricing of $10.
Sure, I'm doubling my money,but my candles are worth more
than that.
My time is worth more than thatand customers are going to pay
more than $20 for this candle.
So make sure that you have yourpricing right.
This is a $26 candle, so we'reover 5X on those.
(12:11):
So when that $26 candle is now$13, it costs me $5 to make it.
I'm making $13 when I sell itwholesale per candle.
That's a pretty good margin forus that allows us to have some
overhead.
That that's a pretty goodmargin for us.
That allows us to have someoverhead.
That allows us to have staffingto help us produce scandals.
That's going to allow us to payfor the softwares of reaching
(12:32):
out and doing emails and keepingtrack of everything.
That's going to allow us to runads and that allows us to get
paid as well.
So keep that in mind, that youhave to understand your pricing,
just to the public, before youstart looking at your pricing
for wholesale.
But make sure that yourwholesale, when you work
backwards, you're still going tomake enough profit for it to be
(12:53):
sustainable for you.
So another question that we getoften is do I need a special
license to sell wholesale?
And the answer is no.
You're just selling to anotherretailer.
You're not selling to anotherretailer.
You're not selling to thepublic, but that's not changing
the way that your business isstructured.
So whether you're setting yourbusiness up as an LLC or an
(13:13):
S-corp, c-corp, any of thosethings sole proprietor,
partnership, all of that you'reselling this product to a
wholesaler.
You are not, whenever you dothat transaction, what you're
going to want to do is verifythat they have a reseller
license.
That way, you're not going tocharge them tax, and the reason
you're not going to charge themtax is because they are going to
(13:34):
be charging the customer tax.
So you have to make sure thatthey have a reseller license
which permits them to collectsales tax and then remit it to
the state.
So they're going to collectsales tax and then remit it to
the state.
So they're going to collectsales tax and they're going to
remit it to the state.
You're not charging them tax,so you're not having to do that.
You're not having to remit anyof that to the state.
So it's a little bit differentthan when you're selling
(13:55):
directly to a customer, whereyou need to collect sales tax.
So make sure that whoever you'regoing to sell these wholesale
to has that reseller license.
It'll be called a sales taxpermit, depending on your
location.
All of these IRS certificatesand documents and licenses and
permits they're all.
(14:15):
They all have different namesby state.
So usually it's a resellerpermit or excuse me a reseller
license or a sales tax permitexcuse me, a reseller license or
a sales tax permit.
As long as they have one ofthose.
That is evidence that they areset up to collect sales tax and
remit it.
So therefore you're not gonnasell themselves tax on that.
So that is it for you know.
(14:37):
Explain that you do not need tohave a special license.
So the next question that we getquite a bit is how do you reach
out to stores?
So this is our strategy.
Let me just share how we dothis, and we have a wholesale
course actually that we breakthis down and give you all kinds
of templates, emails, follow-upemails.
I give you my spreadsheet thatwe track all of our wholesale
(15:03):
accounts in.
Also, in our wholesale course,we actually do two other really
nice things, and that is we giveyou three different versions of
our of a wholesale catalog foryou to use to make your own.
So we have three differenttemplates that you can just edit
right inside of Canva.
And also, the nicest thingabout our wholesale course that
we're still currently doing is Iwill personally do a video
review of your entire catalogand your website to make sure
(15:24):
everything lines up, and so I'llcritique it and give you some
constructive feedback for you tomake some adjustments before
you start reaching out to abunch of stores and then
realizing, oh shoot, I shouldhave done it like this or I
should have done it like that,because generally, once we start
reaching out to stores, wecan't go back in a few weeks and
be like, oh hey, I kind ofmessed this up.
Can we start over again?
That's just going to kind ofshow a little bit of lack of
(15:45):
professionalism, and we want tomake sure we put our best foot
forward when we're reaching outto people.
So you can, of course, checkout our wholesale course at
Cannabisnessprocom if you wouldlike.
So how do you reach out tostores?
This is the key thing that Ithink a lot of people get wrong.
When you send an email out to apotential retailer that you
(16:07):
would love to have your productsin, the first thing you gotta
do is make sure that your pricepoint makes sense.
If I'm trying to put my candlesin a gift shop that is selling
$10 candles, my candles are $26,.
It might not line up with whotheir customers are.
They know their customers morethan anyone else, so they know
what their customers are goingto spend for things.
If you're going into, let's say, a luxury women's boutique that
(16:30):
is selling hundreds andhundreds of dollars for their
jeans or for their dresses orwhatever the clothing is.
Most likely the candles in thatstore are going to be $40, $50,
$60, $70, to start at right.
So if I have a $15 candle it'sprobably too inexpensive for
that store and if I have a $26candle it might be too expensive
(16:51):
for that general store that'sselling candles for 10 bucks.
You got to find the stores thatare going to line up with your
price point so you can do thatby just going and shopping them.
That's how we got into ourfavorite stores.
That's how, when we firststarted, just in general, we're
pricing our candles.
We went to the stores where wedreamed of our candles being in
and we looked at them all.
(17:11):
What size were they?
What was the value propositionthat they gave us?
Oh, the packaging was reallynice.
Oh, it's a soy candle or youknow whatever it is that makes
your candle relatable to thecustomer.
That's how you create value.
Right, there's got to be aspecific size.
It has to have a specificpresentation.
Your candles as a whole is aproduct that has to fit the
(17:35):
store.
We noticed that in the majorityof stores that we were putting
our can or wanting to put ourcandles into the size of candles
were between 10 and 12 ounces.
So you know, going to them witha 16 ounce candle or a, you
know, four ounce candle wouldn'tnecessarily line up with what
they already have on their shelf.
(17:55):
And then also, the price pointfor those candles in those
stores that we were shopping waslike 24 to $30.
That is what was carried in thestores that we wanted to be
into.
So when we started out, we said, okay, we need to make a candle
that's going to sell forbetween $24 and $30.
