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People often ask me what's the best way to sell candles, and the truth is there's no one answer. We've sold candles online, at pop-ups and boutiques, in our own storefronts and even through school fundraisers, but none of that happened overnight. In this episode, I'm breaking down the exact path we took the good, the messy and the unexpectedly successful so you can start mapping out your own. Let's walk through the timeline what came first, what worked and how each sales channel opened new doors that we didn't expect. So the first way we sold our channels is going to be through our friends and family. So in the last episode, you probably remember me talking about how we allowed our future customers to go on our path as we started building out our brand. So as soon as we knew we were going to make this candle brand, we started social media channels just to start posting about what was happening in our growth. So, from the testing phase to picking out labels, to naming our brand, we let people go on that journey with us. So our very first sales channel was through our friends and family. When we opened up the doors to our store online, we were so excited to share with everyone and we had some friends and family, previous coworkers, that all supported us and it was fantastic. It was such an incredible weekend for us, really, and the sales trickled into the next week. But that initial weekend, I believe, we opened it up in the afternoon on a Friday and we just got a sale and then we got another sale and another sale, and it was fantastic. Now, the only way we were able to promote this was through our own personal, you know, social media channels and the page that we had created for the business. But even though we created the pages for the business and we're going to post on those social media channels, you'll still want to promote on your own because, just the way Facebook and Instagram and the algorithms work, they want you as a business page to pay to play, so they want you to pay to get your posts put in front of your audience. So, even though you may have, say, 500 followers on your Facebook page for your business, when you go and make a post, you can then circle back a few days later and go and see how many people actually saw that, and it's going to be a lot less than those 500 people. It'll likely be under a hundred, honestly. So that's why I encourage a couple of things that you're always going to still want to promote on your own personal pages and you also want to post frequently on those business pages because if only you know less than a hundred people saw that post and you had 500 people you're hoping to would see it. Keep posting over and over again to hopefully capture a wider audience of people and just for the basic repetitive nature of putting something in front of your customers for them to see it more often is going to have them remember that you exist, that your brand exists. Even if someone in the future isn't ready to buy a candle when you make your post, it's just keeping you top of mind. So just something to think about.

Sabastian Garsnett: 3:28 

So that was how we first started out was selling just to our friends and family. Now, at the same time that we open up that Shopify store, we open up an Etsy store. So here's some of the pros and cons of each. So we did build out our Shopify store when we released our brand to the public, because that was the only way for us to collect payment. We needed a type of credit card processor for people to go to. Now you can create an Instagram store, a Facebook store a TikTok store and collect payment that way. You certainly can do that. But we wanted to have a full website. We were serious about the direction we were going to go with our candle brand and if you're serious about your candle brand you've got to have a website. That's just the day and age that we're in. Every business that you shop from has a website. Unless it's a very local mom and pop type of shop or restaurant, every business out there has a website. So that's just part of running a candle business.

Sabastian Garsnett: 4:29 

I highly recommend Shopify. I'll actually put a link in the notes below. It should give you a free month, a month or two at least. Sometimes, occasionally it'll be for three months, whatever the best deal is. I'll put a link below in the notes so that you can see and open up a store and then you can do it risk-free and you know, see if it's going to be worth it for you long-term for the type of business that you're going to have.

Sabastian Garsnett: 4:55 

So that is Shopify. So Shopify is the e-commerce central hub that almost every store that's opening these days is built on. There are some alternatives out there there's Wix, there's Square, there's other opportunities but Shopify is built for e-commerce. So it is built with the online customer in mind. So just the way their themes work, the way their metadata for your SEO optimization works, this is really the place to be. It might be a little bit more expensive than those others, but if you can think about it as hey, as long as I sell one more candle a month through this website, then I will cover those additional costs.

Sabastian Garsnett: 5:39 

But keep in mind, Shopify is just a platform. Shopify is not a shopping mall. It is not Etsy, it is not a place where people are coming looking for you. So that is one of the cons of a site like Shopify is you still have to bring your customer there. You don't just open up a store and there's just people just like waiting, and it's just showing up magically in front of people. No, people have to be looking with intent on the internet for your product, and then Google has to say, hey, I bet this is going to be the product that you want. Based on what you searched and what is on this website, this is most likely what you want, and then that's how Google will then put it in front of their eyes in the search results.

