Hi, we’re Katie and Eric Roering; the founders of Fontana Candle Co. In 4 years we took our hobby of making candles in our basement, and selling them at craft shows and makers markets and we turned Fontana into a nationally recognized eCommerce brand. This year we are doing 7 figures of revenue and have 12 employees. So how did we do it?

Welcome to The Candle Couple Podcast, where we will share the nitty gritty of scaling our e-commerce brand quickly. We are spilling the tea, so hopefully we can help you scale your brand quickly too.

This is Episode 18: How to (Digitally) Market Your Candle Business in 2023

We're now in Q2 of 2023, and we're ready to do a deep dive into which digital marketing strategies worked so far this year, and which ones didn't work. Digital Marketing is an always shifting landscape (those darn algorithms!), so how are we pivoting our marketing strategies with the information we have now?

Disclaimer: Everything shared in our videos is from our own personal experience, and is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Always seek legal guidance from a business attorney and certified public accountant. Everyone is responsible for their own business structure and business practices, and we will not be held accountable.

Since we love the companies we talk about so much, we may have an affiliate relationship with them. If you make a purchase through the above links, we may earn a small affiliate commission. There is no additional cost to you.

Hi, we’re Katie and Eric Roering; the founders of Fontana Candle Co. In 4 years we took our hobby of making candles in our basement, and selling them at craft shows and makers markets and we turned Fontana into a nationally recognized eCommerce brand. This year we are doing 7 figures of revenue and have 12 employees. So how did we do it?

Welcome to The Candle Couple Podcast, where we will share the nitty gritty of scaling our e-commerce brand quickly. We are spilling the tea, so hopefully we can help you scale your brand quickly too.

This is Episode 17: What We Wish We Knew Before Starting Our Candle Business

This topic has been done quite a bit already on Youtube, but we think with our scale, we bring a slightly different perspective to this. We are sharing what we have learned from owning our million dollar candle business.

Timestamps:

1:15 What is your end goal?

2:40 Our life is our business

3:00 We are not candle makers anymore

4:20 This is a volume business

5:00 The market is very crowded: what's your marketing strategy?

5:30 Makers Markets & Craft Shows make great market test groups

8:18 Record keeping for success

9:20 Dead inventory is a cash suck

10:00 How many scents should you start with?

11:00 Make data driven business decisions

11:50 Business Mentors are a key to success

13: 40 Trust but verify

14:20 It's ok to say no!

Resources:

Find a SCORE Mentor: https://www.score.org/

Disclaimer: Everything shared in our videos is from our own personal experience, and is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Always seek legal guidance from a business attorney and certified public accountant. Everyone is responsible for their own business structure and business practices, and we will not be held accountable.

Since we love the companies we talk about so much, we may have an affiliate relationship with them. If you make a purchase through the above links, we may earn a small affiliate commission. There is no additional cost to you.

Hi, we’re Katie and Eric Roering; the founders of Fontana Candle Co. In 4 years we took our hobby of making candles in our basement, and selling them at craft shows and makers markets and we turned Fontana into a nationally recognized eCommerce brand. This year we are doing 7 figures of revenue and have 12 employees. So how did we do it?

Welcome to The Candle Couple Podcast, where we will share the nitty gritty of scaling our e-commerce brand quickly. We are spilling the tea, so hopefully we can help you scale your brand quickly too.

Today we are sharing one of the most important calculations that we use almost daily in our business: how to calculate margin per order. You may not have the capacity to do it daily like we do, but it is a tool to use to understand if you are truly making money in your eCommerce business once all fulfillment costs, labor, and platform sellers fees are considered.

Because of this calculation, we know that one item orders have low margins and cost us money when we used a 3PL for fulfillment. This knowledge gives us the clarity to focus on incentivizing larger average order values (AOVs) through bundles, free shipping incentives, and up-selling accessories.

Timestamps:

1:11 Eric's background in Finance

2:00 Strategy meeting with a CPA for your tax strategy

2:40 Do your research for your own brand

3:33 Sales margin per order

4:20 Understand Excel for success

4:30 Example: negative margin bundles, gift sets, heavy items

6:50 Spreadsheet for margin calculation

11:35 One item orders hurt our business

12:13 Marketing Strategy: driving up AOV

13:15 Using free shipping incentives to increase AOV

14:10 Streamlining shipping to reduce labor costs

14:29 Sorting the data: investigating orders under 50% margin

17:00 Platform seller fees

18:37 Selling on Amazon

Resources:

How to Price Your Candles for a Profitable Candle Business: https://youtu.be/Ap6vodBP3dE

How Much Does it Cost to Start a Candle Business? https://youtu.be/KYiq2Gv1LNw

How Much Money Can you Really Make Running a Candle Business At Home? https://youtu.be/kBrUwM2PiTA

Disclaimer: Everything shared in our videos is from our own personal experience, and is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Always seek legal guidance from a business attorney and certified public accountant. Everyone is responsible for their own business structure and business practices, and we will not be held accountable.

