My Client May Increase a 1,000-Candle Order by 20% at the Last Minute — Should I Buy Additional Raw Materials Now or Wait for Confirmation?

Two kinds of material

When a client says the order might grow, the instinct is to treat the whole uplift as one decision. It is really two. Some materials are shared: the same wax, jars and wicks go into every candle you make, for this client and the next. If the uplift does not happen, they sit on the shelf until the next order, which costs you some cash tied up and some storage, and nothing else. Other materials are scent-specific: this client's fragrance, and sometimes a custom label or colour. If the uplift does not happen, those are only useful if you already sell that scent. If you do not, the money is gone.

That table is the whole decision in miniature. The rest of this page puts rupees against it for one example: 1,000 candles of 250 g at 8%, possibly rising to 1,200, poured in Luxury Soy Wax Chunks with Dark Vanilla Oud, in White Matte Glass Jars with Eco Thin C1 wicks. Each candle holds 20 g of oil and 230 g of wax, using CSI's convention that load is a share of the finished weight. A Client Wants 1,000 Candles but Expects 20 Samples Before Final Production — Should the Sample Raw Materials be Included in My Procurement Calculation? uses the same shared-versus-specific split for a different uncertainty, which scent the client will pick.

The 1,000 and the 1,200, priced

Both scenarios carry the same allowances: 15 test candles and 3% pour loss on the wax and oil (labelled working assumptions), 1% on jars and 2% on wicks. The only difference between the two columns is the extra 200 candles.

The uplift adds ₹67,949.00 at listed prices. Of that, ₹42,340.00 is shared material (wax ₹27,000.00, jars ₹14,160.00, wicks ₹1,180.00) and ₹25,609.00 is fragrance. The jar line is the largest shared cost, because the White Matte Glass Jar is ₹70.80 each; its fill weight is not published, so the 250 g fill is this page's example, and My Jar Holds 180 g of Water — How Do I Estimate the Wax Fill Weight Before Buying Wax for 500 Jars? shows how to measure yours.

Three options, two outcomes

There are three sensible ways to buy, and two ways the client can answer. Each combination has a cost. The costs below use listed prices, plus two example figures that you should replace with your own: a holding cost for cash tied up in stock of 1.5% a month for 3 months (example: your own cost of money and storage will differ), and an example selling price of ₹499 per candle to value 200 candles you could not deliver.

Option C's worst case is small in both columns: a fragrance top-up to source if the client says yes, and some cash tied up in wax, jars and wicks if they say no. Option A's worst case is ₹25,609.00 of a scent you may not sell. Option B's worst case depends entirely on whether you can source ₹67,949.00 of material, including 202 jars, quickly enough; if you cannot, it is 200 undelivered candles.

The probabilities are yours, not ours; the table only shows how the numbers move. Option C stays cheapest across the range as long as the fragrance top-up can be sourced in time. If it cannot, option C collapses into option B for the oil line, and the decision becomes the one in the next section. Option B is only attractive when a top-up of every line, jars included, is easy to get quickly.

The latest-order-date rule

Work out one date: the latest day you could order the top-up and still pour the extra 200 on time. Start from the delivery date, subtract your pour and cure time for 200 candles, then subtract the time it takes the top-up to arrive. CSI does not publish delivery times, so ask on WhatsApp for this quantity; do not guess. Then compare that date with the date the client has promised to confirm.

Making the wait cheaper

If the fragrance top-up is the only thing you are waiting on, three things make that wait cheaper. First, use the rounding spare: the base order's oil already covers 4 extra candles. Second, if the scent is one you sell anyway, the risk of buying early shrinks to holding cost, because any unused oil goes into your own range; that turns Dark Vanilla Oud from a scent-specific line into a shared one for you. Third, split the top-up: a 500 g bottle held now covers 24 more candles at 20.6 g each, for ₹2,845.00, and caps the risk at that amount while buying time.

If the uplift is confirmed after you have already bought for 1,000, the calculation is the same one the 500-to-750 wedding increase works through: add only the difference, after checking what spare you hold. If this order sits in a month with other orders, the shared lines can be pooled with theirs, which makes the extra wax even less of a risk; I Have Three Bulk Orders Happening in the Same Month — How Do I Combine Their Wax Requirements While Keeping Fragrance Oils and Packaging Quantities Separate? shows how. And I'm Accepting Larger Corporate Orders — How Do I Calculate Raw-Material Requirements Before Quoting so Unexpected Wastage Doesn't Destroy My Margin? covers how to write the uplift terms into the original quote so the client's late decision does not become your cost.

Frequently asked questions