founder diaries: what my first market taught me about running a small business
the thing about your first market is that you spend all your preparation time on the wrong things.
i spent two weeks obsessing over the display. the height of the risers, the way the jars sat in relation to each other, the colour of the tissue paper, whether the handwritten tags looked too rustic or not rustic enough.
i arrived two hours early. set everything up. stood back and looked at it. looked at it again. straightened a jar that didn't need straightening.
and then the doors opened and within about four minutes i realised that nobody was looking at the display. they were picking things up and smelling them.
what people actually care about
the thing that makes a candle sale at a market is the same thing that makes a candle sale online: the moment a person smells something and it lands right.
the difference is that at a market, you get to see it happen.
a woman picked up the soft haze candle about thirty minutes in. she smelled it once, then again, then held it out to the friend she was with and said "smell this." the friend smelled it and said nothing. just looked at me and said "how much?"
that's the transaction. not the display, not the signage, not the carefully considered brand palette. the scent. everything else is supporting evidence.
what surprised me about the conversations
i expected to be selling. i ended up mostly listening.
people don't just want to know what a candle smells like. they want to know why you made it, what's in it, how you pour it, why soy wax instead of paraffin, what phthalate-free actually means, whether the jars are genuinely reusable or just theoretically reusable.
that surprised me. the conversations ran long and went deep in a way that an online product page never can. by the end of the day i had a much clearer sense of what people actually care about when they're choosing a candle. it's more considered than the market for mass-produced candles suggests.
what sold and what didn't
cosy glow and soft haze were the two that went fastest, which tracks: warm, amber-led scents are exactly what you want at an autumn market. people were cold, they were looking for comfort and those two scents delivered on that immediately.
sweet treat was the conversation starter. without exception, every person who smelled it paused and looked up. the reaction to an unexpected scent (popcorn is unexpected) creates a moment. even the people who didn't buy it talked about it.
uplifting citrus had a slower start in the cold air. not because it's a lesser candle, just because citrussy freshness isn't the first thing someone gravitates toward when it's nine degrees and drizzling.
what i'd do differently
i'd bring fewer props and more stock. the display took up more of my table than it needed to and i sold out of two scents before the afternoon session.
i'd also eat beforehand. this sounds obvious. it was not how my first market morning went.
but mostly, i'd relax about the display earlier and spend that energy on the conversations instead. the customers who buy from a small brand at a market aren't buying a perfectly curated visual experience. they're buying something made by a real person who can tell them exactly what went into it.
that part i was actually ready for. i just didn't know it yet.
follow the blissli journey on instagram, or shop the collection. hand-poured in small batches in Leatherhead, Surrey.