Candles are more than just a source of light; they are also a way to create a cozy, relaxing, and romantic atmosphere. Come in different shapes and sizes, they can suit any occasion, mood, or preference.
Candles, with their calming and comforting traits, have taken the global market BY STORM, being in high demand all over the world, with the global candle market expected to grow to $16.9 billion by 2028.
If you love candles and want to start your own candle business, you might be wondering how to do it without spending a lot of money or dealing with inventory and shipping. The answer is dropshipping candles!
In this article, we’ll walk you through the fundamentals, including:
- The current dropshipping potential of the candle niche, with its pros and cons;
- How to find the best candle suppliers for dropshipping business
- Guide to starting your own candle dropshipping business in 2023
Let’s get right to it!
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The Profit Margin of Candle Dropshipping
The profit margin of candle dropshipping can vary depending on several factors, such as the type of candles you sell, the supplier you use, and your marketing and branding strategies. You can expect a profit margin of 25% to 50% on each sale.
For example, selling a candle for $20 could profit from $5 to $10. This is a relatively high-profit margin, which is one of the reasons why dropshipping candles can be a profitable business venture.
Of course, there are also some costs associated with dropshipping candles, such as the cost of setting up your website and marketing your products.
However, these costs are typically relatively low, so you can still make a good profit even after considering them. But with a little planning and effort, you can start a successful dropshipping business generating a high profit margin!
What Are The Pros and Cons Of Dropshipping Candles
As you can see, dropshipping candles is a very profitable business venture. However, like any business, there are pros and cons to consider.
1. Pros of Dropshipping Candles
1.1. Low startup and operational costs
Dropshipping candles does not require investing in inventory, warehousing, packaging, or shipping. You only pay your supplier after you receive an order from your customer. This means you can start your business with minimal capital and avoid the risk of overstocking or understocking.
1.2. High profit margin
Candles are relatively cheap to source from suppliers, but you can sell them at a higher price to your customers. According to some experts, the average profit margin for candle dropshipping is around 25% to 50%. This means you can make a decent profit per sale, especially if you offer premium or personalized candles.
1.3. Wide product variety
Candles come in different shapes, sizes, colors, scents, and designs. You can offer your customers various options or even create custom candles with your brand name or logo. Or also cater to different niches and occasions, such as birthdays, weddings, holidays, seasons, etc.
1.4. High demand and popularity
Candles are always in demand, especially during the last quarter of the year, which falls into the holiday season!
According to Verified Market Research, the global candle market size was valued at $12.88 billion in 2022 and is expected to register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.7% from 2021 to 2030. Candles are also popular among different segments of customers, such as candle lovers, home decorators, gift givers, self-care enthusiasts, etc.
2. Cons of Dropshipping Candles
2.1. Quality and safety issues
Candles are delicate and fragile products that can be easily damaged during transit. They can also pose a fire hazard if not handled properly.
You need to ensure that your supplier provides high-quality candles that are well-packed and shipped safely. You also need to provide clear instructions and warnings to your customers on using and storing the candles.
2.2. Shipping and delivery delays
Candles are usually shipped from overseas suppliers, which can take a long time to arrive at your customers’ doorstep. This can cause customer dissatisfaction and complaints, especially if they ordered the candles for a specific occasion or date.
You need to set realistic expectations for your customers on the shipping and delivery time and provide them with tracking information and updates.
2.3. Competition and saturation
Candles are a popular product to sell online, meaning you will face much competition from other sellers. You must differentiate yourself from competitors by offering unique products, competitive prices, excellent customer service, and effective marketing strategies.
Overall, dropshipping candles can be a profitable business venture. However, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons carefully before getting started.
How To Find The Best Suppliers for Candle Dropshipping?
Finding the best product suppliers is one of the most important steps in starting a candle dropshipping business. You want to work with suppliers offering low-cost, high-quality candles, fast, reliable shipping, and excellent customer service.
Below are a few tips to help you find reliable and reputable suppliers:
1. Use online directories and platforms
One of the easiest ways to find candle dropshipping suppliers is to use online directories and platforms that list verified and reputable suppliers from various niches and countries. Some of the popular online directories and platforms for dropshipping are:
- AliExpress: AliExpress, one of the biggest and most well-liked online marketplaces for dropshipping, provides a wide range of candle suppliers. On AliExpress, you will discover countless suppliers offering different products, prices, and shipping choices.
AliExpress is a wonderful place to find supplier for your dropshipping candles business
- Alibaba: Alibaba is another giant online marketplace that connects buyers and sellers from all over the world. It boasts an extensive network of candle manufacturers and wholesalers, providing abundant options at affordable prices.
Alibaba is also a great place to source candles of all sorts
- Etsy: Etsy is a unique online marketplace that features handmade, artisan, and vintage products from private sellers around the globe. Many candle makers on Etsy offer hand-crafted and personalized candles in various styles, scents, and designs. You can also contact the sellers and request custom orders or dropshipping arrangements.
