Wholesale | Private Label | White Label (what’s the difference?)

[Music] hey guys welcome back to my channel if you're new my name is lee marie and i make videos about candles and business and in today's video i wanted to tackle something that i think is kind of confusing to a lot of new makers and so i thought i would just let you know the differences between wholesale private label and white label now as a candle business owner i think it's important not only to know the differences but also to incorporate each one into your business um each one of them can be great opportunities can

be profitable for you um but the pricing and everything is really going to depend on what you're getting out of it and what the differences are so without further ado let's get started so a lot of the words that are thrown around in candle groups like facebook are things like you know does anybody wholesale i have someone that wants private label hey this person's looking for white label and from what i've seen from the comments a lot of people are confused as to what the difference is between the three so that's what i'm going to

go over with today so the first one is what i think is the most important and kind of the bread and butter if you will of a successful candle business and that's wholesale now wholesale basically just means that you are selling your candle your brand your product that you normally sell to everybody you're selling it to a store a retailer and you're doing so at a discount now a very general idea of a discount is 50 so for example if a candle costs you 10 to make you would sell it to this retailer for 20

so that's twice as much and they would sell it for 40. so that's where the 50 is so you're giving it to them for 20 they're selling it for 40. now why is this such a good idea for candle business well what retailers have is something that a lot of candle makers don't they have a store front um storefronts are obviously very expensive and a lot of established retailers have very good foot traffic um they're available in areas you might not be you know able to access for pop-ups or markets and so i think it's

really important when you're starting out as a candle business to try and figure out what retailers you could partner with and create a wholesale relationship so again wholesale you're taking your candle your product you're selling it at a 50 discount usually not always some retailers do like to negotiate um and they might come up with a lower percentage so just keep that in mind that it's not always going to be a flat 50 but 50 i think is a good starting point so um so you're selling them your candle or product at 50 of the

retail price and they are then selling it at the retail price now the one thing i really love the most about wholesale besides the fact besides the fact that you're getting your product in front of a lot of people that you might not have access to normally is consistent orders if your product is selling well in these stores those stores are obviously going to keep buying from you and you can get you know monthly orders from you know if you're in a couple different stores you could be getting monthly orders and monthly revenue and consistent

money coming in is really important to a brand new business um so it's it's what basically keeps the lights on it's what lets you save up and you know do additional projects and and take on additional clients is that consistent money so wholesale to me very important um you want to be my goal is to be in as many stores as i can currently i'm in 32 i want to be in many many more um so you're always looking for that relationship with a retailer to further expose your brand to new customers okay so that's

wholesale and we love wholesale okay so the second one that a lot of people ask about is called private label and private label what that means is that a company usually a home fragrance company maybe a store um maybe another candle company um or somebody that sells kind of home products or candle products or you know it could even be maybe like a spa but it's a company that wants you to collaborate or create an entire line of candles it actually could be just one candle but usually it's there's a creation process there's a collaboration

okay so with private label you are contacting um constantly with that retailer and you're trying to figure out okay well what wax do they want what kind of vessel do they want what kind of fragrances are they looking for sometimes they want you to come up with custom fragrances um are they gonna want me to put all the the labels on am i gonna be drop shipping to their customers you know there's a lot of things that go into private label and that's why private label in my opinion is what you should charge the most

for because it is a lot of work and it's a lot of time so again private label if you're say you're contacted by a spa and the spa says yes we have a skincare line and we would like candles to go along with our skincare line we want to create a line of six candles we want them to have a certain feeling or theme um we want you know this kind of vessel we want it to look like this we want wooden wicks we want you know um they're very specific as to what they want

but at the end of the day it's their company's label that is getting put on that candle so basically that candle is passing off as their product that's private label um again and it's where you're creating something specifically for a business um and their label is gonna be on it at the end of the day and they're gonna pass it off as theirs so a good example of this would be like target brand candles obviously target doesn't sit there and make candles but they do have a company that makes candles for them to their specifications

