Here is all the up to the minute news:
With our production scheduled for the remainder of this week, we are already done making any more Spring and Summer scented products. That means, what candles, room sprays, melts and soaps we currently have in stock is all there will be. It is far too early to tell if all these scents will come back next Spring, but you can count on NIGHT SWIMMING making a return. It became a huge favorite of ours right away, and many of you felt the same. We briefly considered keeping it year round, but it is such a unique summer scent we felt it would be best to keep it as something to anticipate returning.
ARID FOREST is a Limited Engagement scent, so it will be around a little longer. We have made the last possible batch using the last of our scent supply. This was also highly popular. We are sticking to our plan with this scent and letting it go into the vault for a while.
What’s up next for us?
Production of our Autumn candle scents has begun. First batches are in the curing stage and will certainly be ready for the September 1st launch date.
Bottles with sprayers have finally been sourced for our ROOM + FABRIC SPRAY! We ordered big so we should not have to worry about this for some time. We even found a local manufacturer for these items which saves us on the shipping costs. This supplier formerly would not sell to smaller makers like us but have changed their policy to allow us to order from them in sensible quantities. As they offer nearly every type of bottle, cap and even paint cans that we use, they will see a lot of business coming from us. We anticipate these bottles and sprayers to arrive within the coming week. Once their shipping has been confirmed production will start immediately on all out of stock scents first, then all the new Autumn & Winter scents. We also ordered new label stock that has a woven fabric look and feel.
New tools are being acquired to permit an increase in production capacity. A new wax melter has been purchased that allows us to triple the amount of wax we can melt; which means we can make 3x the candles in a day. This melter replaces the previous melter we purchased just this last spring. That melter is now assigned the task of melting the special wax used for the melts as well as bar soap making.
Soy Wax is steadily increasing in price every time we order.
We hate this more than anything but it is a fact we have to deal with for now. Since we first started making candles, wax has increased in price as much as 15% every time we order since then. Along with those price increases, shipping rates have increased which means we are paying more for having the wax sent to us – and bulk wax is not light. With it being peak season for makers to prepare for holiday sales, the price increase is also impacted by higher demand. Other price increases related to candles have also occurred. Scent oils are 10% more expensive on average now and our signature paint cans are also 20% more – both are affected by higher shipping rates too.
Currently candles are the one product line most affected by this current trend of corporate greed which is forcing us little businesses to increase our prices or risk losing money. Since candles are also one of our tightest margin products – the one we make the lowest gross profit from – we must raise our prices on candles. As these price increases are affecting our current production run the hardest, we will not introduce the new prices until these candles are ready to be sold.
Effective September 1st, 2022 Candle Prices will increase to $23.00.
Room + Fabric Sprays will see a reduction in price as our new bottle supplier is also significantly less expensive. These will see a price cut once we are able to begin production of new inventory. Wax Melts will see no change at this time.
Upcoming events:
We have set aside a couple dates for early fall festivals. Neither have been confirmed as of yet but we don’t think there will be any issue preventing us from attending. These event are back-to-back weekends so we will have to dramatically increase our on hands for our most popular items to ensure we have more than enough for both weekends.
After these two Fall festivals, we only have one other event on our horizon. We anticipate being a part of an Andersonville Holiday Market. It is on the calendar for the Chamber of Commerce and I am sure once they announce it we will have our application in.
If there is a small, reasonably priced, event that is well attended, we will certainly look into it. Many single day events can be difficult for us as they limit vendors to a single table only. Even if we only bring our absolute most popular items, a table is not suitable for us. Often event likes these are designed more for crafters and hobbyists.
We have considered looking to events outside of Chicago and always run into a couple issues that make doing them a problem. Even if an event is in the suburbs we need to find overnight accommodations for us and anyone that helps us if they do not live in the area already. This can easily triple the expenses of taking part in these events. Also factoring in that there are also matters that need to be attended to at home on a daily basis. The further away from home we need to travel for an event increases those costs. The trade off is that most smaller community events tend to be much less expensive than the festivals that occur in and around Chicago.
Shipping Fees; please offer us your thoughts
USPS still remains the most affordable and reliable option for us. With all the issues being reported with all carriers, the USPS still is performing better at getting small packages to you. Although it is the most affordable, it still is an expense we must carry forward to our customers.
With the addition of candles, we are seeing higher shipping rates we must pay. While orders with heavy items carry a $1.00 up-charge per order, it may not cover enough of what we pay to ship those orders. We have 3 options we are considering to continue offering a value in our products and shipping fees.
- Increase the candle prices to cover the increase shipping costs. This can impact the value prop of the candle itself, making it seem more expensive. Plus this means even our In Person sales will pay the same price.
- Change how the up-charge is applied, or increase the up-charge fee. We can apply the up-charge as a ‘per candle’ charge or raise the fee to $2.00 flat per order.
- This is the most complex but more commonly used by other small online sellers: replace flat rate shipping with a discounted actual postage charge. Our system can link to USPS and look up actual postage based upon the weight and destination of a package. We can then apply a flat discount percentage to where the rate you see is less than what we actually pay.
We have considered moving to an “always free shipping” model. While it means your checkout price is predictable, based upon actual price paid plus tax without any added fees. It also means that we must raise the prices of every item we sell, and weigh those increases based upon frequency of sale in relation to shipping costs for each item. It would not be right for us to add a flat rate to every item as that would be unrealistic and lead to the customer overpaying for shipping and the product if buying more than 1 item. If we apply too small of an increase then those who do only purchase 1 item may not pay enough to cover the costs. We would have to find that right balance of price adjustment for every item based upon sales trends and it’s portion of the shipping weight. This is not easy to do and be fair and retain our revenues – too high on some items could lead to a drop in sales – to low can lead to a loss on each sale. And all this leads to in-person sales paying the same price as if it was being shipped.
We wish to keep our value pricing but be more attentive to the changes in our business that can impact our sustainability as a business. Add your comments to this post to tell us what you think.
Reminders about Local Curbside Pickup
For those in our area, we can easily provide free curbside order pick up by appointment. This is intended to be a convenience for our community that lets a customer save a few bucks as well as it being a little greener versus shipping. We must insist upon appointments so we can keep other parts of our business moving and not have to step away from other tasks that may demand our full attention at times. We provide a variety of dates and time blocks that can work with nearly every schedule. It doesn’t permit instant gratification, but within 2-3 days you can have your order – not too different than shipping and no porch pirates can scurry off with it before you get to it.
With this service, we need to be very detailed and clear on communicating expectations. It is imperative that appointment times are kept. There is a 30 minute window allotted for each appointment. Once that 30 minutes passes and we don’t hear from the customer, we go back to our other duties. If after an hour without word, we will contact the customer via email that they will need to reschedule; we will provide a few suggestions that may work best. If there is any reason that the pick up time cannot be kept, please text us or email us at the contact information within the order confirmation. If an order is not picked up after 2 weeks, we will cancel the order and apply the value as Account Credit.
Heading into the Holiday season, this service becomes more popular and we wish to keep it available, If we find that Pickup is not functioning as designed, we may have to discontinue the service.
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