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Whether you’ve been making candles for years or you’re looking for a new business venture that you can start out of your home, a candle making business can be rewarding and profitable. Thanks to the capability of e-commerce platforms, you can easily sell your candles online.

While starting your own online candle business takes some time and effort, it’s a practical option for many candlemakers. Best of all, you can scale the startup into a larger business or keep it as a small operation that you pursue in your free time.

This step-by-step guide will help you through the process of selling your candles online. From making your first products to marketing the business, the more you understand what’s involved in starting your business, the better prepared you’ll be to maximize your chances of being successful.

Candle making is a craft, and you’ll need time to develop your products and skills. If you don’t have experience creating homemade candles, consider enrolling in a class so you can learn the skills you’ll need to make quality products.

Even better, look for a mentor who can give you one-on-one lessons on the craft. A mentor is someone you can turn to with questions, and they can help you with product development and the launch of your business. Most importantly, an experienced candlemaker can help you avoid expensive mistakes.

As you start to develop your candles and your overall style, you’ll be able to narrow down your candle business specialty. You might find that you’re skilled in making a certain type of candle, like beeswax candles, soy candles, decorative candles, aromatherapy candles, or scented candles. The candle industry is saturated, so it will be helpful to find a way to make your versions of these more common candle types different.

Once you’ve determined the types of candles you want to make and what makes them unique, it’s a good idea to do some market research. Take your candles to local craft fairs and farmers markets where you can engage with potential customers. Listen to the questions that customers ask, and don’t be afraid to ask for their reactions and thoughts. Craft fairs can be good places to get feedback on designs, fragrances, and pricing.

When you’re out engaging with the community, you have an opportunity to start building your social media platforms. Building a social media following takes time, but your social media audience will be valuable when you launch your e-commerce business. Consider offering giveaways at craft fairs, and make following your social media pages a requirement for entering the contest.

As a bonus, if you start your social media pages early on, they will be established pages with robust content and a following by the time you launch your online business. These well-established pages can help your brand look more authentic and can build trust among new followers and potential customers.

As ideas for your business start to come together, it’s time to figure out your business’s name. It should be catchy and memorable, but it’s also important that it isn’t too similar to other businesses in the candle making industry.

Brainstorming can be helpful when you’re looking for the perfect name. Write down every potential name, or even words and parts of names, you can come up with. Think about words you would use to describe your business or product line, symbols that are important in your life, and more. Ask your friends and family to help, and once you’ve accumulated a long list, start narrowing it down until you’re left with a few options.

You can even get your social media following involved in the process. Share your top names in a poll and ask your followers to help you pick the best option.

Before you settle on a business name, it’s a good idea to make sure that it isn’t already trademarked. The United States Patent and Trademark Office features an online database you can search to make sure your name is original within the industry. Once you know that no one has trademarked your name for similar use, you can apply to trademark it so no one can use it for a candle business in the future.

As you’re working out the details of your business, write a business plan. Even if you’re going to sell candles online on a part-time, small-scale basis, taking the time to create a business plan can help ensure that your business will be profitable.

When writing a business plan, think about details like where you’ll operate the business, the types of products you’ll sell, your expenses, your price points, your profit margins, how you’ll market the business, and more. Taking the time to iron out these details can help you identify potential problems early on, rather than having to deal with them after they’ve become a real issue. A business plan can prevent you from wasting money, and it serves as your guide as you develop your business.

The licensing and permit requirements for your candle company will depend on where you live. The best place to start is with a trip to your local town hall or small business administration office. To sell candles online, you’ll need a business license, which is usually $50 or less per year.

This is also the time to research any insurance coverage you may need. A business attorney can advise you about what type of coverage is best to protect your company and yourself.

Take some time to find quality sources for the materials you’ll need. It’s important to find a supplier who not only offers quality materials but also offers them in the quantities you need. Make sure that the supplier is reliable, or you could find yourself with orders to fill but without the necessary supplies.

Before you start selling candles online, you’ll need to research your shipping options. Shipping costs can quickly add up, especially if you’re selling candles in glass jars, which add to a package’s weight. Experimenting with different box sizes, shipping methods, and shipping companies can help you find the best shipping option for your products, potentially saving yourself and your customers money.

Take the time to send some test shipments to ensure that your packing methods are appropriate and will protect your products. Ship candles to friends and family across the country and make sure that the boxes and products arrive in good condition. This extra step can help you avoid unnecessary returns and frustrated customers.

Depending on how large your business becomes, you may find that you need a team to help you build and run it. Consider looking for some or all of the following professionals:

• Business mentor: A business mentor can help guide you through all the elements of developing your business, from choosing your product lines to connecting with potential customers.
• Business lawyer: A business lawyer can help you understand what type of insurance you might need and can review your contracts and website policy language to make sure they protect your business.
• Graphic designer: A graphic designer can help you make your product photos look great. The designer can also help you create a business logo and branding colors so people can easily recognize your business on any platform.
• Product photographer: Great product photos can help drive sales, so you might want to hire a product photographer who can capture quality shots of all your products.
• Accountant: Navigating business taxes can be tricky. A business accountant can help you ensure that your data is well organized and accurate.

Before you build your online store, give some thought to your business policies, including your return policy. You might also want to develop a custom order policy if you’ll be making custom products. Having these policies in writing can help you keep your business running smoothly and avoid customer disputes.

You may also want to develop an FAQ section for your website. An FAQ page offers valuable opportunities to incorporate SEO keywords and gives you a chance to highlight the benefits of your products, like the fact that they’re handmade or the unique materials you use to create them.

When it comes to building your online store, you have many potential platform choices. You can use an existing site like Etsy or Amazon, or you can create your own store, which gives you full control of your product prices, descriptions, and store policies.

While there are many e-commerce website platforms available, creating your own site can be time-consuming and expensive. A better option for your new candle business is Jotform Store Builder.

With Jotform Store Builder, you can create an online candle store without doing any coding. The drag-and-drop dashboard makes it easy to create an online store app that you can customize with your logo and color scheme.

The app allows you to collect orders, feedback, and customer contact information. Jotform provides an easy and secure checkout experience, with more than 40 payment gateways to choose from. Plus, Jotform already has free candle store app templates, including a scented candle order app, to streamline the process of designing your app.

Adding product photos and descriptions is easy. You can also set the price of each product and specify your shipping rates. Be sure to upload quality photos that clearly depict your products. These photos can help drive sales and minimize your return rate, since they’ll give customers a clear idea of the product they’re buying.

Once the app is complete, you can embed it into your website. You can also link to it from your social media accounts, driving your existing social media audience to your online store.

With your online store live, it’s time to market your business. Your marketing plan might encompass multiple forms of marketing, including paid digital ads, social media marketing, and content marketing.

Email marketing can be very helpful for online businesses. Consider offering site visitors an incentive — like a product discount or an entry into a contest — to get them to sign up for your newsletter. Once you’ve built an email list, you can easily reach these customers with your marketing messages.

Before you start pursuing lots of different marketing activities, take the time to outline a marketing budget. That budget can help you stay focused and avoid spending all your marketing dollars in the first month operation.

It’s also important to collect data and analytics on your marketing efforts so you know what’s working best and what adjustments you may need to make to your marketing strategy.

An online candle business means you can reach more customers than just those who attend local craft fairs and other events. But building an online business takes time and effort.

Using a platform like Jotform Store Builder can streamline the process of creating your store, saving you the cost of hiring a developer. Once you have an online platform to sell your candles, you can scale your business or maintain it as an enjoyable and profitable hobby.