2. Do your research
Another way to find candle dropshipping suppliers is to research online.
The easiest way is to use search engines like Bing or Google to look for keywords like “candle dropshipping suppliers”, “candle wholesalers”, and “candle manufacturers”. You can also use location, price, rating, etc. filters to narrow your search results.
However, remember that not all online suppliers are reliable or trustworthy. You must check their websites, reviews, feedback, policies, terms, and conditions, etc. before contacting them or placing an order. Also, verify their product quality, shipping time, and customer service by ordering samples or test orders.
Here are some reputable candle suppliers:
- Candles4Less: Candles4Less is a supplier that specializes in candles. They have a wide selection of candles at competitive prices.
- Wax & Wick: Wax & Wick is a US-based supplier that offers 100% soy-based candles with wood wicks and minimalist aesthetics. They have a free dropshipping program that gives you discounts based on your sales volume.
- Daniella’s Candles: Daniella’s Candles is a US-based supplier that offers luxury home fragrances and gifts, including scented jewelry candles. They have a dropshipping program that delivers orders directly to your customers in the US.
- Ancient Wisdom: Ancient Wisdom is a UK-based supplier that offers a variety of products for home and giftware, including candles. They have a dropshipping service that ships orders worldwide.
3. Ask for recommendations
You can also find suppliers by asking for recommendations from other dropshippers or experts in the niche.
This can be done by exploring online communities such as forums, groups, blogs, and podcasts focusing on candle dropshipping or eCommerce in general. Or via following influencers, mentors, or coaches who possess valuable insights into candle dropshipping.
You can ask them for their opinions, suggestions, tips, tricks, etc., on finding the best candle dropshipping suppliers. From their sharings, you will learn from their mistakes, successes, failures, etc.
However, remember to approach them with respect and gratitude when seeking recommendations. Remember to conduct your research and due diligence before blindly trusting any sharings.
Finding the best suppliers for candle dropshipping is not easy, but it is not impossible either. By following the tips above, you can find reliable and reputable suppliers who can provide high-quality candles at low prices, fast and reliable shipping, and excellent customer service.
How To Start Candle Dropshipping?
Step 1: Research the trending candles on the global market
Before you start selling candles online, you need to do some market research and find out what types of candles are in high demand and have low competition. You can use various tools and methods to do this, such as:
- Google Trends: Google Trends shows you the popularity of different search terms over time and across regions. You can use it to find out what kinds of candles people are searching for and how the demand changes seasonally or geographically.
Google Trend is a wonderful platform to research for your dropshipping candles business
- Ali Hunter: Ali Hunter is a supporting tool that can help you find the best-selling candles on AliExpress. You can use it to discover the most popular and profitable candles on AliExpress, the tools can filter products based on categories, show you all the prices, ratings, reviews, shipping options, supplier recommendations, and even expected profit margin. Moreover, the best thing about Ali Hunter is that you can use it to spy on your competitors who also sell candles. You can literally see which products are selling well on their stores and may be make it your own!
AliHunter is another great app to research for your dropshipping candles business
- Social Media: Social media platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok are great sources of inspiration and information for candle dropshipping. You can use them to find out what kinds of candles are trending, what styles and scents are appealing to your target audience, and what influencers and competitors are doing in the niche.
Step 2: Choose A Candles Dropshipping Supplier
Once you know what kinds of candles you want to sell, you need to find a trustworthy and reliable supplier who can provide high-quality products at low prices.
There are many factors to consider when choosing a candle dropshipping supplier, such as:
- Product quality: It is essential to ensure that the candles you sell are crafted from high-quality materials, possess enduring fragrances, burn uniformly, and do not present any health or safety hazards. To assess the product quality, you can peruse customer reviews, request samples, or purchase test products.
- Product variety: To cater to your customers’ diverse preferences, it is imperative to offer an extensive array of choices encompassing various types, shapes, sizes, colors, scents, and designs of candles. You can examine the supplier’s catalog or website to ascertain the breadth of product variety available.
- Shipping time and cost: It is important to prioritize the timely and affordable receipt of orders by your customers. To determine the shipping time and cost, refer to the supplier’s shipping policy, available delivery methods, tracking options, and associated fees.
- Customer service: You want smooth and positive communication with your supplier. You can check customer service by contacting the supplier via email, phone, chat, or social media and seeing how they respond to your inquiries, requests, or issues.
Some examples of excellent candles dropshipping suppliers are Candles4Less, Wax & Wick, Daniella’s Candles, and Ancient Wisdom. You can return to the previous section to learn more about these suppliers.
Step 3: Choose A Dropshipping Platform To Sell On
After you have found a suitable supplier for your candles, you need to choose a platform where you can create your online store and sell your products. There are many options available for candle dropshipping platforms, such as:
- Shopify: Shopify is one of the most popular and user-friendly platforms for creating an online store. It allows you to customize your store design, add products, manage inventory, process payments, track orders, and more. It also integrates with various apps and tools to help you with marketing, analytics, customer service, etc.
