Well, the title seems a bit harsh since I really do like the end product of a recent impulse purchase I made, it's just that it arrived a little, ahem, unkempt.
A couple weeks back after watching some of the recent vlogs of the one-time-YouTube-sensation-currently-a YouTube-has-been (sorry, bein' real here) Renetto, aka Paul Robinette, I was inspired to order one of his hand-poured candles he began selling online. The way he made these aromatherapy candles sound was hypnotic. He described over the course of several videos how his new vision for a small online candle shop was starting to take shape, like a phoenix rising from the ashes (pun intended...get it? burning phoenix/burning candles?) of his prior brick and mortar candle shop business.
(Which BTW, he says, closed down in good financial standing but only as a result of the shop's location landlord pressuring him out in order to make way for another business in the building. Umm, I Google Map Street Viewed the area...he could have moved to another location in the same neighborhood...several other shops, I'm sure more than one were available for lease...but I digress.)
His 10 oz. scented soy candles, hand-poured and hand-boxed are all container candles in pretty ruby-amber colored glass jars. (I'm sure, affordable-priced jars wholesale, since they're, by his own words, Anchor Hocking (budget brand) from his home state of Ohio (freight cost-effective?) and ordered in bulk direct from the manufacturer (discount rate)) He designed his own packaging which is really nothing more than cheap stock corrugated cardboard and gift-sized boxes which look kinda like they were bought as part of a close-out at cut-rate prices. Inexpensive ink-pad hand-stamps as "accent" items, untreated, unstained poplar wood "dongles" (bottle toppers) and his stylized signature hand-signed to the glass bottles in gold-colored paint pen.
He sells these for the quite lofty price of $28 each. Now I know that price was reached after consternation as he said so in several videos. He's self-admittedly in a hard place right now financially and I'm sure he needs to reap a presumably initial higher-than-market margin in order to create a cushion for dealing with not only COGS and cap investment quickly but also his personal debts and obligations. I get that. That's why I didn't shirk about the price much since I see it in the same vein as when one buys an item on behalf of charity...you know that it may be higher-priced in order to provide an optimal financial benefit to the worthy cause.
Now I know this all sounds like the critique of an unsatisfied customer but I really am not. I like the candle, it does what it's designed to do...provides a pretty accent decorative candle with great aromatic "throw," or whatever it's called. And with his squiggly designer-esque signature on it, it looks cool.
With his decidedly-diminished YouTube fame he's not got the viewing audience (aka potential ready customer base) he used to, but he's not down for the count by any means on YouTube. His subscribers, myself included, love his raw, tell-it-like-it-is old skool vlog style ("old skool", shit, we're talkin' a style that goes back to just about 6 or 7 years ago) and feel a sense of community with him. (More so, likely, than the millions of viewers he used to have in the mid-to-late aughts when he used to do the silly voices and stupid human tricks (like the then popular Diet Coke + Mentos thing) style videos.) Add to the equation email blasts and Facebook posts alerting the former repeat customers of his defunct Columbus, Ohio shop of his new dream and wha la, an instant big flux of orders with virtually free advertising.
(NOTE: I was going to do a line-by-line cost of goods and services estimate of his business to get an idea of his profit margin percentage but when I scoped out USPS to estimate shipping costs, I found that unless he got a better-than-posted price point from them, he's really not reaping any large profits at this time. For example, according to the USPS site, my package, a single candle in a roughly 12"x12"x12" box, approx. 1 lb., cost about $26 via 2-day Priority Mail (which the label on the package attests to). What's more, in a recent video Paul mentions that a shipment to the UK costs over $40...for a $28 candle. Oh Paul, what are you doing? No wonder your finances are a mess. What's the term for the opposite of business acumen?)
The packaging, especially from the standpoint of this candle being solely offered via postal delivery, kinda failed big time as well. The bottle wasn't seated securely enough and as the package shifted about during delivery the bottle broke loose of its weak cardboard seating, the dongle became displaced and since the candle has a high-ratio of essential oils, the very porous cardboard interior of the box drank up splats and spills eagerly creating big, greasy-looking stains everywhere. And mine was not the only one. Apparently most of his shipments failed in this way. As I said in my email about this to him, for me it wasn't a big issue, but if someone was looking to gift this, it may have been a bitter thing to see when they opened their package.
