Smart Ways to Sell Candles Online with the Gold Standard in eCommerce

This tutorial shows you how to sell candles using the best conversion focused eCommerce platform for business owners.

Even if you're a beginner with no experience, if you love making things that help people decorate their homes, relax, reduce stress, improve sleep, and more... this could be a great business for you.

We'll cover everything you'll need to get started, including how to build your candle store using the gold standard in eCommerce, Shopify.

While candle making by hand is not a passive way to earn, it can be very rewarding and profitable for those who love making things and seeing their creativity improve the lives of others. 

If you're interested in selling candles using a semi-passive method, and you're not interested in making candles yourself, you can use the print on demand or affiliate marketing business model to sell other people's candles. 

With these models you can set up a business online with manufacturing, shipping and customer service handled by others, and get a percentage of each sale. 

Maybe you have an existing online business, if so adding candles from affiliate or POD (print on demand) partners to your product line can also be a profitable way to compliment what you're already doing. 

If you have a brick and mortar business, consider adding a Shopify store to your existing product mix, allowing customers to buy from your shop using point of sale system like the one shown in the picture below. Shopify POS (point of sale) can be set to perform like a cash register in your physical store. 

With the low costs associated with making candles, starting a candle business can become very profitable if you plan, establish goals, develop a strong brand and sell an amazing product. 

To generate a real profit when selling candles online, you’ll need to receive lots of traffic to your online store. So it's important to understand what's involved in setting up your store, selling candles and making sure your business attracts people who are actually looking for products like yours.

This tutorial will show you how to sell candles online, whether you sell your own products or you sell someone else's.  

The Gold Standard in eCommerce

As stated earlier, Shopify is the gold standard and an amazing solution for anyone who wants to start selling online without having to build a blog or standard website. And it's a great online platform for selling candles. 

Making Your Candle Business Legal

As a business owner, it's important to be sure to file for the proper federal, state and local licenses and permits to operate legally.

A business license ensures you are legitimately doing business in a particular locale. And each locale is different. Before you get too far into the process of starting your candle business, keep in mind that every new business must apply for a business license.

And, don't be fooled, your corporation or LLC may need more than one license, or permit, to fully operate at the state level. 

Understanding Your Niche

Understanding your niche is critical when selling any product online. You will have a hard time selling your candles if you don't know who you're selling to. It's also important to understand the overall industry and how your products fit into that industry. Finally it's important to learn as much as you can about the people who typically buy products within that industry.

Knowing your target audience (your ideal customer) makes it much easier to create content and that will meet the needs of people who are more likely to buy your products. It will also make it easier to create sales and marketing materials that will attract your ideal customers.

Candles fall under the home décor and lifestyle niche, often categorized within interior design, wellness, and sensory ambiance. 

In the world of home décor, candles are not just functional for light—they are expressive elements used to enhance mood, personalize space, and create inviting environments. From minimalist soy candles in neutral jars to luxury pillar candles with ornate designs, they bridge the gap between visual aesthetics and sensory experience.

Whether displayed as part of a centerpiece, placed on a bathroom shelf, or styled in a living room vignette, candles add depth, texture, and a feeling of warmth that’s hard to replicate with other décor items.

The typical candle buyer is someone who values ambiance, comfort, and the sensory feel of a space. This includes homeowners, apartment dwellers, gift-givers, and increasingly, renters who want to personalize their surroundings without permanent changes. 

They often shop for candles not only for fragrance but also for the vessel design—seeking pieces that match their aesthetic, whether that’s boho, farmhouse, minimalist, or glam.

Candles solve a variety of home décor issues for these buyers. They’re an easy and affordable way to elevate a room’s atmosphere without a major redesign.

Candles can soften harsh lighting, add a comforting glow, and instantly make a space feel more intentional and serene.

They’re also a great solution for those wanting to bring in seasonal themes—like pumpkin spice in fall or eucalyptus in spring—without swapping out larger décor items. 

For small spaces, candles serve double duty by adding style and fragrance in one compact item. In essence, candles help buyers transform their spaces into cozy, stylish sanctuaries that reflect their personal taste and seasonal vibe.

The Candle Industry

Roughly 70% of households in the United States currently use candles, which opens up a diverse market of consumers to sell to.

Candles are used for a wide range of purposes that will help you find your target audience. Topics like relaxation, home decor, or celebrations like birthdays and weddings - will allow you to differentiate your brand and carve out your niche.

