A winter’s night with a glass of wine, home cooked meal and the sweet smell of a candle. Heaven! Well, it was actually spending a lot of time at home during Melbourne’s lockdowns that saw Simon Bell turn a dificult time into the creation of The Richmond Candle Company, aptly named after the Melbourne suburb where it all started. Relight my fire!

How did The Richmond Candle Co start in business?

Before the pandemic, I worked in retail travel for most of my adult life and so when my role became redundant and the borders closed, I found it really hard to get another job. My partner Johan was so supportive and bought me a basic candle making kit to give me something else to do aside from cleaning out the pantry!! The first batch turned out ok, not great but ok! I kept trying and got better and better at making them with each batch, but soon found myself with too many candles that I didn’t know what to do with them.

Luck would have it that at the same time, I saw someone in a Facebook group selling a big batch of candles and they sold out in a day. I did some quick maths and worked out it was something that I could do to help pay the mortgage. Sure enough, I posted on Facebook too and I made a whole bunch of sales!

The brand name was Johan’s idea and I’m really glad we picked it because we became a little bit famous in the local community!

Using my experience from working in retail travel I contacted shopping centres and set up little popup stands which my Mum kindly helped me with stafng (thanks Mum!) and that’s when things really took of. Today we have customers all across Australia buying from us.

How do you come up with all of the amazing scents and ingredients?

It’s all about curiosity, trial and error. We’ve tried so many different kinds of waxes, jars, lids, wicks, fragrances, packaging types and labels to come up with what we have now. Candles that look good, burn great, smell amazing and are at an affordable price.

In the beginning we made many mistakes, thinking we knew what customers would like. We’ve learnt over time that it’s not always about what ‘you; like, it’s all about what your customers will like.

We make a point of regularly chatting to our customers and bringing out something new to surprise and delight.

How important is a digital and social media strategy to The Richmond Candle Co?

Digital marketing is probably our biggest growth opportunity to be honest (cue all the business development people who will now contact us!). We do absolutely everything in our business between the two of us. We keep learning all the time but there is so much more to learn but that’s the fun part! I mentioned at the start how supportive Johan has been and this extends to digital support as well. Early on, he bought me a digital SLR camera and it made a huge difference to the quality of our product shots.  Our social media has evolved over time as we learn what works and what  doesn’t.

What makes you happy about being in your own small business?

There are two things that bring me the most joy. The first one is that I adore engaging with our customers and hearing what fragrances they liked, how it made their day better, what their friends thought when they came over, and so on. I love that so much.

The creative side of candle making is the other happy place for me including developing fragrance names. It also brings me so much joy to take product photos and learn about how to make them better on every shoot. I love it.

If we were having this interview in a year’s time, where would you like to be as a business?

The most important thing for us is repeat and referral business. As a small business, we can’t spend loads on marketing like the big guys. We rely on our customers having a “wow that smells amazing” thought when they open the lid of our candles, and telling a friend or colleague about us.

I’m not going to say triple the size of the business or anything of that nature. We measure our success based on feedback and repeat purchases more than anything else.