And then you need to work inreverse.
How cheap can I make thatcandle that's still going to
(18:17):
have all the value that thosecustomers want?
They want nice labeling, theywant nice packaging.
Do they want soy?
Is it a store that focuses onsustainability or being
eco-friendly?
Where are you trying to go withyour candles?
Okay, so that's for pricing.
Now, when I reach out to thestores, so we want to make sure
that our candles would be a goodfit.
(18:38):
So what I like to do, I go andcheck out their Instagram, I go
check out their Facebook, Icheck out their website.
I'm going out their Facebook, Icheck out their website.
I'm going to go and I'm goingto follow them.
I'm going to like them to seewhat are they posting about,
what makes sense to them, whatmatters to them, and when I do
my outreach email, I'm going toreference something that I've
(19:01):
seen about their store lately.
I want them to know that I'mnot just copying and pasting an
email to them, that I'm sendingexactly the same way to a
hundred different stores.
Right, we all get those emailsthat are hey, let me check out
your website.
Or I checked out your websiteand I can help you with making
it better.
Right, we get spam sales emailsall the time, so don't make
(19:23):
your email to them sound likethat.
So what I recommend in and thisis on the spreadsheet inside of
our course that we give you isI would create a spreadsheet.
It's going to be keep it very,very simple.
Have the name of the store,contact person, email, a phone
number If you are.
If it's easy to get what theirInstagram or Facebook handles
are, go out and look and seewhat they posted about lately,
(19:43):
for instance.
The example I use is you knowwe follow this like home goods
store, um here in our town thatwe wanted to get our products
into and they had just posted,um, some brand new, really like
funky colored, uh tea towels,right, um, and it was like, oh,
those are fun.
So in my email that I send tothem, I referenced that, hey, I
absolutely love those new teatowels that you got in.
I'm going to have to come andcheck those out so right away.
(20:05):
They have that connection withus that they know, oh, this is
someone that knows about ourbusiness.
They might be local in our townor they shop with us online, so
start off your email withsomething to break the ice and
connect with them Then.
Now we want to keep this short,we want to keep the email
pretty short, but let them knowabout your product.
(20:29):
But here's the thing Don't talkabout the benefits and features
of the candle itself.
Don't say, oh, this is a luxurycandle in a nice packaged box.
It is made with 100% soy waxand all clean fragrances.
Don't talk about the featuresand benefits of the candle.
Talk about why this candle isgood for their customers.
(20:52):
That is where so many peopleget lost, I think, because
they're trying to sell theirproduct like the way that you're
selling it to the public onyour website, talking about
sustainability and eco-friendlyand all clean fragrances and the
wax and all of that stuffthat's fine on your website
talking about sustainability andeco-friendly and all clean
fragrances and the wax and allof that stuff that's fine on
your website.
And when you're trying to sellto someone and you're hoping
that they actually care aboutthat when you're selling your
(21:15):
candles wholesale to a store,their number one goal is making
money.
Their number one goal is tomake money.
So in your email that you pitchto them, you need to explain to
them why your candle is goingto make them money.
That is what matters.
(21:36):
When you're doing yourwholesale outreach, don't talk
about you, don't talk about yourfamily, don't talk about how
you got into this business.
That's what we do on ourwebsite.
When we're selling to someonedirectly, we're trying to make
those connections with them, sothen they buy from us.
When you're reaching out to abusiness to do wholesale, they
don't care about you, they don'tcare about your family, they
(21:57):
don't care about all of thatstuff.
They care about products thatthey can turn around and sell
and make money because they careabout their family, right?
So that's the reality of it.
So when you send an email,start off with hey, I absolutely
love those tea towels you guysjust got in.
Those look fantastic.
I can't wait to come and checkthose out.
I want to let you know aboutGarcinia Beacon Candle Company.
(22:20):
We are based here in the US andI know your customers will
absolutely love to buy ourcandles, because Then you lead
into why.
Then you piece it togetherbecause the price point is right
, in line with what yourcustomers spend.
Or or are you going after amore of a natural store, like a
(22:45):
natural store, right, or a storethat is all about
sustainability and eco-friendly?
You can say our minimalisticpackaging, um, and
sustainability efforts wouldreally align with your customers
.
So you have to understand whotheir customer is and then talk
to them about why your productis going to line up with them.
So that's what you do to makethat connection.
(23:09):
That's what when they read thatthey're going to open up your
catalog and see what you have tooffer, because you're telling
them how they're going tocontinue to make more money by
selling products to theircustomers.
Now, one of the questions we getoften is should I send samples
to retailers?
And we have done this.
(23:30):
When we first started, we sentout, we boxed up a nice candle
and sent it out to a dozen 15stores.
One or two of those storesreached back out to us after we
followed up with them and therest of the people just got free
candles.
When you're local, it's yourlocal community.
If you want to do that, sure,totally can do that as you scale
(23:54):
.
It might not be realisticbecause when you're doing a
wholesale you're probably goingto get one out of every 15, 20
retailers possibly that you dooutreach to are going to place
an order with you.
So that's the reality of it.
So we should make sure that wehave that in check.
(24:15):
That you're probably going toget like a 5% return, right, if
I reach out to you on a Monday,I time block everything.
So like I do all my wholesaleon Mondays, right.
So on Monday night I time blockeverything.
So like I do all my wholesaleon Mondays, right.
So on Monday night I I callscrape it.
Um, so I scraped the internet.
Uh, the the information that Ineed to reach out to the stores,
right, I want to know whatstores I want to get into.
(24:36):
I all that contact information,that relatability factor, like
the tea towels.
So I do all that on Mondaynight while we're watching TV
and then, you know, having ourfamily time.
That's when I'm doing wholesale.
So I fill out my spreadsheetand the next Monday, when I have
the time block, again I'm doingmy outreach and sending out all
those emails.