Since we love the companies we talk about so much, we may have an affiliate relationship with them. If you make a purchase through the above links, we may earn a small affiliate commission. There is no additional cost to you.

Hi, we’re Katie and Eric Roering; the founders of Fontana Candle Co. In 4 years we took our hobby of making candles in our basement, and selling them at craft shows and makers markets and we turned Fontana into a nationally recognized eCommerce brand. This year we are doing 7 figures of revenue and have 12 employees. So how did we do it?

Welcome to The Candle Couple Podcast, where we will share the nitty gritty of scaling our e-commerce brand quickly. We are spilling the tea, so hopefully we can help you scale your brand quickly too.

Today we are sharing how our wholesale business has changed as our business has grown, how to protect yourself with large wholesale orders, and what it is really like to talk with big wholesale buyers. We're talking the BIG ONES. You will learn why we said no to Anthropologie, Whole Foods, and Thrive Market. And how saying no to one of these is one of Katie's biggest regrets in the business to date.

Welcome to Episode 15: Selling Your Candles Wholesale: The Journey through Consignment, Faire, and why we said no to Anthropologie

Timestamps:

00:59 Sales reps for ourselves

1:30 Wholesale pricing

2:12 Drives volume

2:40 Loss of control

3:00 Networking through Makers Markets

4:00 Consignment

4:50 Risks of consignment

5:40 Benefits of Consignment

7:40 Paying rent for a retail space

9:20 Don't shotgun every opportunity

10:00 Stock for the season

10:18 Our biggest order ever

11:00 Logistics for palletized orders: INCO TERMS

14:40 Scaling Wholesale: Faire

16:40 When we turned off new wholesale accounts

17:00 Wholesale packouts for shipping

17:50 Large retailers: we said no

Resources:

How to Price Your Candles for a Profitable Candle Business: https://youtu.be/Ap6vodBP3dE

Apply to sell on Faire: https://www.faire.com/apply/fontanacandleco

Disclaimer: Everything shared in our videos is from our own personal experience, and is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Always seek legal guidance from a business attorney and certified public accountant. Everyone is responsible for their own business structure and business practices, and we will not be held accountable.

Since we love the companies we talk about so much, we may have an affiliate relationship with them. If you make a purchase through the above links, we may earn a small affiliate commission. There is no additional cost to you.

Hi, we’re Katie and Eric Roering; the founders of Fontana Candle Co. In 4 years we took our hobby of making candles in our basement, and selling them at craft shows and makers markets and we turned Fontana into a nationally recognized eCommerce brand. This year we are doing 7 figures of revenue and have 12 employees. So how did we do it?

Welcome to The Candle Couple Podcast, where we will share the nitty gritty of scaling our e-commerce brand quickly. We are spilling the tea, so hopefully we can help you scale your brand quickly too.

Today we will discuss one of the most asked questions of those just starting in their candle business journey: how to price their candles. This is one of the most important foundations for a profitable business.

Eric, a former CPA and our current Chief Financial Officer, will walk you through the pricing strategies he uses in our 7 figure candle brand.

Welcome to Episode 14: How to Price Your Candles for a Profitable Candle Business

Timestamps:

1:46 understanding weights

2:41 building a BOM (Bill of Materials)

5:30 How often do we look at our pricing?

6:06 Software needed for pricing

7:15 Adding up COGs

8:13 Direct Labor Costs

9:29 Indirect Labor Costs

10:45 Overhead Costs

11:15 Forecasting what you will sell

13:23 How are you paying yourself?

14:40 Reinvesting back into your business

15:20 Shrink costs

16:40 Selling wholesale

18:46 This is a volume business

19:00 Does your pricing make sense for your brand and niche?

19:40 The Psychology of pricing

20:17 Subsidizing shipping costs

21:40 Decreasing COGS: vessels and labels

Resources:

Previous Episode: The Software We Use:

• The Software We U...

MRP Easy: https://app.mrpeasy.com/ctrl/partner/...

Disclaimer: Everything shared in our videos is from our own personal experience, and is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Always seek legal guidance from a business attorney and certified public accountant. Everyone is responsible for their own business structure and business practices, and we will not be held accountable.

Since we love the companies we talk about so much, we may have an affiliate relationship with them. If you make a purchase through the above links, we may earn a small affiliate commission. There is no additional cost to you.

Hi, we’re Katie and Eric Roering; the founders of Fontana Candle Co. In 4 years we took our hobby of making candles in our basement, and selling them at craft shows and makers markets and we turned Fontana into a nationally recognized eCommerce brand. This year we are doing 7 figures of revenue and have 12 employees. So how did we do it?

