"A Candle With a Twist" at Grand Forks Trade Show

I'd been looking forward to Spiral Light Candle going to a major trade show in Houston, Texas. That was around the beginning of this month. (November 2, 2011) Instead, we wound up developing a new website. We're still using the existing one, but this morning I got an update on the search and online purchasing software we'll be using. Basically, the new website will look good: and, at least as importantly, work.

Which our current one does, just fine. (Spiral Light Candle, spirallightcandle.com) We've got a video that shows what our "candle with a twist" does, a brochure in .pdf (Acrobat) format, and contact information. If you want to buy our candles online, though, our Spiral Light Candle Corp. Storefront
on amazon.com is probably your best option.

But, like I said, that's changing. Soon, I hope.

The photo near the top of this post shows a display stand in our booth at a Grand Forks trade show, on Tuesday of this week: November 15. That's about an hour's drive north from our home office and factory, which made getting there an economic possibility. Logistics were a whole lot easier, too.

Spiral Light Candle at Grand Forks trade show. November 15, 2011.

More than 3,000 folks were at the trade show, we got an "amazing" response to our product line, and I'm hoping we'll get that new website up and running soon: It'll give me something nifty and new to write about.

Spiral Light Candle in Hillsboro, North Dakota

Yesterday afternoon, I learned that Sapphire's in Hillsboro, North Dakota, has been re-ordering those candles that burn in a circle. The Spiral Light Candle things. Folks are driving in from Fargo, and Grand Forks, to get our self-filling candles.

Then there's Shepherd's Path in Bangor Maine, another place selling our candles. And more than two dozen others, on a list that's seriously out-of-date now.

What impressed me wasn't so much that Spiral Light Candle Corporation keeps getting orders from new retail businesses: it's that they re-order. Quite often, in some cases. Folks keep coming into the stores and buying out their stock. Which is good news for everybody: with the possible exception of whoever has to re-arrange the displays and keep track of inventory. And that's another topic.

This video does a pretty good job of showing what these candles do:

"Spiral Light's Spiral Burning Self Filling Candle"

anoasisproduction, YouTube (July 28, 2011)
video, 1:31

Spiral Light Candle is changing gears right now, since we need to make a whole lot more candles than we did a month ago. It's an interesting situation: My wife's been taking long strands of candle wick, cutting them to length, and shipping the ready-for-assembly wicks back to Hillsboro.


Making long strands of wick into shorter strands. October 28, 2011.

Right now, having wick preparation done partly as a sort of cottage industry makes sense. I'm not sure how long that's going to be the case. My son-in-law and I have been discussing locations for a factory: and that's yet another topic.

Somewhat-related posts:

• "First Full-Time Employee, and a Busy Monday"
  (September 12, 2011)
• "Catholic Marketing Network Trade Show: Second Morning on the Floor"
  (August 4, 2011)
• "Hiring Relatives and the Chinese Business Model"
  (June 5, 2007)