How to Know When to Restock Your Candle Supplies (Reorder Points Made Simple)

A question we get a lot is some version of this: how do you organize ordering supplies and actually know when it is time to restock? The short answer is that you stop ordering based on your gut and start ordering based on a reorder point, a set number for each supply that tells you "order now" before you ever hit empty. Once you have that number for your wax, wicks, fragrance, and vessels, restocking becomes a quick glance instead of a monthly panic.

My husband Chad and I learned this the hard way. When we started Garsnett Beacon Candle Co. at our kitchen table during the pandemic, we ordered supplies when we noticed we were low, which usually meant we were already out of the one fragrance everybody wanted. We lost sales, paid for rush shipping more times than I want to admit, and once had to tell a wholesale account their reorder would be late because we were waiting on vessels. A simple system fixed almost all of it.

Why running out costs more than you think

When you run out of a supply, you do not just lose the time it takes to reorder. You lose the momentum. A scent sells out, the listing goes dark, the customer buys from someone else, and your bestseller goes quiet for two weeks. On the wholesale side it is worse, because a store that cannot reorder on time starts looking for a candle maker who can. Keeping the right supplies on hand is not about hoarding. It is about never being the reason a sale does not happen.

The flip side is just as real. Buying way too much of everything ties up cash you could use elsewhere, fills your space with boxes, and leaves you sitting on fragrance oils that can fade or vessels you decide to stop using. The goal is the middle: enough to cover you, not so much that your money is stuck on a shelf.

How to set a reorder point for each supply

A reorder point is just the stock level where you place your next order. You only need three pieces of information to set one for any supply.

1. How much you use in a week. Look at a normal month and figure out your weekly burn rate for each supply. Maybe you pour through 20 pounds of wax a week, or use 60 of one vessel.
2. How long the supplier takes to deliver. This is your lead time. Count from the day you order to the day it is actually in your hands and ready to pour, including any cure or settle time you need. Some suppliers ship in three days, others take two weeks in their busy season.
3. A small safety buffer. Add a little cushion for the order that ships late or the week you sell more than usual.

Then the math is simple: weekly usage times the number of weeks of lead time, plus your buffer. If you use 20 pounds of wax a week and your supplier takes two weeks, that is 40 pounds, and I would add roughly another 20 as a buffer. So when your wax drops to about 60 pounds, you order. That number is your reorder point. Write it down for every core supply and you have turned a guessing game into a checklist.

Order your supplies in tiers, not all at once

Not every supply deserves the same attention, so I group ours into tiers. Your bestsellers and your shared staples get watched closely and ordered early, because a stockout there hurts the most. Mid-level scents and sizes get a lighter touch. And the slow movers, the scent that sells a couple of times a season, I buy in small amounts and let run closer to empty on purpose.

The supplies that quietly cause the most trouble are the shared ones. You might track your fragrances carefully and still get caught out by wicks, warning labels, or shipping boxes, because every single candle uses them. I treat those shared staples as their own high priority tier with a generous buffer, since running out of wicks shuts down everything, not just one scent. If you are still building out your core list, our free candle making supply checklist is a good place to make sure you are not forgetting the boring stuff that stops production cold.

Keep it all in one place you actually check

A reorder point only works if you see it in time. Early on we kept a whiteboard on the studio wall with each supply and its "order now" number, and honestly that still works great when you are starting out. A simple spreadsheet with current count, reorder point, and supplier does the same job. The trick is picking a day, I like Monday, to glance at your numbers and place any orders before the week gets busy.

As we grew past a certain number of scents and vessels, the manual count got to be too much, so these days our supplies live in Makers Manager, the software I co-founded. It tracks what we have on hand, subtracts supplies as we log batches, and flags low stock before we hit the reorder point, so I am not doing mental math over a shelf of wax. If you want to try it, the code CBP7DAYS at checkout gives you 7 days free. Whether you use software or a whiteboard, the principle is the same: one place, checked on a schedule.

Tie restocking to what you are about to pour

Your reorder points keep your baseline covered, but your calendar changes the math. Before a big market, a wholesale reorder, or the holiday rush, map out what you plan to pour and work backward to the supplies it takes. It helps to know your candle math here, so you can turn "200 candles" into actual pounds of wax and bottles of fragrance. Remember that fragrance oil is calculated as a percentage of the total candle weight, not the wax alone, so do that math on the finished candle. Our free candle business calculators will handle the numbers for you so you can order the right amount the first time.

A few quick questions we hear

How much safety stock is too much? If you are throwing out faded fragrance or sitting on vessels you no longer use, you are buying too far ahead. Start with about one extra week of a supply as a buffer and adjust from there.

Should I bulk buy to save money? Only on the staples you know you will use, like wax, wicks, and boxes. Buying a case of a brand new scent you have not tested is how closets fill up with product you cannot sell.

What if my supplier is always out of stock? Have a backup supplier ready for your most important items, and lengthen your lead time in the reorder math so you order even earlier.

Start with your top five

You do not have to systematize everything this week. Pick your five most important supplies, the ones that would stop production if you ran out, and set a reorder point for each one today. That alone will save you most of the stress. From there it pairs well with knowing how much finished inventory to keep on hand and how to organize your SKUs, since the three together are basically the whole back end of a candle business. Come share your own restocking tricks with thousands of other makers in our free Candle Business PRO Facebook group. I love seeing how people set this up.