Sabastian Garsnett: 6:30 

Okay, so keep that in mind when you open up a Shopify store, it is a place for you to send people through your marketing, through your advertising, and then for where your repeat customers will then go looking for you. I still highly highly recommend it. You've got to have a website, especially if you're going to want to get those repeat customers from. If you're starting out at markets and you're selling to coworkers and your neighbors, you still want a place where people can go and rebuy from you and you're going to need a website for that. So that is the pros and cons of Shopify, the pros being that it is your store. It makes you kind of business official. People can come and shop you. It's open 24 hours a day. Those transactions can come in. It is so good of a feeling when we wake up and we see that we got orders overnight. It's just a nice feeling that we have our brick and mortar stores but we didn't have to open our doors up to get that sale. So that's what's really nice about Shopify.

Sabastian Garsnett: 7:24 

Also, people discovering us on Google and whatever search engine they're using and they're searching for something and we carry it. Based on our optimizations of our SEO, we are showing up. As a result, people click on us and they buy from us. Also, people are always talking to their friends and families about things that they really like. So when someone buys our candle even if it's out at a market, they're burning it. They have family friends over to visit them. They see our branding on that candle. They like the way it smells. They can then look us up and see that we have a store and they can buy it from us. Now we have a new customer, so that's Shopify.

Sabastian Garsnett: 8:01 

Now with Etsy, etsy is a little different. Etsy is a little different. Etsy is a little bit more starter friendly. Now Etsy is a marketplace where potential customers. They go to Etsy looking for these handmade items, right. So they are going to Etsy with intent to buy something for someone, whether it's for themselves or generally gifting for someone else. Etsy is a fantastic marketplace. So people go on to Etsy, they search for something and they're going to get thousands of results. Our goal on Etsy is to dial in exactly what people are searching for and create that product for them.

Sabastian Garsnett: 8:42 

It's generally kind of tough just to have, let's say, a lavender candle out on Etsy. You have to be able to stick out from the rest of the competition out there because it is a very competitive marketplace. But if you're doing something unique that captures the shopper's attention, that's how you're going to have some pretty good luck on Etsy. People that are doing like dough bowls on there do really well. People that are doing unique vessels on there do really well. People that are making layered candles, people that are making the birthday candles that have like the sprinkles on them, people that are making the personalized candles and putting those out there that have a saying all these types of candles are going to do better than just my lavender or my sugar lemon candle putting those out there. We started out there and we've got sales. We got a little bit of traction, but we also.

Sabastian Garsnett: 9:40 

One thing about Etsy to keep in mind is people are looking at price points, because when someone comes to my website and they see my candles and my prices, they don't necessarily have as much competition to compare it to. Right, they're on my website. If they fall in with my product, they click on it, they open it up, they read about it and they see the pricing. They're not saying, oh, whatever the other options that I have, you know sure, they can go off of my website and go into another one and check With Etsy. When they get their search result, there's tons of listings altogether. So before they even click into your listing, they're looking at your photos, they're looking at your title and then they're looking at the price point. So price is a factor on Etsy that I think may hold some people back that are selling the more high-end, luxury priced candles. We're selling our candles on there $20 to $28. So we're being competitive. There's still going to be some out there that are being $8, $10. And you think, how can I ever compete with them?

Sabastian Garsnett: 10:43 

Again, it goes into more than just price. It's going to be the quality that you are giving to them, that perceived value that you are showing off, whether that is through your imagery, through your descriptions on there, through your title and then also just customer trust. So as you get more and more sales on Etsy and then the number on your Etsy listing kind of keeps going up, and then they see that your rating or your reviews are really good, they're going to have more confidence in you. So you still have to put the same amount of effort into building a Shopify store as you do an Etsy store, because you still got to have really good images. You have to have really good images. You have to have really good titles that people are searching for. You have to have really good descriptions. You have to have all of that.

Sabastian Garsnett: 11:32 

With Shopify, you have to bring your own customers there to your site. With Etsy, you get to rely on the marketplace of people shopping. The downside is with Etsy it is competitive because you got thousands of others out there that are competing with you. With Shopify, the con is that you have to bring your own traffic, which you can do for free through SEO optimization and things like that. It does take a while for your SEO to click in. We actually do a SEO workshop for our members inside of the inner circle and people are getting fantastic results. I actually show them my results and on what candles of mine rank on the very first page of Google. But it takes time. I can't build it out today and I show up number one on Google tomorrow. It doesn't happen like that. It's going to take weeks, months to get it right, so just keep that in mind. But long-term, shopify is definitely the way to go.

