A lot of first enquiries read like "please send price list". There is no price list — unit cost moves with the vessel, the wax, how many scents you split the run across, and where it ships. Here is what actually lets a factory quote.
1. Which product line, roughly what size
Candles, wax melts, diffusers or sprays, and an approximate volume. If you are unsure, name a product on the shelf it competes with.
2. Quantity per scent, not total
This is the number that drives cost. Three hundred units across one scent and three hundred across five scents are different jobs.
3. What has to be custom
Label, logo, box, vessel, wax, fragrance — say which of these must be yours and which can stay standard. Every custom element adds tooling or minimum order on its own component.
4. Destination and any date
Both change the freight option, and freight is a bigger share of landed cost on candles than most people expect — glass is heavy.
What does not help
Sending a competitor photo with no brief, and asking for "your best price" before anyone knows the quantity.
Neither of these is a bad-faith move — they are what you send when you do not yet know what a factory needs. But they both produce the same reply: a range so wide it is useless, or a list of questions that costs you another day.
What a good first email looks like
Three or four lines is enough. Product line, quantity per scent, which parts must be custom, where it ships and by when. Anything you are unsure about, say you are unsure — that is more useful than a guess we would have to unwind later.
If your quantity is below our minimum, say that too. Trial runs start at 100 pcs on a stock vessel and a fragrance from our library, finished with your own label — that route exists precisely so a first order does not have to be 500.
Why the reply sometimes takes a day
Anything with a custom vessel, a custom box or a fragrance we have not run before needs a check with the supplier of that component before the number means anything. A same-hour reply on those would be a number we would have to correct later.
