Open your candle store in a weekend

You already make the candles. People already buy them, on Etsy, at markets, or by messaging you on Instagram. What you don't have yet is a place that is yours: a store where repeat customers can come back without marketplace fees, where you own the customer list, and where an order doesn't start with five messages and a payment screenshot.

This is a two-day plan for getting that store live, written for a small candle business of one or two people. It uses Waise as the example because that is what we build; the steps work on any platform.

A weekend is realistic only if you keep the first version small. The goal for Sunday night is a store that can take a real order, not a store with every feature turned on.

Before Saturday: one hour of preparation

Most lost setup time is spent hunting for things. Gather these first:

• Photos. One good photo per product is enough to start. Natural light, a plain background, the label readable. If you sell scents in the same jar, one photo per scent still helps shoppers more than one photo for the whole line.
• Your product list. Name, scent notes, size or weight, burn time if you've measured it, wax and wick type, price. A simple spreadsheet is fine.
• Your costs. What a finished candle costs you: wax, fragrance oil, wick, jar, label, box. You'll want this to see profit per order later.
• Shipping. What you ship in, what a typical parcel weighs, and what you want to charge. Many small shops start with one flat rate and a free-shipping threshold.
• Business details. Your legal business name, address and contact email. Shoppers and the law expect to see who is selling.
• Policies. How many days for returns, and what you do with a candle that arrives broken.

Saturday morning: the store itself

1. Sign up and describe the business. On Waise you sign up with an email and a password (or Google), and the store opens straight away. The setup wizard asks you to describe what you sell in your own words. Write it the way you'd say it at a market stall: "Hand-poured soy candles in amber jars, woody and seasonal scents, $24 to $38."

2. Pick a look. The wizard suggests three themes that fit your description, out of the full catalogue. For candles, warm and natural looks usually suit the product better than stark ones, but pick what fits your brand. You can change the theme, the colours and the fonts later without losing anything, so don't spend your morning here.

3. Add products. You have three ways in:

• From photos. Upload one photo per product and a name and description are drafted from it. Read every draft. You know your scent notes; the draft doesn't.
• From a store you already have. If you have a Shopify or WooCommerce store, paste its address and up to 2,000 products come over with their photos and variants. Customers and orders come from your platform's export file.
• From Etsy. There is no Etsy import yet. Add products from photos or a spreadsheet instead. For a candle line of 10 to 30 products this usually takes an hour or two.

Use variants for sizes (8 oz, 12 oz) rather than separate products, so reviews and stock stay together.

4. Write descriptions that answer questions. A good candle page answers: what does it smell like (top, middle, base notes), how big is it, how long does it burn, what is it made of, and how should it be burned safely. Shoppers buying candles online can't smell them, so the words carry more weight than they would at a market.

Saturday afternoon: getting paid and shipping

5. Payments. Connect your own Stripe account (or open one from the link in the wizard), and shoppers can pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. You can add PayPal next to it. The money goes from Stripe to you; it never passes through Waise. If you're not ready for card payments, you can start with bank transfer or a PayPal link and confirm each payment by hand.

6. Shipping. Set your flat rate and your free-shipping threshold. Candles are heavy and glass breaks, so price shipping from a real parcel you've weighed, not a guess. If you want to print labels from the store, connect a label service (Waise has a step-by-step guide for Shippo).

7. Sales tax. In the US, prices are shown before tax, and the checkout adds sales tax only in the states where you are registered to collect. In Waise you list those states and a rate for each (each starts at the statewide base rate, and you can type your combined local rate), or let Stripe Tax calculate it from the address. Which states you must collect in depends on where you're based and how much you sell into each state. If you're unsure, ask an accountant; this guide can't answer it for you.

Sunday: check everything like a shopper

Sunday is for finding the problems before a customer does.

• Read every product page on your phone. Most shoppers will see your store on a phone first. Is the price visible without scrolling? Is the scent description readable?
• Place a test order with a real card in test mode, or a real low-priced order you refund. Check the confirmation email: does it have your name, your logo and the right return address?
• Check your policies page. Returns, shipping times, and what happens to broken jars.
• Check your safety wording. In the US, candle makers commonly print fire-safety warnings on the label (burn within sight, keep away from children and pets, trim the wick). Put the same guidance on the product page. (Owner: there is a US labelling standard for candle fire safety, ASTM F2058; confirm the current version and wording with the source before publishing this line.)
• Turn on the abandoned-cart reminder. A shopper who typed their email at checkout and didn't pay gets a reminder an hour later, with their candles and a link back. Waise ships this as a ready automation; you only switch it on and read the wording.

When everything looks right, publish. To publish on Waise you need three things: a name and a category, products with a photo, and the business details the law requires. Design, marketing and the rest can be improved after you're live.

What can wait until next weekend

It's tempting to set up everything at once. These can wait:

• Loyalty points and referral programs. Useful once you have repeat customers to reward.
• Bundles and gift sets. Great for the holidays, but add them once single products sell.
• Ads. Start with the customers you already have.

Telling your existing customers

The first sales from your own store usually come from people who already know you: a post with the link in your Instagram profile, a card with your store's address in market orders, and a QR code on your stall sign. (If you sell on a marketplace, check its rules on mentioning an outside store first.)

What it costs to start

On Waise: a free week with up to 5 real orders and no credit card to start. If you stay on the Basic plan, the first month is $1 and then $29 a month. The first 50 paid orders each month carry no Waise fee; after that it's $0.25 per order. Card processing is Stripe's own fee, paid to Stripe. (Prices as listed on waise.com/pricing on November 3, 2026.)

If you want to compare platforms first, our guide What a Shopify store really costs per month walks through the real monthly bill, with sources.

A short checklist

• One good photo and an honest description per product
• Variants for sizes
• Payments connected and a test order placed
• Shipping priced from a weighed parcel
• Sales tax states set (or Stripe Tax on)
• Policies and safety wording on the site
• The abandoned-cart reminder switched on
• Published, and the link shared with the people who already buy from you

That's a store. Everything after this is making it better, one weekend at a time.