Sabastian Garsnett: 12:28 

So why not just do both when you're brand new? Do both of them. Open up an Etsy store. Open up a Shopify store and you can benefit from both and kind of see what's going to work for you. It only costs 20 cents a listing on Etsy. So each of one of my candles is 20 cents, right? So if I got, you know, 50 candles I'm going to put out there which hopefully you don't have that many when you're starting out say 10 candles, right, it's only $2 to put them out there. Now Etsy does get a percentage I believe it was like 15% of that sale, and so people do complain about the cost because of the fees of Etsy. But Etsy is bringing you a customer that you most likely wouldn't have had otherwise.

Sabastian Garsnett: 13:07 

In other episodes we will do a really good deep dive into pricing and understanding how pricing works, how you should be pricing your candles for success. Because if you're going to just sell direct to consumer and then you also are thinking about going into, say, wholesale or consignment or other means of getting your products to customers and growing your business, you're going to need to make sure that you are priced correctly. So just something to keep in mind from the start is pricing your candles correctly. I do have YouTube videos about that you can check out if you would like Currently. We'll also dive into it in the podcast as well.

Sabastian Garsnett: 13:52 

Now let's talk about markets and pop-ups. We love doing markets and pop-ups. Now we don't get to do them nearly as much as we would want to because we now have our brick and mortar stores, so we don't get to do them quite as often. But when we first started out they were amazing. They were fantastic and, quite frankly, that is what grew our business the fastest and the reason for that not just because of the sales that we may get, but from the learning that we get.

Sabastian Garsnett: 14:17 

When you have your candles out on a table in front of strangers and they come up to your product and they start smelling it, you can get instant feedback. Even if they don't buy anything, you can see their reaction to the way something smells. You can see if it's a hit or a miss based on their facial expressions, without them even opening their mouth. It's fascinating making those connections with them, asking them questions what type of scents do you gravitate towards? That is what we'll always ask potential customers when they come to our booth is what type of scents do you gravitate towards? And when they say, oh, I want a woodsy scent or I want a spa-like scent, or I want a fruity or citrus scent. We then can point them to what candles we have out on our table for them to sample and smell. If they start smelling candles without you asking them what type of scents they gravitate towards, once they smell a couple of candles that they just pick up and smell and they don't like, they're going to kind of start moving on to other booths. They're not going to stick around. So it's important to get a scent that they may really enjoy in front of them as quick as possible, and that's how we do it is by asking them what type of scents do they gravitate towards.

Sabastian Garsnett: 15:39 

Other great opportunities with markets and doing pop-ups is just that interaction with customers. You are starting to understand how the sales process goes with them. You're ringing them up. You are collecting their email addresses, which is the most crucial part of doing those markets on top of getting customer feedback, is collecting email addresses. You're starting to collect email addresses to build out your email communication with customers. It is so important from day one any method that you choose to sell your candles that you are collecting email addresses. Email addresses are the way that we will continue to communicate with those customers on an ongoing basis. Now we'll go into a deeper dive into how we do email marketing inside of a future episode.

Sabastian Garsnett: 16:32 

But email is so crucial to your candle business. You want to be able to reach out to your customers and not be restricted by the algorithm on Etsy, on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok. You do not want the communication with your customers to be roadblocked by someone else. Collecting someone's email address allows you to reach out to them when you are ready to promote something, when you're running a sale, when you just want to share the story about your brand and how you're evolving and growing. You want to share that story with your customers and email is going to be the number one best way to do that. In fact, anytime we're having a slow week or a slow month or winter for us, that's always tough. After the holiday season, for a few months, it's very rough around our shops and quiet. We will communicate with our customers through email and every time we send an email we're getting sales out of it. So we actually have to be strategic about the spacing between our emails just to make sure we're not gonna overwhelm them. But that's definitely a topic for another episode. Make sure that you are collecting email addresses at these markets. Okay, so just to recap where we're at so far.

Sabastian Garsnett: 17:49 

So when we first started selling our candles, it was just to our friends and family that we were promoting through our Facebook, through our Instagram, to the people that had kind of gone on the journey with us. They were following our business page, things like that. That is what we first started and at the same time that we did that, we obviously opened up our Shopify store for them to make those purchases and we launched that at G-SOP. So that is what we did Number one, day one, then next what we did before we actually went into those markets, because, for our time, it was February when we launched our candle business, and market season here in Michigan doesn't start until May because, well, it was February when we launched our candle business, and market season here in Michigan doesn't start until May because, well, it's cold. So at the same time that we were launched online and selling to our friends and family, working on our website, seo, working on our Etsy, keep continuously updating our photos and things like that that you're always going to have to improve.

