How To Start A Luxury Candle Company 9.
How to Organize Your Luxury Candle Company Product Line So Customers GET It
The Problem With Too Many Ideas
I’ve had clients come to me to design a new line or revamp an existing line with requests like: “I love vintage, textured but clean vessels, Le Labo style (seriously, I get this one all the time), high-end-fancy-hotel-chic, the color BLUE, interior design, and wine. Can you incorporate all these things into the style of my new line?” (I’m not even kidding.)
The short answer is NO… and why would you even want that? I like chocolate chip cookies, homemade pasta, mussels, and dark moody walls, but do I want them all together, at the same time, as a product? No.
Curate and Organize Your Line
The key is to organize and curate your line. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs: make it make sense. Actually… make it make sense quickly! Why quickly? Because you don’t have time to explain it. If your line is on your website or in a retail environment, you only have a second or two to catch a potential client’s attention. Otherwise, they’ll click away or walk past your display on their way to something that resonates more with them. Your line can’t look like some crazy salad made of leftovers tossed together. That’s the graphic design equivalent of the client description I shared above.
How to Bring Your Ideas Together
If you love lots of different things and want to incorporate several ideas into your luxury candle company, you need a brand story.
Once you have a brand story, figuring out what to incorporate into your line’s design becomes easier. If it doesn’t align with your story, leave it out. For instance, if you’re a wine lover and want a wine-inspired candle collection, you or your designer need to figure out a style that works with the wine theme.
This could include:
A vintage style
A high-end-fancy-hotel-chic vibe
The color blue
Decide what makes the most sense. Maybe your typography and labels evoke a wine cellar or old cocktail bar feel. Maybe your vessels are blue. Or perhaps the labels have a vintage, old-school aesthetic. Whatever you choose, it needs to make sense. Your brand’s story, vibe, and raison d’être should be clear to your potential client immediately.
Help Customers Understand Your Line
When customers get it, they’ll stop, click, or explore further. Like this:
“Oh, this is a beautiful, professional, clean-looking candle line based on wine for people who love wine. I get it.”
Or:
“This line is based on outer space. That’s so cool!”
Or:
“These candles are inspired by vintage perfume fragrances with beautiful, vintage-inspired labels. I love this!”
When your potential clients understand your line, they’ll stop, look, and maybe even buy. Better yet, they’ll think about who else might love it too—their bestie who loves wine, outer space, or vintage everything. See how that works?
Think About the Future of Your Line
Before you design, manufacture, and ship your first drop, think ahead. What comes next?
Your next collection is just as important as your first. It’s part of the work you’re doing now.
You don’t want your future line to become that horrible salad. You want it to grow, make sense, and keep your clients coming back for more. You want every new release to create demand and excitement.
For example, if your first collection is wine-inspired with five fragrances, what’s next? You could expand to eight fragrances or launch a second collection. Maybe it’s the spirits collection, fruit collection, vineyard collection, or whiskey collection. You could even explore regional themes like the California collection, followed by Italy and France collections to go with your wine theme.
I’m not saying you can’t go in a totally different direction with your second collection, but in my opinion, your line should connect in some way. As I’ve written about in my blog on thinking retail, you want your line to look amazing on store shelves. Give Saks a reason to carry your entire line instead of cherry-picking because your collections just don’t connect.
Research and Inspiration
Here are some brands to explore. Look at how they organize their collections by vessel, fragrance, label, overall theme or maybe they aren't really that organized. You’ll develop preferences and see which ones make more sense or resonate with you. Having a clear, educated opinion is important when building your luxury candle company. :-)
Harlem Candle Co., Diptyque, Boy Smells, Le Labo, Voluspa, Nest, Paddywax, Capri Blue, Cire Trudon, PF Candle Co., Illume