So if I email 20 people, I'mhoping two or three or four
(24:57):
people will respond and of thatI'm hoping at least one.
I'm shooting for two of thosepeople to actually place an
order.
That would be 10%.
That'd be really high.
So don't get discouraged.
If you send out 10 emails andno one responds or you get one
account, like you would be doingreally well.
Okay, as you scale and go widerthan just your local town with
(25:20):
doing wholesale, it's not goingto be sustainable for you to
send out candles to every singleone of those Now, when you're
first starting and you just needto get some accounts under you.
It does so much for our psycheto like get those rolling in.
Oh yeah, like I'm actuallydoing this, like this is working
.
Now I need to fine tune myprocess.
Sure, if you want to send outsome sample products, you
absolutely can do that.
(25:41):
Just keep in mind that as yougrow, you may not need or may
not be able to do that becausenow we've I've probably emailed
over 2000 businesses.
Now we've got 150 pluswholesale accounts.
Um, and it's because I've donethis outreach.
If I would have packaged up andsent out 2000 packages, it
would have just cost a lot ofmoney.
(26:01):
It's not sustainable for ourbusiness, for our business model
.
Uh to to to do that Every time Ido outreach.
If you want to do it forspecific stores, sure, if
there's a store that you're like, oh my gosh, like I would give
up five other wholesale accountsif I can just get into this one
store, sure.
If you want to make animpression, absolutely Send them
a candle.
Make sure you're doing theemails afterwards and then
(26:21):
making sure that you're doingthe follow-ups.
I actually give the follow-ups,I actually give the follow-up
email templates.
Over 70% of the wholesaleaccounts that we receive comes
after I'm doing the follow-upemail.
So that is so crucial.
We go way deeper into thatinside of our course.
But you can't just send outemails and then just let it go.
You have to have a follow-upsequence with them.
(26:42):
We're all busy, we get emails,we put them in that folder of
like all you know to read later,and then we get too busy and
then we never get to it.
So you got to do follow-up.
So that's really really key.
So the next question that weget often is how do you get
reorders?
I, the people will say you know, I I got these wholesale
accounts and they haven'tcontacted me anymore.
(27:02):
They, they, they haven't boughtany more from me.
Well, you have to be proactive,you have to follow up with them
.
It's just showing how much youcare.
It's the same way that youwould do when you sell your
candles online to someone.
When someone buys a candle fromus online, we send it out to
them.
We have a nice little letter, athank you letter that goes in
the box with.
That's handwritten, and then ina couple of days they're going
(27:24):
to get an email from us that'sgoing to say hey, how is your
candle?
Would you like to leave us areview, right.
And then a few days later say,hey, would you like to follow us
on social media?
And then in a week from then,hey, here's a 25% discount for
you, right.
And then they go onto our emaillist that we're emailing, you
know, every couple of weeks withpromotions, new, new candle
products that are coming out,candle care tips, all of that
(27:44):
stuff.
So we're staying in contactwith them.
If someone places a wholesaleorder with you, you don't just
let three months go by and then,oh gosh, they haven't bought
from me again.
No, you should show yourappreciation up front and then,
after they receive the orderlike 48 hours later, a couple of
days later just say hey, I justwant to make sure everything
arrived, okay, that everythingyou know is to your satisfaction
(28:05):
.
You know, if there's an issue,they might bring it up to you,
but if there's not whichgenerally there's not going to
be one yeah, no, everything'sgood.
I'm excited to get these on thefloor.
Or, hey, we've already startedselling these.
Okay, perfect.
And then in two weeks follow upwith them again hey, how are
things going?
Are they selling?
You know what's the feedbackyou're getting from your
customers.
Stay in contact with them andthen make sure that every time
(28:27):
you come out with new products,you're not just sending out
emails to your email list andpost it on social media.
You're letting your wholesalersknow as well.
Hey, we just came out withwe're launching an entirely new
brand.
This might be something thatmight go over well with your
customers.
Here's some information aboutthat.
Right, you've got to make surethat you stay in contact with
them.
You can't just wait six monthsor a year and then, hey, I
(28:48):
haven't heard from you.
Did you want to buy more?
Because that's going to turnthem off, most likely.
And the last thing that I wantto cover today is what do I do
when a store doesn't respond?
If a store doesn't respond?
That's where I was talkingabout the follow-up.
You've got to do the follow-upAgain.
Over 70% of the wholesaleaccounts that we get happens
when we're following up withthem, when we're saying, hey, I
(29:11):
sent you an email last week, Ijust wanted to follow up and see
if you might be interested.
I wanted to, and then talkabout, you know, reiterate why
your candles would be afantastic fit for their
customers.
Keep these emails very, veryshort, okay.
Another tip that I would like toshare with you is don't send
your wholesale catalog to themas an attachment, because that
(29:33):
might be five, 10, 20, 30megabytes in size and people
aren't just opening upattachments that are from
strangers, okay.
So make sure that you aresending your wholesale catalog
to them in a way that they arecomfortable with.
Generally, what we like to dois we have it hidden on our
website and we go through how todo that.
(29:54):
I share that with you in moredetail inside of our wholesale
course.
But have your wholesale catalogliving out there on the
internet somewhere that nobodycan find but that you can send a
link to, can find but that youcan send a link to.
Just having a link so that theycan click on a website is going
to be much more or a higherrate of people opening it up
than having oh hey, downloadthis because they might be
(30:17):
getting it might get flagged asspam or suspicious if the file
size is too big.
We're all told don't open upfiles from people that we don't
know.
Right, so that's the same thingwith us.
If you're just sending out awholesale catalog, people might
not want to download that file.
So just keep that in mind.
Hopefully this has helped youout.
Again, in the show notes belowI have a completely free guide
for you or you can get that atour website at
(30:39):
candlebusinessprocom slashwholesale 101.
You can download that Also.
Come and hang out with usinside of Candle Business Pro.
We got a free community.