Welcome to The Candle Couple Podcast, where we will share the nitty gritty of scaling our e-commerce brand quickly. We are spilling the tea, so hopefully we can help you scale your brand quickly too.

This is Episode 13: How to Weather Seasonality in Your Candle Business

There is no doubt about it, there is a definitive candle season. Ours is typically August through Mother's Day. There are several ways to weather this seasonality. How do we keep our employees working year round without crippling our cash flow in the slow months? And when we ship candles in the summer, how in the heck do we keep them from melting?

Timestamps:

00:49 Slow season is right around the corner for candle businesses

1:30 Do you offer other products to offset slow season?

2:20 How do you structure your labor force?

3:17 Our peak season

3:40 Diversifying our products

4:00 Cash flow analysis of making fall & holiday stock during slow season

5:42 Candles are not an essential item

6:24 Collections of products by scent for cross-selling opportunities

7:40 We made a mistake in naming our company

9:20 Shipping candles in the Summer

Disclaimer: Everything shared in our videos is from our own personal experience, and is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Always seek legal guidance from a business attorney and certified public accountant. Everyone is responsible for their own business structure and business practices, and we will not be held accountable.

Since we love the companies we talk about so much, we may have an affiliate relationship with them. If you make a purchase through the above links, we may earn a small affiliate commission. There is no additional cost to you.

Hi, we’re Katie and Eric Roering; the founders of Fontana Candle Co. In 4 years we took our hobby of making candles in our basement, and selling them at craft shows and makers markets and we turned Fontana into a nationally recognized eCommerce brand. This year we are doing 7 figures of revenue and have 12 employees. So how did we do it?

Welcome to The Candle Couple Podcast, where we will share the nitty gritty of scaling our e-commerce brand quickly. We are spilling the tea, so hopefully we can help you scale your brand quickly too.

Today we are sharing the foundations your customer service program needs for success: clean and concise policies and procedures that are on-brand and can scale.

We will discuss returns & exchanges, support with lost and stolen packages, packages that are undelieverable, and so much more.

You will learn that although Katie is in charge of the Customer Care Team at Fontana, it is one of the most emotionally taxing things she does.

Timestamps:

00:50 Customer Service can be emotionally taxing

1:30 Outsourcing Customer Service?

2:13 Unrealistic customer expectations

2:20 Set your policies early and have them visible

3:30 Avoid inconsistencies from customer to customer

3:54 Allow edits of orders?

5:50 Allow customers to choose their shipping options?

6:50 Allow shipping to APO addresses? International shipping?

8:20 Returns & Exchanges: Reverse Logistics

13:18 Delivered but not received

14:00 Fraudulent Claims

15:00 Chargebacks & Route Package Protection

16:40 Shipping Restrictions

17:30 Undelieverable Packages: RTS

18:58 Where do you want customers to contact you?

19:30 Software: Gorgias

20:31 Customer Service hours

20:50 Our Customer Service Benchmarks

Resources:

Gorgias: https://www.gorgias.com/ (Tell them Fontana Candle Co. referred you!)

Previous Episode: The Software We Use:

• The Software We U...

Route Package Protection: https://route.com/merchants

Disclaimer:

Everything shared in our videos is from our own personal experience, and is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Always seek legal guidance from a business attorney and certified public accountant. Everyone is responsible for their own business structure and business practices, and we will not be held accountable.

Since we love the companies we talk about so much, we may have an affiliate relationship with them. If you make a purchase through the above links, we may earn a small affiliate commission. There is no additional cost to you.

Hi, we’re Katie and Eric Roering; the founders of Fontana Candle Co. In 4 years we took our hobby of making candles in our basement, and selling them at craft shows and makers markets and we turned Fontana into a nationally recognized eCommerce brand. This year we are doing 7 figures of revenue and have 11 employees. So how did we do it?

Welcome to The Candle Couple Podcast, where we will share the nitty gritty of scaling our e-commerce brand quickly. We are spilling the tea, so hopefully we can help you scale your brand quickly too.

Today we are sharing how it is has truly been to grow a 7 figure company with our spouse, and how our challenges and lack of work life balance, led us to a transition that we are currently going through.

You will hear that working 24/7 with your spouse isn't all rainbows and butterflies.

Timestamps:

00:50 Immunity for this episode

1:08 Background of our marriage

2:00 Transition period: gaining independence

2:40 Unhealthy amount of time together

3:50 Setting parameters for the next stage of growth

4:30 Separation of duties

5:20 Different expectations: difficulties managing

6:32 Expectations: theme from our marriage counseling

7:20 Power struggles: who is really in charge?