that they then put the target label on um so that would be you know they have different collections and things like that so that would be an example of a private label um and again it's they're selling it as a target product even though target didn't make it okay so that's private label and again we like private label because one you get to charge a little bit more and i'll explain that in one second and then two you want that consistency in sales with private label since they're selling candles just as you would you want

that traffic you want those sales because they're going to order more and more and more from you so you do get the consistency and sales that you would get from whole wholesale so private label is fantastic now pricing wise what i always do is obviously you're going to have multiple conversations with your client and you're going to go over exactly what they want then you're going to price it all out what is it going to cost you to have to make you know that first initial order and just a little side note i don't accept

private label orders under 500 candles so for me in order to make it worth my while it has to be at least 500 candles um you could have a lower moq if you want or a higher one it's totally up to you but i would definitely set a certain number of candles that makes it worth your while um so for me it's 500 and then you need to figure out what is it gonna cost the vessels the wicks the wax the fragrances the labels the shipping to them all of that what is all of that

going to cost and then on top of that you're going to want to add a candle poor fee which is what i call it so obviously you need to make your money back whatever money you're spending on supplies you have got to pay that back right you have to make that back so what you want is so then on top of that charge a fee per candle for your time and that can range anywhere from a few dollars to 10 or 15 depending on the complexity of the candle you know are you creating the fragrances

and then pouring them and then doing like decorative floral you know things on top are you doing gemstones on top things are going to take extra time all those things kind of matter when it comes to your pricing so for me i think it's just easiest to total the amount of product that it's going to cost you the materials and then on top of that add your per candle poor i call it a poor fee so my fee for pouring the candle and finishing it and everything my time basically um so that's a good way

to get started on private label if you want and like i said it can be very profitable and it can be also a great kind of consistent paycheck for you monthly so definitely important now the last one is that it gets kind of confused with everything else is called white label so what is white label white label is basically a company that would never in a million years make candles and they want a candle with their company's logo on it or you know their sticker or something where they can either give it to their clients

or sell it to their clients but it's very obvious that it's not it's not anything they made okay so for example um an insurance company you know like a mortgage insurance company every time that they sign for a new house they give the new owners of the house once you know congratulations they get a candle and the candle has the mortgage company's name and information on it again your name and information is nowhere on there except for the warning label but it's nowhere on the main label um so again you're gonna charge a little bit

more because you're not getting that exposure of your name it's not technically your candle brand that is being promoted it is the company that's paying for the candle um i will say though a lot of the times with these what's nice is that they're choosing candles you already make so for example i make a candle called island nectar and so if i had a client who loves that smell and you know they want a hundred of them and they want it with their company's you know logo on it then that would be a white label

because it's my candle that i already make i'm not creating anything new for them it's an existing candle but it's gonna have their logo and the name of their business on the label so that's what white label is there's not really this whole big creation process where they're choosing vessels and fragrances and designing things it's not like that it's literally taking your candle and sticking their their label on it that's what white label is and then just a note about private and white label even though on the main label your business logo is not on

it your business information does have to be on the warning label underneath so that if there's ever an issue with the candle it needs to be traced back to you so do keep that in mind that your your business name website uh city state and zip code do need to be on the warning label regardless of if it's wholesale private label or white label because again if there's an issue with the candle it needs to be traced back to the company that actually produced and made the candle so i hope this video was informative i

hope that you are able to now differentiate between wholesale private label and white label and that you've seen the advantages of all three of them um you know to me wholesale will always be my bread and butter but i'm having so much fun doing private label and white label orders as well it's always wonderful to have the extra consistent income because like i said that's what funds your business that's what helps you move on to other projects is that consistency in sales which is really really important so definitely be on the lookout for companies that

you can collaborate with and maybe do a private label um or in your area find you know real estate agents or insurance brokers or hair salons you know people that would like to either sell or give as a gift a candle with their you know their logo and their brand on it because then it's promo for them who doesn't love getting a candle as a gift and then it's consistent business for you so if you have any questions please leave them down below as always if you like this content please do hit the like button

and subscribe to the channel for more videos like this and i will see you all next week bye