You can find again all of thoselinks and a lot more resources
for you in the show notes below,comment and let me know where
you're at in your journey withFull Sail.
Have you just started?
Have you not started quite yet?
(31:00):
Have you started?
But you're not getting a lot oftraction.
If you have specific questionsthat I can answer for you, I
would love to, so just dropthose in the comments below and
I'll get to those as soon aspossible.
Thank you so much for tuning intoday.
Have a fantastic rest of yourday.
Welcome back to our series on how to build a candle
business.
Today we are going to pausefrom moving forward with the
actual business that we'rebuilding out because we have
ordered and put in the purchasesfor our vessels, our boxes and
all of that.
We have approved that.
I will actually show you herein just a moment the final
(00:21):
product, and so that is on itsway to us.
They are being manufactured andmailed to us.
We're super excited about allthat.
So today we don't have muchprogress as far as that goes,
because we have, over the lasteight weeks, we have set our
foundation.
We have decided what our nichewas, picked out, who our target
audience is, and we've createdthose customer profiles.
(00:42):
We have talked about what weneed to do on our website.
We need to talk about how we'regoing to sell our product,
whether Shopify, etsy and all ofthat.
So if you're just now tuning in, I highly recommend going back
and starting this series fromthe beginning.
You can certainly grab that inthe show notes below on this
series.
So this is week nine, and sowhile we're pausing on moving
forward with the brand itself,pausing on moving forward with
(01:07):
the brand itself, I want toshift gears and talk about
wholesale, because we willcertainly be doing wholesale
with this new brand and I thinkit's very important to share
some of the tips and tricks withwholesale.
So we get asked a lot.
We actually talk aboutwholesale probably every single
week inside of the inner circle,which is our community of other
candle business owners.
Of course, you can find outmore information at
candlebusinessprocom slash InnerCircle or you can, of course,
(01:28):
get everything in the show notesbelow.
But today I wanted to gather upsome of the most popular
questions that people ask usabout wholesale.
How did we grow our wholesale?
How do you get started in it?
So that's what we're going tocover today, but first I do want
to give a big shout out toTuato.
Tuato Wax Melters havepartnered with us on this series
of building out this new candlebusiness.
(01:49):
They've been fantastic to workwith.
We highly recommend a Tuatomelter for no matter what size
you are.
When we first started wethought that we needed to have a
massive melter.
We spent over $3,000 on ourfirst big melter when we started
doing wholesale.
In reality, you don't need todo that anymore because Tuato
now has a wax melter that holdsup to 66 pounds for less than
(02:12):
$400.
So the next comparable one onthe market starts at $1,800.
So big shout out to Tuato.
You can actually get anadditional savings at the link
below for Tuato.
It is not an affiliate link, itis just because of our
partnership with them.
They are offering an additionaldiscount for you to check out
at checkout whenever you usethat link in the show notes
below.
(02:32):
Okay, so let's dive into some ofthe main questions that people
ask us about wholesale.
I actually put together a guidefor you.
You can download that guide atcandlebusinessprocom slash
wholesale 101.
You can get this guidecompletely free that I put
together and it's going to alsohave some additional information
besides just answering thesequestions, or you can grab that
in the link below.
So the first question I havehere is what's the difference
(02:55):
between wholesale andconsignment?
So this is a great question.
A lot of times when we're firststarting out, we use those
words interchangeably, but theyare in fact very different.
Wholesale is going to be when aretailer or a boutique or any
classification of a businessbuys product from you and pays
you in full for that product ata reduced price.
(03:19):
So we're going to look atpricing here in just a moment.
But wholesale is a transactionof you are providing your
candles to a business and theyare going to pay for all of
those up front.
It is a transaction.
Consignment is when you takeyour products and you give them
to someone else to sell on yourbehalf, and really on their
(03:41):
behalf as well, and then you'regoing to split the sales as they
come in.
So there's pros and cons ofboth of those right.
Wholesale, generally priced, isgoing to be at 50%.
So we're actually kind of goinginto the second part of the
second question here in theguide.
Wholesale is going to be at 50%of retail.
So if my candle is $ dollarsretail, that's what I sell this
(04:05):
candle for.
Someone that's going towholesale this from me is not
going to want to spend more thanthirteen dollars on that,
because if they spend thirteendollars they want to make one
hundred percent profit on thatpurchase from us.
So you know, doing it atfourteen dollars, fifteen
dollars, that's not going to belucrative.
You are going to miss out ontons of opportunity.
(04:25):
Uh, people that are not goingto do it.
In fact, us in our stores, wecarry other brands.
We carry some soaps, we carrysome, you know, matches, we
carry some coffee mugs, thingslike that we always we're going
to, are going to mark up atleast a hundred percent.
That's just.
That's the standard in retail.
You purchase something you'regoing to market up 100 percent
and sell it to the public atthat.
(04:47):
So make sure that you'repricing your candles correctly.
So wholesale is generally goingto be at 50 percent.
So back to the wholesale versusconsignment.
Where a wholesale you are, asthe maker, are going to sell
this at half of what it is atretail.
When you're doing consignment,there's a little bit more lead
way and a little bit moreflexibility there.
(05:08):
Now, when we do consignment,when we first started we
actually had our candles in somedifferent locations that were
on a consignment agreement andthe split for that was for us
was always either 60-40 or 70-30, with us as the maker getting
that higher amount.
(05:28):
So on the flip side, in ourstores we do a consignment with
a couple makers.
Generally we'll start out withdoing consignment to make sure
that we can move that product,because if you are doing
wholesale as a retailer, you'retaking on a lot of risk when you
do wholesale because you'rebuying all of this product and
you're not quite sure if it'sgoing to sell in your store or
(05:51):
not.
For instance, we've purchasedsome things that I thought were
going to do fantastic when wefirst opened our store.
So I bought a bunch of thingsfrom different wholesalers and
then we couldn't move it.
We have some shirts that Ithought would sell really easy
to our local shoppers.
