Lessons from a $50 candle
In December 2019, a past colleague that I had gotten friendly with, sent me the URL to her social media presence for a company that she had just launched after working on it for over a year.
I loved her founder’s story and immediately scanned the content to determine how I was going to craft a caption when I shared the profile to my own page. There was her product: A candle. It was beautiful but I paused when I started scrolling through the shop. She continued messaging me about learning about marketing and understanding numbers and metrics.
Then I sent her:
Yea. The other thing too is, it doesn’t meet my demographic because of the price. I probably have purchased a $20 one before but ouch on $50. Not saying there isn’t a consumer for this but even if I’m following I’m going to be like I can’t afford this.
Is there any way to figure out how to lower the price in the future with production?
I imagined purchasing a bundle of products for $50 from her brand but she was only offering a candle. I wanted to support her, I truly did.
$50 might be fine for many people but most of the people on my list would have thought this to be much too expensive. Was I going to reach the audience she wanted? I considered purchasing one of them (I’m always ready to support my friends) but I just couldn’t budge. Was purchasing the product for $50 helping with the best insight from a person like me?
At that point in my life, I was almost 9 months into my pregnancy and I thought of where $50 was being used in my daily life.
She said:
Price can always be lowered with larger quantity runs, but the value is $49. I would keep the same price point considering the quality of goods. Candles are interesting. You can get a $2 candle at Target, or spend upwards of $200 for an extreme high end candle.
All great stuff. I agreed but I still thought about who her demographic was. I sort of felt discluded. I also tried to educate her on the economics side. She was starting somewhere with no demand. She was unknown. Sure, known to me but there was no clout, not on her social media presence and nor famous peers. I asked her whether she was going to have celebrities or anyone with a wide audience share it. None.
We ended the conversation with her unhappy (in fact, I was deleted unknowingly which I found out months later). I saw a post in the recent weeks and quickly checked the shop: $39. It wasn’t 50 anymore and I felt a little justified about my opinion but it was still an expensive candle. In the midst of Covid-19 I, unfortunately, have no insight on people who are purchasing candles but I’m speculating that it’s possible that this was a factor.
As business owners, we know how valuable our products are. We know the care that we put in to make it remarkable. Sometimes that part of the story isn’t important to our audience. It’s very important to know the demographic that we are trying to reach and whether they would be interested in paying for being a part of that story and why.
