How to Start a Candle Business in Canada

If you have an entrepreneurial spirit and a knack for arts and crafts, starting a candle business could be your next venture!

Starting a candle making business in Canada can be a lucrative way for those with an entrepreneurial spirit to put some extra cash toward their vacation fund while exercising their creative side.

From perfecting common scents to trying out imaginative combinations for new ones, there are plenty of ways to get innovative with the art of candle making.

In this article, we’ll be taking a look at a few common steps for how to start a candle business for beginners.

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5 Steps to Starting a Candle Business

1. Figure Out What Makes Your Business Unique

Whether you’ve had plenty of experience making candles or you just found your passion, finding a distinctive voice and niche within the target market is important. Making sure your brand stands out against the rest of the competition is key to giving your business longevity and heart.

One way to do this is to target your brand toward other core aspects of your personality to ensure that you’ll never get bored of creating your wick-ed scents.

For example, a wine lover can play with the many different ways to capture the subtleties of various types of wines within their candles.

This can be a great way to work on becoming a better sommelier while learning how to capture scents in their own way.

There are plenty of other ways to make sure your candle business stands out, including:

• Playing with different kinds of unique packaging, or even the shapes of the candles themselves.

• Focusing on an underrepresented market, such as making all of your candles vegan.

• Creating region-specific candles, which can be an incredibly niche market to get into. For example, you could make scents based on your neighborhoods or only use local ingredients, selling your candles in your city or town’s trendy home décor stores.

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2. Figure Out Your Market

The next step candle makers should take when starting a business is to figure out at what point they want to enter the market.

For instance, there are lots of different pros and cons to entering the different price ranges of the marketing, including:

• Luxury Candles:

  • Candle makers in this price range put a lot of thought toward the marketing, materials, and story of the brand.

  • Typically made with soy wax, coconut wax, beeswax, or other high-end materials, these candles can go for $30 to $60 and beyond.

• Middle-Market Candles:

  • Candles in the midrange of the market will certainly have the biggest consumer base, but also the most competition.

  • Think of easily accessible and common outlets, like TJ Maxx, Winners, Target, and others, for a good idea of where candles in the middle price range are commonly sold.

  • They cost approximately $10 per candle, but as high as $30.

• Lower-End Candles:

  • On the lower end, manufacturers are less worried about what type of resources they use, opting for more economical options for things like packaging and candle wax.

  • Certainly not meant to break the bank, candles in this range usually sell for less than $10.

If you’re having trouble deciding what price range you should enter into the market with, think about what types of candles you’re making, who you want to sell to, and how much they would be willing to pay for your product.

From there, you can start thinking about the types of material you’ll need — this step will also help you hone your brand into a unique and intriguing entity to help you enter the market with a product that stands out.

3. Create a Unique Brand

Spending plenty of time making sure your brand stands out is an important step to building your business before you enter the market.

Picking out just the right colors, alongside creating a meaningful and interesting logo is another important step.

Putting time into your logo will create an aesthetic that comes together in a coordinated way, catching the eyes of your target demographic in a way that resonates with them.

A large majority of consumers are highly specific about the brands they choose to purchase, most often buying what they know rather than branching out to something new.

For this reason alone, it’s important to ensure your brand stands out from the other candles on the shelves, while having an interesting enough look to keep consumers engaged and coming back for more.

4. Decide Where to Sell Your Candles

Now that you’re growing your brand, it’s time to start figuring out what markets you want to sell your candles through. Most candles are sold through at least one of these channels:

• Brick-and-Mortar Stores:

  • For mid-to-luxury-range candles, finding a modist home décor store is a great way to build a certain feel around your candles, as people will associate your product with the other items sold in these stylish shops.

  • Attempting to get your candles sold in stores like TJ Maxx, Target, or other general merchandise retailers is a great way for businesses in the mid-to-lower range to get their product seen by plenty of consumers.

• Online-Third-Party Retailers:

  • Many candle makers also sell online via retail sites like Etsy as a low risk, low cost option to get their product seen by more potential customers.

• Social Media Outlets:

  • Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook are invaluable ways to promote your new candle business. And getting your friends to try out your candles in exchange for a Google review can be a great way to boost your exposure.

• Temporary Outdoor Markets:

  • Keep your ear to the ground to find out about any temporary outlets like flea markets and craft shows that are coming to your town to see if you can get a booth for some extra exposure to your business. Oftentimes, people that go to these types of shows are looking for businesses like local candle makers!

These are just a few of the many ways to gain exposure and a loyal following for your amazing new candle business.However, it can also be beneficial to use a hybrid of a few of these options to really spread the word about your scent-sational candles.

Related: Marketing ideas for small business

5. Insure Your Candle Business

Now that you’re ready to sell your fragrances, it’s important to make sure your candle business is properly insured so that you don’t face any damages.

These could potentially cripple your business while still in its infancy, regardless of whether or not you’re at fault.

The most common types of insurance for candle makers are:

• Product Liability Insurance:

  • This type of insurance protects candle makers from any accidents that could happen due to something going wrong with their product, even if they’re not to blame.For example, if you’re using a glass jar that gets too hot and burns the hand of a consumer, they could possibly sue for damages.

• General Liability Insurance:

  • Especially useful for those selling out of brick-and-mortar establishments, general liability insurance protects small business owners against claims of bodily injury or property damage.

APOLLO’s custom coverage protects small business owners with affordable insurance. Get a free quote in under five minutes and have your new policy emailed directly to your inbox.

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APOLLO and Gallagher have partnered to provide insurance designed for businesses and business professionals. Get a free quote online in under five minutes and receive your policy instantly.

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