Getting a handle on candles
With year-on-year sales jumping by up to 1100 per cent, the owner of this sweet-smelling success story shares his secrets. Hint: give customers what they want… now.
Adam Kerrins’ booming business began as a simple wager with a housemate. “She used to spend $60 on a candle and I bet her that I could make a better-quality one for less.”
His kitchen experiment three years ago lit the wick for The Scent Lab, now a thriving company offering candles and melts, as well as bath, shower and even pet- and car-care products. Almost all are handmade in Kerrins’ home town of Geelong, Victoria, where he runs a bricks-and-mortar store as well his rapidly-expanding ecommerce business.
While he’d never made a candle, Kerrins had an immediate and distinct advantage over many retail startups: he’d worked as a store set-up manager for large companies and knew a lot about logistics and making projects run on time. “I’m all about the efficiency!” he says.
This was key, as The Scent Lab grew fast. Kerrins started out selling to friends and at the local markets then launching an online store and a pop-up shop before giving up his full-time job in May 2019 to go all-in. He couldn’t do it on his own so he found a fast and reliable partner in Australia Post and its MyPost Business service.
“The team can pick and pack 100 orders in an hour or so and it saves us at least an hour every single day,” says Kerrins. “Having Australia Post there from the beginning helped us reach every part of Australia. Because MyPost Business integrates with our online shopping platform, we could comfortably scale up as orders grew.”
And how they grew. Last year, orders went up at least 500 per cent each month, versus the same period in 2019. In May 2020, when COVID lockdowns were in force across much of the country, sales jumped a whopping 1100 per cent on the previous year. “People were sitting at home wanting to spoil themselves.”
Last August, The Scent Lab held a birthday sale and sold more than $125,000 worth of products online in just four hours. Business has continued to move rapidly and, as a MyPost Business Band 5 customer, Adam says he’s saving as much as $80,000 a year on postage costs.1
“We work on a 24-hour turnaround and customers get notifications from us and Australia Post as well. That gives them peace of mind that the order is on the way. People want their products quickly so if they place an order in the morning and see that it ships that afternoon, it helps us with customer retention and satisfaction.”