To sell candles at a farmers market, find a market that takes handmade goods, meet its rules (insurance, a tax permit, a stall fee), label every candle, bring nearly twice what you expect to sell in the scents that sell, and price at the stall the way you price online. Then count what's left after every market, because the next pour depends on it. In the example below, a candle maker on Oʻahu sells soy candles at a Saturday market through October, takes $2,795 over four Saturdays, one of them rained out, and keeps $1,930 after the candles' cost, card fees and the stall. Below is what to sort out first, what to bring, the prices, the heat, the four Saturdays, and a free market day planner.
The short version
- Pick a market that accepts handmade goods; some take only farm products and food.
- Expect to need liability insurance, your state's sales tax permit and the stall fee.
- Label every candle with what's in it, its weight, your name and safety warnings.
- Bring nearly twice what you expect to sell, weighted to the scents that sell.
- Price the same as your website; offer a bundle rather than a discount.
- Keep the stock out of the sun: soy wax softens in a hot tent.
- Count what's left after each market, and pour for the next one from it.
- TaroStack counts stock on a phone at the stall, with no signal. More below.
Before the first market
The market's rules. Farmers markets set their own rules, and they differ. Some accept only what's grown or made by the seller, some jury new vendors on photos of the work, and some take only farm products and food, with candles at a separate craft fair. Ask for the vendor application and read it before paying a fee. Markets often ask for a certificate of liability insurance naming the market, and tent weights on every leg.
A tax permit. Selling at a market is selling, so you collect and pay your state's sales tax; in Hawaiʻi, that's a general excise tax license. Some markets ask to see the permit number on the application.
Labels. Every candle carries a label with the scent, the net weight, your business name and where to reach you, and burning instructions with safety warnings: trim the wick, don't leave it burning unattended, keep it away from children, pets and anything that can catch. The label is what a customer finds at home when they want another.
Ask about flames. Some markets don't allow a lit candle at the stall. Open jars for sniffing, with lids, do the selling instead.
What to bring
Lehua Glow, a made-up soy candle maker on Oʻahu I use in these examples, sells three sizes. For an ordinary Saturday:
| Candle | Price | Cost, with the card fee | Bring | Expect to sell | Sell-through |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soy candle, 9 oz jar | $26.00 | $6.44 | 24 | 14 | 58% |
| Travel tin, 4 oz | $15.00 | $3.33 | 30 | 18 | 60% |
| Two-wick candle, 16 oz | $44.00 | $10.72 | 8 | 4 | 50% |
| All three | 62 | 36 | 58% |
Bringing nearly twice what you expect to sell keeps the table full until the end: a stall with three candles left looks picked over and sells slower. Weight the jars to the scents that sell; Lehua Glow brings four plumeria jars for every two of a slow scent. How to work out how much to bring from past markets is in how much inventory for a craft fair, and how to judge a market by what sold of what you brought in sell-through rate formula.
Prices at the stall
Sell at the same price as your website and the shops' shelf price. A shop that pays $13 for a jar and sells it at $26 won't keep stocking it if you sell it for $18 at the market down the road. Round prices make change easy and sales quick. A bundle rewards buying more without cutting the price of one candle: three travel tins for $40. The tin is the stall's best seller because it's the easy first buy; customers who like it come back for the jar. How the prices are built from the cost of a candle is in how to price homemade candles.
The heat
A dark jar in a tent on an Oʻahu afternoon can get warm enough to soften soy wax and sink the top, and fragrance fades in the heat. Keep most of the stock in a closed cooler box in the shade, put out a few of each, set the table back from the tent's sunny edge, and pull the candles before the afternoon sun reaches them. What heat does to candles in a box is in how to ship candles in hot weather.
Four Saturdays
| Saturday | 9 oz jars | Tins | Two-wick | Sales | Candles and card fees | Stall | Left |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 3 | 14 | 18 | 4 | $810 | $192.98 | $50 | $567.02 |
| October 10, rain | 6 | 9 | 1 | $335 | $79.33 | $50 | $205.67 |
| October 17 | 12 | 16 | 3 | $684 | $162.72 | $50 | $471.28 |
| October 24 | 16 | 22 | 5 | $966 | $229.90 | $50 | $686.10 |
| The month | 48 | 65 | 13 | $2,795 | $664.93 | $200 | $1,930.07 |
A good Saturday leaves about $567 after the candles and the stall, for six hours with the setup and the drive: about $95 an hour. The rain halves it, and the stall fee costs the same either way. The tins sell the most and the jars make the most: 48 jars left $939 after their cost, 65 tins $759. What else a market costs, from the tent to the gas, is in cost to sell at a farmers market.
After each market
Count what came home, by scent and size, before it goes back on the shelf. What sold is what you made money on and what to pour next; a scent that comes home week after week is a scent to stop bringing. Write down the weather too: a rainy Saturday's numbers shouldn't set the next pour. A sheet for that is in farmers market sales tracker.
Get the planner
Download the candle market day planner. Two sheets: market day, with your candles, prices, what each costs you, what you'll bring and what you expect to sell, where sales, what's left after the stall and what's left for each hour fill in; and season, one line for each market with what sold, where sales, costs, the stall and what's left fill in from the first sheet. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Fourteen scents in three sizes, a Saturday market, a Wednesday one in December, a website and six shops, all drawing on the same shelf. The market box goes out on Saturday with 62 candles and comes back with 26, and if nobody counts it, the website sells a plumeria jar that went home with someone at the market.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack counts stock on a phone at the stall, with no signal.
Counting at the stall. Counting works on a phone with no signal, at the stall or in the car, and sends itself when the phone is back online, so what came home is in the stock before the box is unpacked.
The market as a place. With more than one site, the market stall is a site of its own: the market box is a transfer from the studio, and what comes back is a transfer home, so the stall's sales are its own. More than one site is on Standard at $99 a month.
What to pour next. Each candle is a recipe of wax, fragrance, wick, jar and label, so pouring a batch takes them off stock, and "what could I make right now" says how many plumeria jars the wax and fragrance on hand allow. A scent below its reorder point raises an alert.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What came home | Counted, maybe | Counted on a phone, offline |
| What the stall sold | Sales minus what's left | The stall as its own site (Standard) |
| Jars to pour this week | Look at the shelf | What could I make right now |
| A scent running low | Found when it's gone | Alert below the reorder point |
Counts, recipes and batches are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.