- WooCommerce: WooCommerce is an open-source plugin that turns your WordPress website into an online store. It gives you more flexibility and control over your store functionality and appearance. It also supports various extensions and plugins to enhance your store’s features and performance.
- eBay: eBay is one of the largest and most well-known online marketplaces for buying and selling various products. It allows you to list your products, set your prices, manage your orders, receive feedback, etc. It also has a large customer base and traffic that can help you reach more potential buyers.
Among these options, Shopify would be a great choice as your candle dropshipping platform because it is easy to use, has many features and benefits for dropshippers, and has a free trial period that lets you test it out before committing.
Shopify is a highly recommended platform for dropshipping candles
Step 4: Import the trending candle products to your store
Once you have set up your online store on your chosen platform, you must import the trending candle products you want to sell from your supplier to your store.
You can do this manually by copying and pasting the product information and images from your supplier’s website to your store, or you can use a tool to automate this process.
One of the best, yet underrated apps for this is Ali Orders. Ali Orders helps merchants find and import products from AliExpress to your Shopify store and fulfill orders automatically.
💡 To start off, you can watch this video for a more detailed tutorial on importing products using Ali Orders:
Here is a step-by-step guide on importing products using Ali Orders on Shopify:
Step 1: Install the Ali Orders app in your Shopify store.
Step 2: After installing, open the app in your Shopify admin. You should see a window like this:
Open AO in your Shopify admin
Step 3: On the left-side navigation bar, choose Ali Orders > Find product. On the new window that displays, type in the product that you want to find & import to your Shopify store.
In this example, we type in “scented candles” to find some beautiful molds for scented candles to sell in our store.
Type in the product you want to find on AO
Step 4: The next step is to choose & import the product. You can choose to keep the product Unpublished to edit some details or Publish it right away.
In this example, when browsing through the search results, this rose-shaped mold catches our eyes, and we want it in our store. So we hover over it and click this ‘Add to import list’ button.
That is the only product we want to import this time. So, we look at the left-side navigation bar and choose Ali Orders > Import list.
A window appears as above. We click the arrow icon to import the product to our Shopify storefront.
Go to Import list to import your products
Push products to your store:
Click Push to store
We keep the default setting “Continue selling when out of stock”. Then click “Push to store”.
Step 5: Done! Now you can start selling the newly imported product.
You can always check the status of the newly successfully imported product in your Shopify admin > Product. As in this example, I can see the new rose-shaped mold I’ve just imported to my online store.
You can check your results in the Product tab
Step 5: Fulfill your candle orders
After you have imported your products and launched your store, you need to fulfill your candle orders as they come in.
Fulfilling orders means placing orders with your supplier and having them ship the products directly to your customers. You can do this by contacting your supplier via email, phone, chat, or their website and providing them with the order details and payment. Or use AliOrders to perform all these tasks easily.
Step 6: Promote your dropshipping candle store
The last step in starting a candle dropshipping business is promoting your store and attracting customers. There are many ways to promote your store, such as:
- Social media:
You can use social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube to show off your candles, raise awareness for your brand, interact with your audience, and bring more people to your store.
There are different tactics you can try, such as sharing great photos and videos, making stories and reels, using hashtags and keywords effectively, hosting contests and giveaways, teaming up with influencers, etc.
- Email marketing:
Email marketing is an efficient and low-cost way to communicate with customers, build trust and loyalty, increase conversions and retention rates, and boost sales.
Platforms like Mailchimp or Klaviyo offer tools that allow you to easily create and send various email campaigns, including welcome emails, newsletters, product updates, discounts, etc.
- Content marketing:
Content marketing involves creating and sharing valuable content that educates, entertains, or inspires your target audience, helping them solve problems and achieve goals.
This can be done through various forms of content like blog posts, ebooks, infographics, podcasts, webinars, etc. Additionally, using SEO techniques such as keyword research and optimization can boost your search engine rankings and drive organic traffic to your store.
- Paid advertising:
Paid advertising allows you to pay to showcase your advertisements on platforms such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, YouTube Ads, and more. You can select from different ad formats like search ads, display ads, video ads, carousel ads, and so on.
Moreover, you should utilize targeting options such as keywords, demographics interests, or behaviors to effectively reach and engage with your preferred customer base.
These are some of the ways to promote your dropshipping candle store. You should always test different methods and measure their results to determine what works best for your niche and audience. And don’t forget to fine-tune your marketing game based on data and feedback!
Final words
Starting a dropshipping candles business can be a great way to make money online. Following the steps outlined in this article, you can set up your own dropshipping business and start selling candles in no time.
The most important thing is researching and choosing the right suppliers and dropshipping platform. Once you have everything set up, you can promote your store and sell candles.
So don’t wait any longer. Start your candle dropshipping business today and enjoy the benefits of selling candles online!
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