Sabastian Garsnett: 18:44 

The same time I started doing wholesale outreach. I purchased all kinds of different programs to learn wholesale. I joined masterminds, I joined groups just so I could get a feel and an understanding for wholesale. So when I went into wholesale I had a pretty clear understanding of the process, but there's still going to be plenty to learn as you start to grow out your wholesale accounts. The way we got our first wholesale accounts is we created a spreadsheet of all of our dream stores in our local town. We said we would love to be an apothecary gift shop, we would love to be in Francis J, we would love to be in and just we would love to be in and just created this whole list, right. So we created a list of all the stores. The next thing you do and what I'm doing is I'm sharing the tips that I've learned from all the wholesale courses and the training I've received. We actually have a wholesale course that you can get on our website. I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about that, but that is something that we do offer at canadabusinessprocom is a collection of all this wholesale.

Sabastian Garsnett: 19:50 

So what we did is we created a spreadsheet that listed out the location that we want to be into, the name of the store, the address of the store, the phone number. We probably collected more information than we necessarily needed at first. We didn't necessarily need their address, and all that because we knew who they were, because they were local. But we created that dream list of stores and then, one by one, I would email each of those stores. And the key when you email these stores isn't just to say, hey, I sell candles, you sell candles, would you like to sell my candles? It's a lot more than that. You need to have a wholesale catalog put together. You need to have a strategy behind approaching all of your stores.

Sabastian Garsnett: 20:32 

What we like to do is, in our initial email to these potential retailers that we'd love to get into whether they are local or they are across the country we do a little bit of research on them. We'll go to their website, we'll see what they're all about, just to make sure they're a good fit. Because I may love, I would love to be in, you know, macy's and Target and all you know all these different stores. But the one candle that we're selling isn't going to be a fit for all of those different types of stores. You want to make sure that the candle that you're selling lines up with those stores that you're reaching out to, or you're really just wasting your own time, in a way. So just be mindful of that, that it needs to align with that store. So to do that, go to their website, go to their Instagram, go to their TikTok, go to their Facebook whatever social channels that they are using and their website. Go and look and see and think will my candles fit in with the shop? If so, put them on your list.

Sabastian Garsnett: 21:31 

Also, while you're kind of investigating and researching their website and their social media, grab a couple ideas of what you can mention in the email. For instance, what I always like to say in my example inside of that wholesale course that I mentioned, is when I go to a page of a gift shop, I'll say, oh, look, they just got these new tea towels. Or oh, they're carrying these new soaps. So I'll document that on that spreadsheet that we have and when I then sit down to email them, I reference that. I'll look up and see if I can get the owner's name.

Sabastian Garsnett: 22:01 

If it's a smaller store, they're not gonna have buyers and a marketing manager and a new business development manager. They're not going to have all that necessarily. If they are a small business, generally, the owner is going to be the one that's making those purchasing decisions. Now, if they're a mid-sized brand, they will likely have a buyer, someone responsible for all of that. So take a look at the stores, see what you think. Check out their website. If, when you go to the about section or the contact section of that store, it just says like owner at, or info at, carsandbeaconcom, generally that's going to go to a central inbox and that'll be okay to email, that'll be the one to email. Instead of trying to track down that owner's specific personal email, just use the one that's on the website. It should be fine.

Sabastian Garsnett: 22:51 

If it's a larger business, you then may want to go and look at LinkedIn or other places to see oh, do they have a buyer, do they have someone that's in charge of new business? And seeing if you can find that right person, that that would be to contact. So that would be what I would do. But in that initial email, of course you want to explain why your product is good for their store and you want to talk about your product, but don't spend too much time talking about your product. Spend more time talking about why your product is good for their customer. So I'm reaching out to, let's say, a natural, health and beauty store, right, and my candle brand is all about eco-conscious, eco-friendly, made with all natural ingredients, things like that that I can align with them. I'm going to want to talk about why my candle brand being all natural and whatever marketing tactics I'm using is on that candle. You know the recycled packaging, recycled vessels, all clean fragrances, all those different types of selling points I would then want to bring up if that store's customers actually care about that.