They didn't.
We still have some of thoseshirts.
We've not made our money backfully on those.
So that's why consignment isthe way that a lot of retailers
(06:13):
want to operate, because they'renot buying that from you up
front, but on the downsidethey're only going to get 40% or
30% of that sale once thetransaction goes through.
40% or 30% of that sale oncethe transaction goes through.
Now, with consignment, theperson selling the boutique, the
store that is selling yourcandles, they are collecting and
remitting sales tax.
So you as a candle maker, donot need to worry about sales
(06:36):
tax.
Now, of course, you do have toworry about income tax when you
file your taxes at the end ofthe year, but you're not
collecting sales tax becauseyou're not the one actually
selling that product to theconsumer.
So that is another nice thingabout doing consignment.
So if you're going to go into aconsignment agreement with a
boutique or store.
This is what I recommend.
I recommend a 60-40 split whereyou as the maker is getting 60%
(07:00):
, the store is getting 40%.
That's pretty standard.
I recommend not going into aplace where you have to pay to
have your products in there.
There are companies andbusinesses, like the Painted
Tree and others that you know in, like antique malls that have
like a ton of different vendorsin them that will say, oh sure,
you can put your products inhere.
(07:20):
It's going to cost $300 a monthor it's a hundred bucks for the
shelf or whatever it is, andthen they might take a reduced
percentage.
They might or they might noteven take a percentage.
I know, like the painted tree,I think, takes five, 10 or 15%
of your gross sales that theyring up, um, but you're also
paying that monthly fee to haveyour candles there, which means
(07:41):
you may be at a loss at the endof the month.
If you go into just a straightconsignment agreement where
you're doing like a 60-40 split,you shouldn't be paying
anything upfront and it's on thestore to help promote and sell
that product and then therefore,you both get paid.
That's pretty standard.
That's what we do inside of ourstore.
We do not require any of ourmakers to pay us anything
upfront.
I select the products that Ithink will do well.
(08:03):
They come into our store.
If they do really well, I willthen go back and go into a
wholesale agreement with themwhere they're making a little
bit less, but they are usuallyup for doing it because they're
getting their money up front.
With consignment they're onlygetting paid whenever we sell
their product.
Of course, for us we pay out ourconsignees Consignees, I
(08:23):
believe, is the right word forthat.
Consignee, I believe is theright word for that consignee.
I think so and we're going togo with that.
So we pay them out once a monthand on the first Monday of
every month I sit down and I paythem all out for all of the
sales from the previous month.
So that's.
Another downside is you're onlygetting paid probably once a
month.
Maybe some will do it every twoweeks.
It's going to be just dependenton which retailer you're in.
(08:54):
But with wholesale it is a.
You buy it at half price andyou kind of wipe your hands of
it as the maker whenever you'redoing wholesale With consignment
.
The other downside with that isthat there might be breakage.
People are never going to careabout someone else's product and
treat it as their own unless itis their own.
That's just kind of the realityof it.
If I buy a hundred of thiscandle and I put this in my
store, I'm going to make surethey stay in perfect condition,
(09:19):
that people aren't peeling thelabels, they're not picking up
the wax things that kids do,especially in the stores.
It's my product.
I am going to want to take verygood care of it.
If my candles are just sittingin, let's say, an antique mall
doing a consignment arrangement,the person working up front
that's checking people out, thereality is or to say, like at
the painted tree, if you, if youlook them up, you may know what
(09:40):
I'm referring to here right,they're not going to care as
much about the product'scondition unless they have a
vested interest in that.
So just keep that in mind.
The other thing that happens alot of times with consignment is
the store that you put yourproducts in they're going to
want to put possibly their ownpricing stickers on it.
(10:01):
That's what we do, because wehave tons of different products
in our stores now from differentpeople, so we have to put a UPC
code on all of those.
If you end up taking yourcandles back now, you've got all
these UPC stickers that you'regoing to have to remove because
the store's not going.
At least from my experience,the store's not going to go and
remove all of those labels foryou.
(10:22):
It's just not the reality of it.
So those are some of the prosand cons.
Wholesale you might make alittle bit less upfront, but you
are going to get paid upfront.
It's a transaction.
You don't owe them anythingafterwards.
If something breaks, if acustomer doesn't like it and
wants to return it to them, thatis all on them.
You have wiped your hands ofthat product and this leads into
(10:42):
that pricing that we started totalk about.
So with wholesale pricing,retailers are going to want to
spend half of retail.
So if this is a $26 candle,they're not going to want to buy
this for more than $13.
You might be able to get somethat will pay a little bit more.
But when you're looking atscale and you're wanting to go
national with your candles,you're going to have to have a
structure that the majority ofpeople are going to work off of,
(11:04):
and that's going to be 50%.
They want to get at least ahundred percent markup on that.
So that's how you have to makesure that your products are
priced.
For that, this $26 candle, wewholesale this for $13.
This costs me about $5.50 tomake this.
I do a lot of talking aboutpricing of candles.
Many people say that you needto do like a 3X or 4X on your
(11:27):
prices whenever you're pricingout your candles.
If you're thinking about doingwholesale, 3x will absolutely
not work and 4X is going to makeit really tight.
So let's work backwards here.
So this candle cost me $5 tomake.
That means if I'm only going todo like 4X, that means it's $20
is what my retail would be, andthen, working backwards off of
(11:50):
that for wholesale prices I meanwholesale would be $10.
That means I made this for $5.
I get wholesale pricing of $10.
Sure, I'm doubling my money,but my candles are worth more
than that.
My time is worth more than thatand customers are going to pay
more than $20 for this candle.
So make sure that you have yourpricing right.
This is a $26 candle, so we'reover 5X on those.
(12:11):
So when that $26 candle is now$13, it costs me $5 to make it.
I'm making $13 when I sell itwholesale per candle.
That's a pretty good margin forus that allows us to have some
overhead.