Candles also make a great gift idea for any occasion, and they provide endless possibilities for marketing your candle store for a range of special events, lifestyles and trends.

Interesting Candle Facts:

• Candle use in the US: Candles are used in 7 out of 10 US households.
• Candle buyers: More than 95% of candles are purchased by women. 
• Candle buyers by age: The biggest buyers of candles are under 25 or over 55. 
• Candle market growth: The candle market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.33% from 2024 to 2029.
• Candle market factors: The most important factors affecting candle sales are scent, color, cost, and shape. 
• Candle market revenue: The candle market revenue is projected to reach $6.32 billion worldwide in 2024.  

Choosing Your Target Audience

Starting a candle business offers a range of niche areas for a beginning business owner to explore, allowing them to stand out in a competitive market.

Here are some great niche ideas that includes potential target audiences and marketing opportunities for candle makers:

1. Eco-Friendly and Sustainable Candles
   - Focus: Organic, vegan, or sustainable materials like soy wax, coconut wax, or beeswax, and eco-friendly packaging.
   - Target Audience: Environmentally conscious consumers who prioritize sustainability in their purchases.
   - Marketing Opportunity: Highlight ethical sourcing and eco-friendly practices.

2. Personalized Candles
   - Focus: Custom candles with personal names, messages, or specific scents tailored to individual preferences.
   - Target Audience: Gift buyers, weddings, and special events planners.
   -Marketing Opportunity: Emphasize the unique, one-of-a-kind nature of your product as a thoughtful, customizable gift.

3. Aromatherapy and Wellness Candles
   - Focus: Essential oils and natural scents designed to promote relaxation, mental clarity, or healing.
   - Target Audience: Health-conscious consumers, yoga practitioners, or individuals looking to enhance their self-care routines.
   - Marketing Opportunity: Market as a product for stress relief, better sleep, or enhanced focus.

4. Luxury or High-End Candles
   - Focus: Premium ingredients, elegant designs, and high-quality scents that target luxury markets.
   - Target Audience: High-income individuals, interior designers, and those seeking upscale home décor.
   - Marketing Opportunity: Position as a luxurious home accessory or gift item, perfect for elevating home ambiance.

5. Seasonal or Holiday-Themed Candles
   - Focus: Candles with seasonal scents and designs, like pumpkin spice for fall, peppermint for Christmas, or floral for spring.
   - Target Audience: Holiday shoppers, home decorators, and those who love seasonal décor.
   - Marketing Opportunity: Create limited-edition collections for each season, catering to the holiday market.

6. Spiritual or Meditation Candles
   - Focus: Candles used for meditation, prayer, or spiritual practices, often incorporating crystals or symbolic designs.
   - Target Audience: Spiritual practitioners, yogis, and individuals interested in mindfulness and meditation.
   -Marketing Opportunity: Market the candles as tools to enhance meditation sessions, chakra balancing, or spiritual rituals.

7. Candles for Specific Events (e.g., Weddings, Baby Showers)
   - Focus: Candles created for specific life events like weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, or baby showers.
   - Target Audience: Event planners, brides, and individuals planning special celebrations.
   - Marketing Opportunity: Offer custom or themed candles that add a personal touch to memorable events.

8. Artisanal or Hand-Painted Candles
   - Focus: Handcrafted candles with intricate designs, hand-painting, or unique, artistic elements.
   - Target Audience: Art lovers, home decorators, or anyone looking for something visually striking.
   - Marketing Opportunity: Position as functional art that also adds beauty and creativity to any space.

9. Candles with Unique Shapes or Containers
   - Focus: Candles in creative shapes (e.g., geometric, fruit-shaped) or in unusual containers like vintage teacups or handmade ceramic bowls.
   - Target Audience: Home décor enthusiasts, collectors, and those seeking quirky, unique home accessories.
   -Marketing Opportunity: Stand out by offering unusual designs that serve as both candles and decorative items.

10. Candles for Pet Lovers
   - Focus: Pet-safe candles or candles designed to neutralize pet odors with non-toxic ingredients.
   - Target Audience: Pet owners looking for home fragrance solutions that are safe for their animals.
   - Marketing Opportunity: Highlight the pet-safe nature of the ingredients and market to pet owners looking for practical yet decorative items.

Each of these niches will allow you to appeal to a specific audience and create a unique brand identity. 

If you can align your products with your personal passions, the connection with the niche market becomes even stronger.