Sabastian Garsnett: 24:06 

But let's say, for instance, we are in a sports apparel chain. Across the country. We're in like 45 stores that sell jerseys, hats, things like that. It's more of like a hometown pride type of store. This store sells in like college towns and in sports towns. They like one of our candle lines called Best Of and it says like Best of Indiana, best of Michigan, best of Chicago, and it's all location themed. So that's why they wanted our candles. They found us online and we worked out and we're in all those stores.

Sabastian Garsnett: 24:41 

Now, when I reach out to a store like that to potentially carry my products, I'm not talking about how my products are made with recycled packaging and all clean fragrances. I'm talking about why my candle that talks about Chicago is good for their brand. Because their brand sells stuff that needs to have location-based themes and that's why that line of candles is going to be good for that store. If you are selling those like gourmand scents, right, like the baked goods and the cookies and the coffee scents. And so if your whole brand is about you know, farmhouse cottage candles that are made with all these yummy scents, right.

Sabastian Garsnett: 25:31 

If I'm reaching out to a store that I want to sell my candles and I want to relate to that not necessarily like what they're made out of, think about the customer that shops at that store, so that the email that you write to that store's owner or manager that you're relating to that customer and conveying to them why your product is going to be good for that customer. Because ultimately, the owner themselves probably doesn't care about your candle. They're not buying your candle, they're not using your candle. They want to be able to sell your candle. They're in the business of selling. They want to make sure they're putting in front of their customers what their customers are going to buy. So just keep that in mind, not to promote things about your candles that those specific stores aren't going to care about.

Sabastian Garsnett: 26:16 

Another thing that I like to mention in these emails to the store is something that's going to show that I'm not sending this email out to hundreds of other retailers at the same time. So I want to talk about their store. I want to mention hey, I just saw those new lemon tea towels you started carrying, or that soap I bet that's fantastic. I'll have to check it back out next time I'm shopping in your store Things like that, so that they realize that you actually spent time or that you're already following them. Also, when like that, so that they realize that you actually spent time or that you're already following them.

Sabastian Garsnett: 26:48 

Also, when you're building out that spreadsheet of all the potential retailers, go ahead and start following their social channels, because we all know kind of how it goes If you have social medias for your business already, when you start getting people liking a bunch of your posts and then they're going to reach out, you can. It's almost like clockwork. I know when someone goes to Garcin Beacon's social media handle and they start liking I'm getting this thread of all these likes on my phone from someone or some brand. I know I'm about to get messaged and then they always message on social media that way. So go ahead and start liking these so you stay kind of in the loop of what these stores that you want to get into are doing.

Sabastian Garsnett: 27:31 

Because, say, for instance, they just started carrying my candles. You probably don't want to email them the same day If they just posted this big launch that they're carrying my candles. You would want to wait a little bit, you know, wait a couple of months, and then you can follow and say hey, I saw that you were carrying those Garson beacon candles. How are they doing? I wanted to let you know about my candle brand and if that makes sense. So you don't want to um, you don't want to waste your email opportunity to them on something if it's not going to be the right time. So just keep that in mind. Another couple of things that you may want to keep in mind is going to be the seasonality of when you message them. You're not going to want to message someone in December asking if they want to carry your Christmas line of candles. It's too late. They've already got it in the works of what they're going to stock months in advance.

Sabastian Garsnett: 28:19 

Now sometimes I'm a business owner that has retail locations. I've got three of them now. I do get behind sometimes and I'm buying stuff just a few weeks prior to an event. For instance, every May here we have what's called the Tulip Time Festival, so we want to have anything tulip themed in our shop. Now, should I be getting that stuff in January, february, march? Absolutely I should. I should definitely be doing that. It was I doing it in April this year? Yes, I was. It was the week before the festival kicked off and I was still getting stuff, um delivered that we had boughten, you know, from retailers to uh, from wholesalers to retail in our store, uh. So you can possibly get some of those late um shoppers, but you don't want to waste your entire strategy on reaching out to them when it's too late and then feeling like you can't reach out to them again for a few months. So that's one thing to keep in mind.

Sabastian Garsnett: 29:17 

Also and this is probably the most critical part about doing wholesale outreach is, once you email, you got to follow up, because here's what's going to happen. You're going to email me because I'm a retailer and I carry a bunch of different brands. So you're going to email me, I'm going to get your email. I'm going to read the, the, the, the subject line of it, and I'm going to do one of a couple of things. If I have time, I'm going to go ahead and open it up and start reading it, but likely I'm not just sitting here waiting for your email to come in, so I'm going to put that into a folder that I'll check it later, I'm going to star it and what's going to happen?