Here are some photos I took of the box and one of the candle itself. As you can see, epic fail with the packaging, but the candle looks great, right?
Oh well, I really feel for him. He's got a better design for the package now so hopefully that issue is cleared up, but even though these candles are fine quality, superior aromatics and a great aesthetic design, he has to work out the balance sheet. Lest wise these cute candles will soon cease to be available as his fledgling business snuffs out unceremoniously due to a fatally leaky bottom line.
A couple weeks back after watching some of the recent vlogs of the one-time-YouTube-sensation-currently-a YouTube-has-been (sorry, bein' real here) Renetto, aka Paul Robinette, I was inspired to order one of his hand-poured candles he began selling online. The way he made these aromatherapy candles sound was hypnotic. He described over the course of several videos how his new vision for a small online candle shop was starting to take shape, like a phoenix rising from the ashes (pun intended...get it? burning phoenix/burning candles?) of his prior brick and mortar candle shop business.
(Which BTW, he says, closed down in good financial standing but only as a result of the shop's location landlord pressuring him out in order to make way for another business in the building. Umm, I Google Map Street Viewed the area...he could have moved to another location in the same neighborhood...several other shops, I'm sure more than one were available for lease...but I digress.)
His 10 oz. scented soy candles, hand-poured and hand-boxed are all container candles in pretty ruby-amber colored glass jars. (I'm sure, affordable-priced jars wholesale, since they're, by his own words, Anchor Hocking (budget brand) from his home state of Ohio (freight cost-effective?) and ordered in bulk direct from the manufacturer (discount rate)) He designed his own packaging which is really nothing more than cheap stock corrugated cardboard and gift-sized boxes which look kinda like they were bought as part of a close-out at cut-rate prices. Inexpensive ink-pad hand-stamps as "accent" items, untreated, unstained poplar wood "dongles" (bottle toppers) and his stylized signature hand-signed to the glass bottles in gold-colored paint pen.
He sells these for the quite lofty price of $28 each. Now I know that price was reached after consternation as he said so in several videos. He's self-admittedly in a hard place right now financially and I'm sure he needs to reap a presumably initial higher-than-market margin in order to create a cushion for dealing with not only COGS and cap investment quickly but also his personal debts and obligations. I get that. That's why I didn't shirk about the price much since I see it in the same vein as when one buys an item on behalf of charity...you know that it may be higher-priced in order to provide an optimal financial benefit to the worthy cause.
Now I know this all sounds like the critique of an unsatisfied customer but I really am not. I like the candle, it does what it's designed to do...provides a pretty accent decorative candle with great aromatic "throw," or whatever it's called. And with his squiggly designer-esque signature on it, it looks cool.
(NOTE: I was going to do a line-by-line cost of goods and services estimate of his business to get an idea of his profit margin percentage but when I scoped out USPS to estimate shipping costs, I found that unless he got a better-than-posted price point from them, he's really not reaping any large profits at this time. For example, according to the USPS site, my package, a single candle in a roughly 12"x12"x12" box, approx. 1 lb., cost about $26 via 2-day Priority Mail (which the label on the package attests to). What's more, in a recent video Paul mentions that a shipment to the UK costs over $40...for a $28 candle. Oh Paul, what are you doing? No wonder your finances are a mess. What's the term for the opposite of business acumen?)
The packaging, especially from the standpoint of this candle being solely offered via postal delivery, kinda failed big time as well. The bottle wasn't seated securely enough and as the package shifted about during delivery the bottle broke loose of its weak cardboard seating, the dongle became displaced and since the candle has a high-ratio of essential oils, the very porous cardboard interior of the box drank up splats and spills eagerly creating big, greasy-looking stains everywhere. And mine was not the only one. Apparently most of his shipments failed in this way. As I said in my email about this to him, for me it wasn't a big issue, but if someone was looking to gift this, it may have been a bitter thing to see when they opened their package.
Here are some photos I took of the box and one of the candle itself. As you can see, epic fail with the packaging, but the candle looks great, right?
Oh well, I really feel for him. He's got a better design for the package now so hopefully that issue is cleared up, but even though these candles are fine quality, superior aromatics and a great aesthetic design, he has to work out the balance sheet. Lest wise these cute candles will soon cease to be available as his fledgling business snuffs out unceremoniously due to a fatally leaky bottom line.