That that's a pretty goodmargin for us.
That allows us to have someoverhead.
That allows us to have staffingto help us produce scandals.
That's going to allow us to payfor the softwares of reaching
(12:32):
out and doing emails and keepingtrack of everything.
That's going to allow us to runads and that allows us to get
paid as well.
So keep that in mind, that youhave to understand your pricing,
just to the public, before youstart looking at your pricing
for wholesale.
But make sure that yourwholesale, when you work
backwards, you're still going tomake enough profit for it to be
(12:53):
sustainable for you.
So another question that we getoften is do I need a special
license to sell wholesale?
And the answer is no.
You're just selling to anotherretailer.
You're not selling to anotherretailer.
You're not selling to thepublic, but that's not changing
the way that your business isstructured.
So whether you're setting yourbusiness up as an LLC or an
(13:13):
S-corp, c-corp, any of thosethings sole proprietor,
partnership, all of that you'reselling this product to a
wholesaler.
You are not, whenever you dothat transaction, what you're
going to want to do is verifythat they have a reseller
license.
That way, you're not going tocharge them tax, and the reason
you're not going to charge themtax is because they are going to
(13:34):
be charging the customer tax.
So you have to make sure thatthey have a reseller license
which permits them to collectsales tax and then remit it to
the state.
So they're going to collectsales tax and then remit it to
the state.
So they're going to collectsales tax and they're going to
remit it to the state.
You're not charging them tax,so you're not having to do that.
You're not having to remit anyof that to the state.
So it's a little bit differentthan when you're selling
(13:55):
directly to a customer, whereyou need to collect sales tax.
So make sure that whoever you'regoing to sell these wholesale
to has that reseller license.
It'll be called a sales taxpermit, depending on your
location.
All of these IRS certificatesand documents and licenses and
permits they're all.
(14:15):
They all have different namesby state.
So usually it's a resellerpermit or excuse me a reseller
license or a sales tax permitexcuse me, a reseller license or
a sales tax permit.
As long as they have one ofthose.
That is evidence that they areset up to collect sales tax and
remit it.
So therefore you're not gonnasell themselves tax on that.
So that is it for you know.
(14:37):
Explain that you do not need tohave a special license.
So the next question that we getquite a bit is how do you reach
out to stores?
So this is our strategy.
Let me just share how we dothis, and we have a wholesale
course actually that we breakthis down and give you all kinds
of templates, emails, follow-upemails.
I give you my spreadsheet thatwe track all of our wholesale
(15:03):
accounts in.
Also, in our wholesale course,we actually do two other really
nice things, and that is we giveyou three different versions of
our of a wholesale catalog foryou to use to make your own.
So we have three differenttemplates that you can just edit
right inside of Canva.
And also, the nicest thingabout our wholesale course that
we're still currently doing is Iwill personally do a video
review of your entire catalogand your website to make sure
(15:24):
everything lines up, and so I'llcritique it and give you some
constructive feedback for you tomake some adjustments before
you start reaching out to abunch of stores and then
realizing, oh shoot, I shouldhave done it like this or I
should have done it like that,because generally, once we start
reaching out to stores, wecan't go back in a few weeks and
be like, oh hey, I kind ofmessed this up.
Can we start over again?
That's just going to kind ofshow a little bit of lack of
(15:45):
professionalism, and we want tomake sure we put our best foot
forward when we're reaching outto people.
So you can, of course, checkout our wholesale course at
Cannabisnessprocom if you wouldlike.
So how do you reach out tostores?
This is the key thing that Ithink a lot of people get wrong.
When you send an email out to apotential retailer that you
(16:07):
would love to have your productsin, the first thing you gotta
do is make sure that your pricepoint makes sense.
If I'm trying to put my candlesin a gift shop that is selling
$10 candles, my candles are $26,.
It might not line up with whotheir customers are.
They know their customers morethan anyone else, so they know
what their customers are goingto spend for things.
If you're going into, let's say, a luxury women's boutique that
(16:30):
is selling hundreds andhundreds of dollars for their
jeans or for their dresses orwhatever the clothing is.
Most likely the candles in thatstore are going to be $40, $50,
$60, $70, to start at right.
So if I have a $15 candle it'sprobably too inexpensive for
that store and if I have a $26candle it might be too expensive
(16:51):
for that general store that'sselling candles for 10 bucks.
You got to find the stores thatare going to line up with your
price point so you can do thatby just going and shopping them.
That's how we got into ourfavorite stores.
That's how, when we firststarted, just in general, we're
pricing our candles.
We went to the stores where wedreamed of our candles being in
and we looked at them all.
(17:11):
What size were they?
What was the value propositionthat they gave us?
Oh, the packaging was reallynice.
Oh, it's a soy candle or youknow whatever it is that makes
your candle relatable to thecustomer.
That's how you create value.
Right, there's got to be aspecific size.
It has to have a specificpresentation.
Your candles as a whole is aproduct that has to fit the
(17:35):
store.
We noticed that in the majorityof stores that we were putting
our can or wanting to put ourcandles into the size of candles
were between 10 and 12 ounces.
So you know, going to them witha 16 ounce candle or a, you
know, four ounce candle wouldn'tnecessarily line up with what
they already have on their shelf.
(17:55):
And then also, the price pointfor those candles in those
stores that we were shopping waslike 24 to $30.
That is what was carried in thestores that we wanted to be
into.
So when we started out, we said, okay, we need to make a candle
that's going to sell forbetween $24 and $30.
And then you need to work inreverse.
How cheap can I make thatcandle that's still going to
(18:17):
have all the value that thosecustomers want?
They want nice labeling, theywant nice packaging.
Do they want soy?
Is it a store that focuses onsustainability or being
eco-friendly?
Where are you trying to go withyour candles?
Okay, so that's for pricing.
Now, when I reach out to thestores, so we want to make sure
that our candles would be a goodfit.