Sabastian Garsnett: 29:53 

Life happens, I'm going to move on to something else, I'm just going to forget about it. That's just the reality of it. Everyone's very busy and we just forget or it's not urgent enough for us to take action right away. So you've got to follow up. So that's why, after that initial email that you're going to send out, you're going to want to send out a follow-up. If they've not responded to you within a week, make sure you follow up with them and keep following up with them until you get a response. Worst case scenario they just say no, you take them off the list, you color code that spreadsheet and you move on. So I break down and I actually give you all of our emails and templates inside of that course, if you want to check out that course or actually, I have a free download of Wholesale 101. You know what? I'm going to drop that in the show notes below, completely free. Just click on that and that's going to give you some tips and tricks with more details about wholesaling. So that'll be in the show notes below.

Sabastian Garsnett: 30:44 

All right, so let's talk about some of the downsides of wholesale. You have to have your business set up to be able to do wholesale. It does take a little bit of work. Once you have candles, there's so many opportunities to sell them. But the next thing besides having a candle that is smells good, is super safe and is of quality, is your pricing. That's the next thing that you have to understand and have down. You've got to have your pricing down right so that you're going to be able to scale to doing wholesale.

Sabastian Garsnett: 31:16 

If you're not priced right, then you're not going to be able to wholesale. That's just the reality of it. A retailer is going to want at least 50% so um, if of a margin. So if my candle, which they are $26, a retailer is not going to spend more than $13 on it, they're just not. So my, my candle retails for 26. They want to buy it for 13. So I got to make sure my cost of goods are at a place that I'm okay with selling these for $13 to a wholesale account.

Sabastian Garsnett: 31:47 

If that math doesn't work for you, then the math is a math, and then you've got to fix something. You got to fix your price point, you got to get a, you got to figure out a way of reducing your cost of goods, um, or opening up your margins a little bit more. So that's what you have to do. Um, when it comes to your pricing, if you're not set up on day one for wholesaling, then maybe you look at other channels to uh, to bring in revenue that will then allow you to. Then, hey, I've banked this much money. Now I can buy my wax in bulk so that my cost of that wax and that shipping isn't killing me every time. And so now my cost of goods are starting to go down. Instead of buying a four ounce or an eight ounce bottle of oil now you're buying by the pound. Things like that is going to get your cost of goods down dramatically.

Sabastian Garsnett: 32:36 

Another way of getting your cost of goods down is going to be through your labels and printing those. The more you order from a label printer at once, the less expensive it's going to be. So those are things that we learned as we were going through it. Right now, our standard $26 candle cost us about five, five and a quarter. So that's like five X five and a half X six X six times the cost of good. When we first started, that $5 and 25 cent candle was around $7 for us to make. So it was still okay for us to start out by doing wholesale, because I was wholesaling for $13. It cost me $7 to make it, so I was only making $5, but I wanted to wholesale and that was the way to start. Once we started getting money coming in from it, I can buy my products in bigger bulks and got the price of each of those candles down. So that is something to keep in mind that you might not make a lot on wholesale when you first start, but if you're gonna be able to reduce your cost of goods in the longterm, then it can definitely still be worth doing Okay.

Sabastian Garsnett: 33:42 

So the next way that we found success in selling our candles is through fundraisers. Fundraisers are fantastic. First fundraiser we did was for a high school basketball team that my mom teaches at. They needed basketball jerseys. It's a rural school in the middle of kind of nowhere Indiana. They don't have a lot of funding and they needed jerseys. So we put together a fundraiser where the community could buy our candles and we were giving a portion of those proceeds back to that school to then turn around and buy jerseys with.

Sabastian Garsnett: 34:15 

Another fantastic fundraiser that we have done is with our Pet Palace Candles. So we reached out to a local animal shelter and said, hey, we would love to partner with you on a fundraiser, because animal shelters, humane societies, people love pets and people will support those organizations. So we wanted to make a product that they could help us sell and they would be able to bring in a really good income from it. So what we did was we reached out to the Humane Society here in Holland, michigan, and said, hey, we're Garza Beacon Candle Company. We are local here in Holland. We were a home base. We didn't have our stores or anything like that at the time, but we didn't tell them that. Not that it would have mattered, but we didn't divulge that. We were just making these in our kitchen. Right, we are a local candle company here in Holland. We would love to do a fundraiser with you.

