Gift Focus inc Attire Accessories - Page number 75 - May/June 2021

75 COMPANY PROFILE BUSY BEE CANDLES T: +44 (0)1550 750 419 www.busybeecandles.co.uk taken on these Electric Wax Warmers and that’s really accelerating their popularity. As well as these mainstay products, we manufacture several other lines that have been well received. Our 12 Wax Melt Selection Box has been hugely popular over the last few years and our Room and Linen Freshener Spray continues to be in great demand. We launched a 6 Month Rechargeable Hanging Air Freshener last year that’s really taken off as well as a Scented Hand Sanitiser Spray that has done very well. We have 17 new styles of a unique LED Electric Wax Warmer we’ve developed and just launched. So many products that all seem to do well with our wholesale and direct retail customers. What are your most popular products? Wax Melts (Magik Beanz and Fragrance Bars in particular), Electric Wax Warmers and Magik Candle are our most popular products. Have any styles taken you by surprise with their popularity? The Fragrance Bars and Hanging Air Fresheners we launched last year have done very well. We expected a quick uptake but these have exceeded expectations. I think the quality shines through. How do you keep your designs fresh and current? Do you follow trends? We launch new fragrances quarterly and really go on gut instinct. If we like a fragrance, we think our customers will too. We then actively try to fill holes in our product line-up. Trends are also important as are colours. There’s no magic formula for picking the best products. Experience and talking to our customers helps a great deal. What sets you apart from your competitors? All wax products are handmade at Busy Bee Candles. We have always done it that way and I don’t think we’ll change a winning formula. It makes every Busy Bee product a little more special than the mass produced and our attention to detail ensures consistency, which a lot of the new small vendors can’t achieve. How are you finding the current climate in the UK? Is it affecting business? In the UK, I think it’s a bit of a boom time in home fragrance and giftware. So many people sat at home for a year has seen a significant increase in our direct to retail sales. I also see this with sales to our wholesalers and retailers. There’s obviously an appetite for the product at the moment across the board. It’s too early to tell how Brexit will impact our export sales. Are you active on social media? How is this important for the business? We have around 60,000 followers across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We grew the business initially using Twitter and Facebook and we continue to post every working day. I love the interaction and feedback you receive from customers. It’s lovely to hear how they enjoy the product. Here’s a great post on our Facebook page from a new stockist recently; “I’ve just started stocking these in my hair salon and they are the most amazing candles I’ve ever had – I literally can’t keep up with people ordering. Thank you so much I’m so excited for future products.” It makes it all so much more rewarding. Do you have any advice for new businesses starting out in the world of gifts? I guess the most important thing is to be unique. So many people follow and copy that it makes it difficult to be heard in a crowd. It’s difficult but it’s of key importance. What can we expect in the future from the company? We have 16 new fragrances ready to come online this year as well as another patent pending product we’ve developed that I’m hoping will launch later this year. Add the 17 new styles of LED Electric Wax Warmers plus new designs in the pipeline and I think the immediate future is exciting.