8:40 We just hired a general manager

9:14 Work life balance: the business has become our identity

10:48 We don't go on vacations

11:12 Leaving our business wasn't an option

12:12 Supporting our new manager by not stepping on her toes

13:20 Spouses switching roles: watching your partner struggle

14:40 You can only fake it for so long

15:30 Seeing opportunity

16:00 Making sacrifices

18:12 Working together was our ultimate goal

19:05 More opportunities to disagree

20:00 Being a sounding board vs. a hindrance

Disclaimer:

Everything shared in our videos is from our own personal experience, and is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Always seek legal guidance from a business attorney and certified public accountant. Everyone is responsible for their own business structure and business practices, and we will not be held accountable.

Since we love the companies we talk about so much, we may have an affiliate relationship with them. If you make a purchase through the above links, we may earn a small affiliate commission. There is no additional cost to you.

Hi, we’re Katie and Eric Roering; the founders of Fontana Candle Co. In 4 years we took our hobby of making candles in our basement, and selling them at craft shows and makers markets and we turned Fontana into a nationally recognized eCommerce brand. This year we are doing 7 figures of revenue and have 10 employees. So how did we do it?

Welcome to The Candle Couple Podcast, where we will share the nitty gritty of scaling our e-commerce brand quickly. We are spilling the tea, so hopefully we can help you scale your brand quickly too.

Today we are sharing how much it cost us to start our candle business in 2018!

Welcome to Episode 10: How Much Does it Cost to Start a Candle Business?

Timestamps:

1:15 Choosing ingredients & supplies: testing, testing, testing $3,300

3:43 Branding Costs: logo, label design $2,000

5:29 Equipment Costs: presto pots, pour pitches, scales, heatguns $1,800

6:40 Save big on shipping with local suppliers

8:00 First year COGS: $12,000

8:34 Craft shows and Makers Markets $60-$150 a show

10:15 Website expenses: domain, hosting $400-$900

11:00 Business protection: LLC filing $1,500

11:38 Insurance $600 - $1,500

12:20 Trademarks $500- $1,200

13:50 Photography & Videography $250- $2,000

16:00 Shipping supplies & expenses

17:00 Using credit card rewards points for cash

18:10 Marketing costs

18:35 Don't over-market beyond what you can make and fulfill

19:58 Software: Quickbooks

20:18 Tax Accounting

20:52 Total Spend to start our business

Resources:

Shopify: https://shopify.pxf.io/x9V6Wx

ShipStation: https://mbsy.co/6rH6Dq

The Software We Use in Our 7 Figure Candle Business: https://youtu.be/U1YjZazTJKo

The Marketing Strategies We used to Grow Our Candle Business: https://youtu.be/3EnLQY95PnM

Using Video to Market Your Candle Business: https://youtu.be/47koqe99edQ

Branding & Marketing a 6 Figure Candle Business: https://youtu.be/ZIBVWappTak

Disclaimer:

Everything shared in our videos is from our own personal experience, and is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Always seek legal guidance from a business attorney and certified public accountant. Everyone is responsible for their own business structure and business practices, and we will not be held accountable.

Since we love the companies we talk about so much, we may have an affiliate relationship with them. If you make a purchase through the above links, we may earn a small affiliate commission. There is no additional cost to you.

Hi, we’re Katie and Eric Roering; the founders of Fontana Candle Co. In 4 years we took our hobby of making candles in our basement, and selling them at craft shows and makers markets and we turned Fontana into a nationally recognized eCommerce brand. This year we are doing 7 figures of revenue and have 10 employees. So how did we do it?

Welcome to The Candle Couple Podcast, where we will share the nitty gritty of scaling our e-commerce brand quickly. We are spilling the tea, so hopefully we can help you scale your brand quickly too.

Today we are sharing how and when we decided to quit our jobs and go "all in" on our candle business.

Welcome to Episode 9: Quitting our Jobs and Going All In on our Candle Business

This is a scary step and took us 3 years into our business to make the leap! Learn all about how we prepared our finances, lived frugally, and never took any money out of our business up to that point.

Timestamps:

0:53 What is our definition of going all in?

1:49 Our timeline

2:40 Eric quits his job

3:37 Saving up but having a back up plan

4:48 Never taking money out of the business and reinvesting for growth

5:40 Living frugally is a key to our success: financial literacy

6:30 Success: never worried about money since Eric left his job

8:49 We don't have children- that would change everything for us

9:19 Our largest PO solidified the decision

10:35 Our whole life went all in on the business

11:40 We work all the time

12:30 Hiring a manager because our schedule is not sustainable

13:10 Do not burn any bridges

13:50 Growth consumes cash

15:00 Conclusion: should you go all in?

Disclaimer:

Everything shared in our videos is from our own personal experience, and is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Always seek legal guidance from a business attorney and certified public accountant. Everyone is responsible for their own business structure and business practices, and we will not be held accountable.

Since we love the companies we talk about so much, we may have an affiliate relationship with them. If you make a purchase through the above links, we may earn a small affiliate commission. There is no additional cost to you.