Sabastian Garsnett: 35:15 

We can create these candles and sell them on our website and anyone that buys these candles, we will give you 25% of the proceeds. Would you be interested? When they say that they are interested in it? Great, and then you work on setting it up. You can use it with a code on your website. There's a lot of different means of collecting that payment. We'll talk about that in another episode. But the fact that you can rely on them. They've got like 50,000 people following them. They have an email list. They have people that are supporting them weekly, that are giving donations. So when they promoted that they were selling this odor eliminating candle from Garstin Beacon Candle Company, we started getting all of these people following our pages and buying that candle from us. It was fantastic. We've had a lot of fundraisers since then. None stick out as much as that did, because in that weekend span that we did that fundraiser, we drew, we grew our social media, we grew our email list and we made a lot of sales and we were able to do good by giving back to that organization.

Sabastian Garsnett: 36:25 

Then what you do is you take that system that you just created for doing fundraisers and do it for another nonprofit and then in another nonprofit, one of the workshops inside of the inner circle. That we do is on the fundraisers, and we actually went and looked at how many nonprofits are in our town. There were tons of them that I didn't even know about and so I was like, oh okay, let's do some more of those Now, something that we have done. So we will do the humane societies. We will also do like education based. We will also do minority based, lgbtq based, all these different kinds of organizations that we can align with that we would like to have those customers following our brand. We will do. We'll also do nonprofit theaters. There's a local it's called the park theater here in Holland. We do a fundraiser for them, uh, raising money for them, and then also, again, it gives us more awareness about our brand. So people knew about Garza Beacon Candle Company before they ever came to our store, before they ever had come to our website, before they'd ever spent any money with us, before they had ever seen us out at a market, because the animal shelter, the um nonprofit theater, all these different organizations that we were partnering with were spreading the word about us. So that really got us connected and putting roots down in our community, so that when we started doing other things, like markets. People were recognizing us oh, I think I bought a candle from you on your website when you did such and such fundraiser, so that's more of that connection there. Now, even though they already have our product, they can put a name to the face whenever they see us out doing these public events as well.

Sabastian Garsnett: 38:07 

Brick and mortar let's talk a little bit about brick and mortar. Brick and mortar is not for the faint of heart. It's for those that are really wanting to go all in, and that's what we did. We sold our first candle to our friends and family on February 26th of 2022. We opened our first brick and mortar store on August 1st of 2022. So six months later. From first putting this on a website selling this candle to our friends and family to opening the doors to a store was less than six months, or right at six months, for us.

Sabastian Garsnett: 38:45 

Now I'm not saying everyone should do this or everyone has the means to do this, but let me tell you what it took for us to be able to do this. It doesn't take nearly as much as what you might think. We didn't have a lot of money in the bank to do this with. We didn't have friends and family or anyone like that to rely on. We had to be able to cover the first month's rent and a deposit. Our rent is $1,700 on that first location and so we had to have that. Plus. We had to have a deposit. I don't even think it's a full deposit, it might've just been like a half month, but say it was a full deposit, that would be $3,400. So I need $3,400 to get into the store. I need to be able to build it out with some furniture or what you're going to use your displays. Um, and then I we needed to. Definitely oh, we'll definitely cover it more.

Sabastian Garsnett: 39:35 

We definitely needed to paint the walls in this place. The color was terrible. I think it took us four coats of white paint to finally get rid of that color. Um, it's come a long ways. Uh, we had to, as I mentioned the furniture that we put in there. So, for all the shel now, don't go to a retail furniture display store online so expensive. Go to Amazon. Go to other places.

Sabastian Garsnett: 40:01 

We have these nice Nathan James brand shelves. They have two screws at the top. They're like ladder shelves that go into the wall. That's all we needed for them. I think they were $160 a piece. At the top they're like ladder shelves that go into the wall. That's all we needed for them. I think they were $160 a piece at the time. I don't know what they are now. They may have gone up and we needed, you know, at least 10 of those for the shop. We obviously needed some other stuff. We needed to get some tables and things in there.