Build Your Online Candle Store

We've broken down the basic steps you'll need to launch your candle store. In addition to the steps outlined below, you'll need a platform to sell your candles. We have a free, step by step video tutorial and themes you can use to set up a Shopify store for your business. 

Once you have a name and logo, select a theme for your store. The Shopify site has a number of themes, including the Whisk Theme shown above, that will be a perfect fit for your candle shop.

Shopify Themes

Finding a Quality Source for Your Candles

You have several options for making or finding quality sources of candles to sell in your shop. You can make your own candles using homemade recipes and fragrances or you can find a print on demand partner that will make the candles for you. 

Use a Print on Demand Service. Print-on-demand services like Printful and Printify, give you the option to white-label (add your branding) to existing products with your own designs. This is a good option for anyone looking sell an existing wholesale product, rather than creating their own products from scratch.

You provide the designs (like the ones shown above), and your print on demand partner will place it on products (like candles and home decor) and handle shipping and customer service. That's a pretty sweet deal if you're ready to get started right away. 

If you're interested in starting a print on demand store, check out our print on demand (POD) tutorial that has all the information you need to get started. 

Affiliate Programs. Here is a list of affiliate programs for candle shops. If you don't have your own candles, these companies will pay a commission for every sale you send them. 

To learn how affiliate marketing works, click here. Then once you know how it works, apply to these programs to earn commissions on candles. 

Affiliate Programs for Candle Shops:

• Spoken Flames
• Frères Branchiaux
• Otherland
• Ellis Brooklyn
• DS & Durga
• Follain
• Nordstrom
• Anthropologie
• Here For The Burn
• Sib-lings
• Brooklyn Candle Studio
• Pure Integrity

Make Your Own Candles. You can also opt to make your own candles. Candles are relatively easy to make and can be cooked up in any home kitchen, so selling candles is a great first step into entrepreneurship.  

Here are the steps required to make your own candles: 

You can purchase candle-making supplies from your local crafts store, online retailers or other sources. 

If you're a Prime member, you can order supplies from Amazon and have them delivered the next day. We've included links to Amazon in the supplies list below.

To make candles from scratch, you’ll need:

Once you’ve got your supplies, you’re ready to move on to making your candles:

1. Start by washing your candle jars to remove any dust or residue from the glass.
2. Place the wick and anchor at the bottom of the jar and add a touch of hot wax to secure the anchor in place. Set the jar aside.
3. Now, it’s time to melt the soy wax. Place your soy wax into a pot filled with water and boil the mixture at medium heat until the wax melts.
4. Once the wax is melted, place a few drops of your fragrance to create your perfect scent. You can also mix in color blocks to tinker with the color of the candle. Feel free to get creative with your scents and colors but remember to keep them on brand. A multi-colored tutti-frutti candle is a great idea for a children’s birthday party, but might not so much if your niche is aromatherapy candles. Stir the fragrance and color blocks until they’ve melted and are evenly spread.
5. While the mixture is still liquid, pour the wax into your jar while ensuring that the wick stays in the center. Do this slowly to avoid spilling the mixture over the side of your jar.
6. Sit the candles aside to harden. You’ll start to notice the wax harden quickly at the top - but you’ll want to give it about 12-15 hours to harden fully.
7. When the candles have hardened - trim your wicks (if necessary) and brand the candle with a label. The label can be a simple sticker with your logo or it’s recommended you add additional info about your products somewhere on the product or packaging- it’s up to you. You’re now ready to sell candles online.

Choose the kinds of candles you want to sell, the fragrances and colors you will have available when you launch your store.

It's important to pick a niche, and learn as much about our target audience to make sure you're selling the right products and fragrances to the right people. 

Set goals for your product launch, in terms of how much you want to make during your first week, month or 6 months.

Once you know how much you want to make, determine how many products you'll need to sell to reach your goals. Our goal planning and income tutorials will help to guide you through your initial planning stages.

Set up your product pages

Once you know your target audience, the products you're going to sell and your income goals, you're ready to create product pages.

A product page is a marketing landing page for your product that provides details to convince shoppers to add it to their cart. You'll need a product page for each candle you offer in your store.

Your product page should include options like colors, sizes, specifications, features, costs, guarantees and assurances.

When creating product pages, it's important to keyword optimize your descriptions and images for SEO. 

