When we first had the crazy idea to start a candle company, I watched videos on Youtube for days, which turned into weeks and then into months. How do you even do this? I need to know everything – give me it all!
Luckily for us there are a lot of really great candle creators making video content constantly, and for free too. What a time to be alive.
Of the many “How to start a candle company” videos I watched, there was always the theme: start slow.
Starting slow made sense. “We’ll just start with 6-8 scents, launch our site and go from there,” my wife and I decided. But things changed. As an entrepreneur who has owned my own businesses all my life, “starting slow” isn’t really in my vocabulary – I tend to jump right in and go for it.
Once we set up our maker’s studio and started ordering fragrance samples (we have hundreds now – there is no such thing as a fragrance oil addiction…), our creative energy starting flowing and soon we were creating blend after blend. Wow, this is really fun!
Soon there was 5, then 10, then 20…you can see where this is heading. Currently at the launch of this webshop we’re at 37 different blends for our candles – with another 20-30 in the wings since our curiosity of blending things together doesn’t seem to stop.
Having 37 different candles is a lot of options for our customers, which is great. The not so great thing for “we are but humble candlemakers” is how can we possibly have stock of 37 different candles all the time and in both jar sizes too?! Not only is there the capital investment of all that wax, fragrance oils, wicks, wick holders, wick stickers, jars, covers, labels, warning stickers – and all the shelving space to stock everything – but all the time and labor for a husband and wife to achieve such a feat.
Maybe we should’ve just started with 8, ha.
But since we’ve developed all these blends, designed all the labels and put everything we have into these, we decided to let you have access to them too.
So for now, and until we better get a grasp on which of our candles are popular with you fine folks, all candle orders will be “Made To Order”. In other words, once we get an order we will get to work in our maker’s studio and handcraft your candles 1 by 1. This way we can hold stock of supplies but not all the finished candles we may or may not get orders for.
The drawback to this method is there will be a 2-3 week delay until your candle orders will be delivered. This extra time is for us to be able to craft your candles, let them cure for a week (soy wax needs to cure 1-2 weeks before a candle should be lit) and then ship them out to you.
In time, and as our business grows, we will ultimately start making up extra stock of the most popular candles based on what people are ordering the most of. Then we will be able to ship them out sooner.
So the hope is sometime soon we will just be able to walk to a shelf, pick your candle orders and box them up straight away to ship out. Unfortunately we’re not at that point yet – but that is what we’re aiming for.
We greatly thank you not only for your interest in Juniper Moon Candle Co and your purchases of our handcrafted candles, but also for your patience while your order is made, fulfilled, and ultimately delivered to your doorstep.
Made with love, from us to you.
Your support means more than you know. Thank you!
-Chris & Ginia