Candle Making Side Hustle Run Down:
Candles make the perfect gift – whether you are buying them for yourself or as a gift for someone else. Candles are easy to make and allow you to customise different scents, shapes and sizes to offer a range of products to your customers. It’s popular for candle makers to sell their products at craft and farmers markets as it gives the audience the chance to touch and smell the product before purchasing! Candle making is a popular and profitable side hustle to consider if you enjoy getting hands-on with making things!
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PROS & CONS OF STARTING A CANDLE MAKING BUSINESS
PROS
- Easy to make great looking and smelling products
- Almost everyone likes candles and can use them in their home
- Good flexibility around when you will make your candles (around kids bedtimes or between shifts etc)
- Easy to make and can use your own laundry or kitchen and equipment you already have
- Can shape, scent or name products to suit your niche
- We feel like candles are a product that will always sell at the right price point
CONS
- Often candle makers go to markets to get their products out there, which could be a problem if you don’t want weekend work
- Lots of other candle-makers out there which can make market spaces competitive
Effort Required To Start A Candle Making Side Hustle
To get started: Moderate – high
To get started, you will first need to purchase things to begin making candles and then spend some time creating them! To build up a bit of stock to start you off this may be a few days or nights of making up different scented batches to start you off.
Once you have stock ready to go, it’s up to you how you will sell it and market your side hustle! Do you need to build a website to sell through? Are you going to sell only via marketplace? Do you want to sell through markets and events?
Ongoing: Moderate- high
-You will need to keep your stock up to sell so once you start running low on stock there is effort required to continue making candles! You will need to continually keep an eye out on new events popping up (especially around special events such as Christmas and Mother’s day and in the warmer months)
Attending markets can be lots of fun, but also lengthy and timely to set up, sell for the day and pack down each weekend which is why we have noted that the effort could be ‘high’.
Candle Making Business / Side Hustle Earning Potential
Earning potential is low- moderate, depending on your margin that you wish to sell them for. Being quite a competitive space, unless you can differentiate or have limited competitors in your area, you can’t mark up excessively over the going market rate or your candles wont sell. You so also want to make sure you are covering your costs, including if you are factoring in your time at events at an hourly rate.
Cost Required To Start
To get started you will need all the equipment and materials required to make your candles! This includes jars or tins for the candles, wicks, something to hold the wicks in place, wax, oils scents, and labels for your candles!
You will need a saucepan and stove (portable stovetops are handy if you’ll be doing this in the garage or laundry) that is dedicated to candle making to keep kitchen equipment clean.
Little gift bags or boxes are also great for selling your products to give them the finishing touch when purchased.
If you’ll be attending markets you will need a sturdy marquee with weights, trestle table and table cloth. See our top tips on selling at markets here.
How Do I Start My Own Candle Making Business?
– Buy items for your candle making hustle (see items above).
-Design your brand and get stickers / logo printed for your jars – Vistaprint does easy and affordable stickers!
-Make your candles and style / set up lots of photos to use across your social media and website.
-Promote your products through Facebook Marketplace and create a Facebook and Instagram for your hustle. If you plan to sell through a website, set this up.
-Book in some markets and get your setup down pat so it saves you time and stress on market day!