(18:38):
So what I like to do, I go andcheck out their Instagram, I go
check out their Facebook, Icheck out their website.
I'm going out their Facebook, Icheck out their website.
I'm going to go and I'm goingto follow them.
I'm going to like them to seewhat are they posting about,
what makes sense to them, whatmatters to them, and when I do
my outreach email, I'm going toreference something that I've
(19:01):
seen about their store lately.
I want them to know that I'mnot just copying and pasting an
email to them, that I'm sendingexactly the same way to a
hundred different stores.
Right, we all get those emailsthat are hey, let me check out
your website.
Or I checked out your websiteand I can help you with making
it better.
Right, we get spam sales emailsall the time, so don't make
(19:23):
your email to them sound likethat.
So what I recommend in and thisis on the spreadsheet inside of
our course that we give you isI would create a spreadsheet.
It's going to be keep it very,very simple.
Have the name of the store,contact person, email, a phone
number If you are.
If it's easy to get what theirInstagram or Facebook handles
are, go out and look and seewhat they posted about lately,
(19:43):
for instance.
The example I use is you knowwe follow this like home goods
store, um here in our town thatwe wanted to get our products
into and they had just posted,um, some brand new, really like
funky colored, uh tea towels,right, um, and it was like, oh,
those are fun.
So in my email that I send tothem, I referenced that, hey, I
absolutely love those new teatowels that you got in.
I'm going to have to come andcheck those out so right away.
(20:05):
They have that connection withus that they know, oh, this is
someone that knows about ourbusiness.
They might be local in our townor they shop with us online, so
start off your email withsomething to break the ice and
connect with them Then.
Now we want to keep this short,we want to keep the email
pretty short, but let them knowabout your product.
(20:29):
But here's the thing Don't talkabout the benefits and features
of the candle itself.
Don't say, oh, this is a luxurycandle in a nice packaged box.
It is made with 100% soy waxand all clean fragrances.
Don't talk about the featuresand benefits of the candle.
Talk about why this candle isgood for their customers.
(20:52):
That is where so many peopleget lost, I think, because
they're trying to sell theirproduct like the way that you're
selling it to the public onyour website, talking about
sustainability and eco-friendlyand all clean fragrances and the
wax and all of that stuffthat's fine on your website
talking about sustainability andeco-friendly and all clean
fragrances and the wax and allof that stuff that's fine on
your website.
And when you're trying to sellto someone and you're hoping
that they actually care aboutthat when you're selling your
(21:15):
candles wholesale to a store,their number one goal is making
money.
Their number one goal is tomake money.
So in your email that you pitchto them, you need to explain to
them why your candle is goingto make them money.
That is what matters.
(21:36):
When you're doing yourwholesale outreach, don't talk
about you, don't talk about yourfamily, don't talk about how
you got into this business.
That's what we do on ourwebsite.
When we're selling to someonedirectly, we're trying to make
those connections with them, sothen they buy from us.
When you're reaching out to abusiness to do wholesale, they
don't care about you, they don'tcare about your family, they
(21:57):
don't care about all of thatstuff.
They care about products thatthey can turn around and sell
and make money because they careabout their family, right?
So that's the reality of it.
So when you send an email,start off with hey, I absolutely
love those tea towels you guysjust got in.
Those look fantastic.
I can't wait to come and checkthose out.
I want to let you know aboutGarcinia Beacon Candle Company.
(22:20):
We are based here in the US andI know your customers will
absolutely love to buy ourcandles, because Then you lead
into why.
Then you piece it togetherbecause the price point is right
, in line with what yourcustomers spend.
Or or are you going after amore of a natural store, like a
(22:45):
natural store, right, or a storethat is all about
sustainability and eco-friendly?
You can say our minimalisticpackaging, um, and
sustainability efforts wouldreally align with your customers
.
So you have to understand whotheir customer is and then talk
to them about why your productis going to line up with them.
So that's what you do to makethat connection.
(23:09):
That's what when they read thatthey're going to open up your
catalog and see what you have tooffer, because you're telling
them how they're going tocontinue to make more money by
selling products to theircustomers.
Now, one of the questions we getoften is should I send samples
to retailers?
And we have done this.
(23:30):
When we first started, we sentout, we boxed up a nice candle
and sent it out to a dozen 15stores.
One or two of those storesreached back out to us after we
followed up with them and therest of the people just got free
candles.
When you're local, it's yourlocal community.
If you want to do that, sure,totally can do that as you scale
(23:54):
.
It might not be realisticbecause when you're doing a
wholesale you're probably goingto get one out of every 15, 20
retailers possibly that you dooutreach to are going to place
an order with you.
So that's the reality of it.
So we should make sure that wehave that in check.
(24:15):
That you're probably going toget like a 5% return, right, if
I reach out to you on a Monday,I time block everything.
So like I do all my wholesaleon Mondays, right.
So on Monday night I time blockeverything.
So like I do all my wholesaleon Mondays, right.
So on Monday night I I callscrape it.
Um, so I scraped the internet.
Uh, the the information that Ineed to reach out to the stores,
right, I want to know whatstores I want to get into.
(24:36):
I all that contact information,that relatability factor, like
the tea towels.
So I do all that on Mondaynight while we're watching TV
and then, you know, having ourfamily time.
That's when I'm doing wholesale.
So I fill out my spreadsheetand the next Monday, when I have
the time block, again I'm doingmy outreach and sending out all
those emails.
So if I email 20 people, I'mhoping two or three or four
(24:57):
people will respond and of thatI'm hoping at least one.
I'm shooting for two of thosepeople to actually place an
order.
That would be 10%.
That'd be really high.
So don't get discouraged.
If you send out 10 emails andno one responds or you get one
account, like you would be doingreally well.
Okay, as you scale and go widerthan just your local town with
(25:20):
doing wholesale, it's not goingto be sustainable for you to
send out candles to every singleone of those Now, when you're
first starting and you just needto get some accounts under you.