How to build an email list to make marketing easily

1. Add a pop-up offer to your homepage.
2. Put an opt-in form in your navigation or footer.
3. Collect emails at your brick-and-mortar or in-person event.
4. Add a signup button to social media.
5. Build personalized landing pages.
6. Include a newsletter signup option at checkout.

Pricing your candles. Once you have your candle brand established, do some competitive research to explore current pricing structures within your market.

Then, gather all costs associated with making and selling your products to calculate profit margins. 

In doing this, you’ll be able to determine how many candles you should sell to generate a profit after expenses.

As you establish short term and long term goals for your products, you can use this information as a starting point subject to change whenever you see fit.

Product Photos. Quality product photos and descriptions help convert customers. If you create your own candles, it's important to take great looking product photos of all the angles of your product.

Keep in mind that when buying products online, potential customers won't have a way to touch or feel the product. So your photographs, descriptions and mock ups will do the heavy lifting to convince potential customers to buy. 

Use product mock ups, and props and seasonal decorations to make your product photos more appealing to your ideal customers. 

People enjoy seeing how your products will look in their homes or work environment, so be sure to create photos that reflect a seasonal, event or holiday vibe. 

Don't forget about props and seasonal decorations you can add to product photos that will make your products stand out. 

To create a product page on Shopify: 

1. Log in to your Shopify account 
2. Go to Products 
3. Click Add product 
4. Enter the product's title, description, and images 
5. Set the product's price, discounts, and promotions 
6. Choose the product's type and collection 
7. Add relevant tags and keywords 
8. Set the product's shipping and fulfillment options 
9. Click Save

Select your apps and sales channels

Visit the Shopify App Store to find tools for running your online candle store. Here are 24 free apps to get you started. 

If you’re just getting started with a new store or looking to enhance your existing site, then this list is for you.

1. Shopify Email
2. ReConvert Upsell and Cross Sell
3. Peek! ‑ Better Replay & Survey
4. ESC ‑ Size Charts & Size Guide
5. Jebbit
6. PayWhirl
7. Tip Quik
8. Promo.com
9. Easyship
10. Pre-Order Alpha
11. Change Commerce
12. Shopify Local Delivery
13. Easy Digital Products
14. TikTok
15. Stocky
16. Printful
17. Gameball
18. Secommapp
19. PixPix
20. Smart SEO

Pick your payment gateway

Choose from multiple payment gateways to get paid reliably through Shopify's secure checkout.

In a nutshell, payment gateways work when the customer initiates payment on your website (usually on a checkout page).

The customer enters their payment details into the payment gateway. This step can take many forms, including manually entering their details or using a mobile wallet like Shop Pay, Google Pay, or Apple Pay.

The payment gateway encrypts the data your customer has entered so hackers can't intercept it.

The gateway securely forwards this information to the payment processor or acquiring bank, who then sends an authorization request to the customer’s card network, such as Visa, Mastercard, or American Express. Then, the card network routes it to the customer’s issuing bank.

The issuing bank approves or rejects the request and sends this response back to the payment gateway. You'll see this in your ecommerce platform for either outcome.

If the payment is approved, the payment processor facilitates the movement of money from the customer’s account to your merchant account.

If it’s denied, the payment gateway shows the reason why. Insufficient funds, fraud risks, and invalid cards are common reasons for denial.

The 6 top payment gateway providers

1. Shopify Payments
2. Stripe
3. PayPal
4. Adyen
5. Authorize.net
6. WorldPay

Shopify has their own payment gateway called Shopify Payments that allows ecommerce merchants to process online and in-person payments through a single platform. 

Shopify Payments complies with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) to protect your customer’s data.

Shopify’s payment gateway is compatible with a variety of sales channels, so you can take payments through Facebook, Instagram, and Google.

In addition, current Shopify merchants can take advantage of lower payment fees for transactions completed through Shopify Payments, leaving more money in your pocket.

Start Selling Candles online!

Market your candles through social media, email and other marketing channels. It’s never been easier to promote your products on social media with the help of free marketing features like Instagram Shops and Tiktok trends.

If you’re promoting your brand for the first time, think about what makes your business unique from others, and explore engaging ways to promote your products.

You can use features like Instagram Stories or Reels to show a behind the scenes look at your products, and get creative with your posts in order to tell your unique brand story.

As you continue growing your social media following, think about new ways to engage your audience with stunning candle imagery and wellness content.

You can try hosting candle giveaways, collaborating with other brands within the wellness space, or work with influencers to gain further reach.