Sabastian Garsnett: 40:24 

But the reason we were confident in doing this was because of the results that we were getting from the markets. We knew people loved our stuff. They would say I love your labeling, I love your branding, I love the way it smells. They really were appreciating it. So we knew from the sales we were getting out of markets that we could get people into our store to buy those candles as well. So we were pretty confident there.

Sabastian Garsnett: 40:49 

Now, with that said, me and Chad were both working from home at the time. We were testing and playing around with the candles on our lunch breaks, before work, after work and all of that. But we had two incomes. So we were comfortable with getting Chad out of the house and opening up this first brick and mortar location because we did still have my income. Now it wasn't going to be easy on just my income, like we could have done it for maybe six months and then, like you, got to come back because we're not able to pay all of our bills, if it's just my income, but it was enough to get us by.

Sabastian Garsnett: 41:25 

So the candle brand had to support itself. It may be not make a profit, but it needed to at least be able to be self-sufficient. So $1,700 a month for our rent, with all the overhead of the location, is going to be about another $300, maybe 400. You're going to have your utilities or insurance, those things that are just come with a brick and mortar store, so you're going to have that, so that 1,700 is now like $2,000. Of course we needed to put the product in the store, so you're going to have that, so that 1700 is now like $2,000. Of course we need to put the product in the store. So that's probably about another $750 to a thousand dollars in product to put on the shelves inside of that store. And then there's going to be all those odds and end costs. You're going to have a sandwich board that's going to go out on the sidewalk. We need to. There was a permit for like $40 that went with that they're going to have all these other costs that are going to come up.

Sabastian Garsnett: 42:12 

So we put that stuff on a credit card because we didn't just have the cash in the bank. We had some money coming in from doing the markets. But a lot of that revenue coming in from those markets is just paying to buy more supplies, to just kind of build up inventory more and more, and of course we were trying new oils and trying other fun things. But that's really paying for itself. So it took us about I think 12 or $13,000 total to get into and open the doors of our retail location. And we didn't have all of that in revenue because we'd only been selling at markets for three months tops. So we did have to put some of that on a credit card and pull a little bit of that money from savings. But to show you, like doing markets and making five, 600 bucks every time, you can get up to the money that you need pretty quickly. And once we opened the doors it was self-sufficient because people were at least coming in. Even though we might not be making a lot of money when we're first starting out people don't know about us yet we are at least in an area with enough traffic that we were able to have the space pay for itself. So that's a little bit of information about brick and mortar. Of course, we'll definitely do a more deep dive into a brick and mortar only episode in the future.

Sabastian Garsnett: 43:32 

Okay, so those are the main ways that we are selling our candles online through our Shopify store. We still continuously get a few orders on Etsy, but we don't put the effort and energy into Etsy. We need to use that energy elsewhere, especially through our Shopify store, to continuously build that out and optimize that. Seo. That is probably the workshop inside of the inner circle that people talk about the most is the SEO workshop and the results they've gotten from there. So that's where a lot of our focus is is on continuously updating our Shopify. Also our email communication. That takes a lot of our time and energy to stay top of mind to our customers and our repeat buyers. We do a lot of our time and energy to stay top of mind to our customers and our repeat buyers. We do a lot of wholesale. We've got 140-ish wholesale accounts that we are continuously reaching out to and growing and fulfilling reorders for all of them. And then we have our brick and mortar stores. We actually have three stores now.

Sabastian Garsnett: 44:26 

The one I was just telling you about, store number one, we opened that August 1st of 2022. We opened brick and mortar store number two in November of 2023. So a year and three months later we opened that one up and then seven months no, six months later we opened up store number three, which is in Saugatuck, michigan. Here. That's where I shoot a lot of my YouTube videos from, because I'll get there early and it's a very small store. That store we don't offer people to pour their own candles. In store number one and store number two we do, so they are different sizes based on, really, what the town supports. Store number three is very seasonal, so it's not even open in the wintertime because there's no one traveling to that location.

Sabastian Garsnett: 45:08 

Okay, so you may have gathered, there's no single path to candle business success, but the more you understand your options, the better you can choose what works for you. In episode three, we'll dive into the mindset, marketing and growth strategies that helped us evolve without losing any steam. Thank you so much for listening to the Candle Business Pro Podcast. If you found this episode helpful, we would love it if you'd leave us a rating and a review. It really helps us reach more makers like you. And if you're ready to take the next step in your candle business journey, head over to candlebusinessprocom to explore our free resources, our courses and our community. We're here to help you go pro. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I greatly appreciate you. Have a great day.