It does so much for our psycheto like get those rolling in.
Oh yeah, like I'm actuallydoing this, like this is working
.
Now I need to fine tune myprocess.
Sure, if you want to send outsome sample products, you
absolutely can do that.
(25:41):
Just keep in mind that as yougrow, you may not need or may
not be able to do that becausenow we've I've probably emailed
over 2000 businesses.
Now we've got 150 pluswholesale accounts.
Um, and it's because I've donethis outreach.
If I would have packaged up andsent out 2000 packages, it
would have just cost a lot ofmoney.
(26:01):
It's not sustainable for ourbusiness, for our business model
.
Uh to to to do that Every time Ido outreach.
If you want to do it forspecific stores, sure, if
there's a store that you're like, oh my gosh, like I would give
up five other wholesale accountsif I can just get into this one
store, sure.
If you want to make animpression, absolutely Send them
a candle.
Make sure you're doing theemails afterwards and then
(26:21):
making sure that you're doingthe follow-ups.
I actually give the follow-ups,I actually give the follow-up
email templates.
Over 70% of the wholesaleaccounts that we receive comes
after I'm doing the follow-upemail.
So that is so crucial.
We go way deeper into thatinside of our course.
But you can't just send outemails and then just let it go.
You have to have a follow-upsequence with them.
(26:42):
We're all busy, we get emails,we put them in that folder of
like all you know to read later,and then we get too busy and
then we never get to it.
So you got to do follow-up.
So that's really really key.
So the next question that weget often is how do you get
reorders?
I, the people will say you know, I I got these wholesale
accounts and they haven'tcontacted me anymore.
(27:02):
They, they, they haven't boughtany more from me.
Well, you have to be proactive,you have to follow up with them
.
It's just showing how much youcare.
It's the same way that youwould do when you sell your
candles online to someone.
When someone buys a candle fromus online, we send it out to
them.
We have a nice little letter, athank you letter that goes in
the box with.
That's handwritten, and then ina couple of days they're going
(27:24):
to get an email from us that'sgoing to say hey, how is your
candle?
Would you like to leave us areview, right.
And then a few days later say,hey, would you like to follow us
on social media?
And then in a week from then,hey, here's a 25% discount for
you, right.
And then they go onto our emaillist that we're emailing, you
know, every couple of weeks withpromotions, new, new candle
products that are coming out,candle care tips, all of that
(27:44):
stuff.
So we're staying in contactwith them.
If someone places a wholesaleorder with you, you don't just
let three months go by and then,oh gosh, they haven't bought
from me again.
No, you should show yourappreciation up front and then,
after they receive the orderlike 48 hours later, a couple of
days later just say hey, I justwant to make sure everything
arrived, okay, that everythingyou know is to your satisfaction
(28:05):
.
You know, if there's an issue,they might bring it up to you,
but if there's not whichgenerally there's not going to
be one yeah, no, everything'sgood.
I'm excited to get these on thefloor.
Or, hey, we've already startedselling these.
Okay, perfect.
And then in two weeks follow upwith them again hey, how are
things going?
Are they selling?
You know what's the feedbackyou're getting from your
customers.
Stay in contact with them andthen make sure that every time
(28:27):
you come out with new products,you're not just sending out
emails to your email list andpost it on social media.
You're letting your wholesalersknow as well.
Hey, we just came out withwe're launching an entirely new
brand.
This might be something thatmight go over well with your
customers.
Here's some information aboutthat.
Right, you've got to make surethat you stay in contact with
them.
You can't just wait six monthsor a year and then, hey, I
(28:48):
haven't heard from you.
Did you want to buy more?
Because that's going to turnthem off, most likely.
And the last thing that I wantto cover today is what do I do
when a store doesn't respond?
If a store doesn't respond?
That's where I was talkingabout the follow-up.
You've got to do the follow-upAgain.
Over 70% of the wholesaleaccounts that we get happens
when we're following up withthem, when we're saying, hey, I
(29:11):
sent you an email last week, Ijust wanted to follow up and see
if you might be interested.
I wanted to, and then talkabout, you know, reiterate why
your candles would be afantastic fit for their
customers.
Keep these emails very, veryshort, okay.
Another tip that I would like toshare with you is don't send
your wholesale catalog to themas an attachment, because that
(29:33):
might be five, 10, 20, 30megabytes in size and people
aren't just opening upattachments that are from
strangers, okay.
So make sure that you aresending your wholesale catalog
to them in a way that they arecomfortable with.
Generally, what we like to dois we have it hidden on our
website and we go through how todo that.
(29:54):
I share that with you in moredetail inside of our wholesale
course.
But have your wholesale catalogliving out there on the
internet somewhere that nobodycan find but that you can send a
link to, can find but that youcan send a link to.
Just having a link so that theycan click on a website is going
to be much more or a higherrate of people opening it up
than having oh hey, downloadthis because they might be
(30:17):
getting it might get flagged asspam or suspicious if the file
size is too big.
We're all told don't open upfiles from people that we don't
know.
Right, so that's the same thingwith us.
If you're just sending out awholesale catalog, people might
not want to download that file.
So just keep that in mind.
Hopefully this has helped youout.
Again, in the show notes belowI have a completely free guide
for you or you can get that atour website at
(30:39):
candlebusinessprocom slashwholesale 101.
You can download that Also.
Come and hang out with usinside of Candle Business Pro.
We got a free community.
You can find again all of thoselinks and a lot more resources
for you in the show notes below,comment and let me know where
you're at in your journey withFull Sail.
Have you just started?
Have you not started quite yet?
(31:00):
Have you started?
But you're not getting a lot oftraction.
If you have specific questionsthat I can answer for you, I
would love to, so just dropthose in the comments below and
I'll get to those as soon aspossible.
Thank you so much for tuning intoday.
Have a fantastic rest of yourday.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.