Scorecard · Online
Candle shop on Etsy
51/100
How much does it cost to start a candle business on Etsy? $2,000–$9,000 in Online, on the figures below.
- Profit
- C
- A $28 candle costs $6.50 in wax, wick, jar and label. Etsy takes about 9% with fees and ads, shipping a 12 oz jar is $9, and the customer expects it free.
- Difficulty
- A
- No licence. Home production is legal in most US states, insurance is cheap, and you can list in a weekend. Standing out among 200,000 competing listings is the whole difficulty.
- Capital
- A$2,000–$9,000
- Wax, wicks and jars for 200 units $1,400, melters and scales $500, photography and props $400, and $1,000 of Etsy ads to find out whether anyone clicks.
Break-even
- The number that has to be true
- 88 candles a month at $28
- Fixed costs a month
- $650
- The assumption
- A repeat rate above 20%, or the ad cost eats the whole margin.
Opening for less
All three together take $3,700 off: $9,000 becomes $5,300.
Sell at two local markets before paying for a single Etsy ad
−$1,000
Costs you: Your weekends, and a much smaller shop window
Launch three scents in one jar size instead of twelve in three
−$1,800
Costs you: Less to test, and you may miss the scent that would have sold
Pour to order for the first 100 units instead of holding stock
−$900
Costs you: Slower dispatch, which Etsy ranking punishes
How you’d do it
What you need
- Product liability insurance, roughly $500 a year: candles burn things
- CPSC-compliant warning labels on every jar
- Photography good enough to compete with 200,000 listings
- A shipping box that survives the post office with a glass jar inside
First 3 moves
- 1Pour 20 candles, sell them at one market, and write down which scent went first.
- 2Search your own product on Etsy and read the top ten listings' review counts.
- 3Cost one order end to end, including free shipping, before you set the price.
The hardest part
Being found. The product is easy to make and almost impossible to see among the listings already there.
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