I Want to Keep 30 Days of Candle Raw-Material Inventory — How Do I Convert Monthly Unit Sales into Kilograms of Wax and Fragrance Stock?

Units to finished grams, size by size

Start from the sales report, not from a feeling about how busy the month was. For each candle size, write down units sold in a normal month and the finished fill weight — the weight of wax plus oil in the container, which you get by weighing a filled, cured candle and subtracting the empty container. Container volume in millilitres is not a fill weight; a 200 ml jar does not hold 200 g of wax. The 200 ml versus 200 g problem covers that conversion.

Our example business sells three products at an 8% fragrance load: a 200 g candle in the White Matte Glass Jar, a 150 g candle in the 200 ml Salsa Glass Jar (150 g is the example maker's own tested fill; the jar's fill weight is not published), and an 85 g candle in the Golden Aluminium Tin, which is listed with an 85 g fill. Monthly sales are 180, 120 and 60. These are example figures; use your own.

The total is 59.10 kg of finished candle a month. The step that matters is the split. Because the load is a share of the finished weight, the wax is only 92% of it: 54.37 kg. The other 4.73 kg is fragrance oil. A maker who buys "360 candles' worth of fill weight" as wax orders 59.10 kg — 4.73 kg of wax too much every month, which over a year is 56.74 kg of wax sitting in bags. I Need to Produce 2,000 × 150 g Candles — How Do I Calculate the Total Wax Requirement Without Accidentally Treating Finished Candle Weight as Pure Wax Weight? covers that error in depth for a single large order.

Splitting oil by scent

Wax is shared across every scent, so it only needs the total. Oil does not. Each scent's oil is the sum, across sizes, of units × fill weight × load. In our example four scents sell in every size, in the proportions shown below. Roasted Coffee is the biggest seller in all three sizes; Fresh Strawberries the smallest. Proportions are the example maker's own sales mix, not CSI data.

Roasted Coffee needs 1,654.8 g of oil a month: 63 × 16 g in the 200 g jar, 42 × 12 g in the 150 g jar, and 21 × 6.8 g in the tin. The 85 g tin at 8% holds just 6.8 g of oil, so a scent that sells mostly in tins uses far less oil per sale than one that sells in the 200 g jar. That is why a flat "25% of the oil for each of four scents" rule misallocates stock even when the unit split looks even.

The 30-day target and days of cover

Add the loss allowance to the net need and you have the 30-day target: 56.00 kg of wax and 4.87 kg of oil. The 3% covers pour loss, spills and the occasional test candle; it is a working assumption, and if your records show a different figure, use that. Divide by 30 and you have daily consumption — 1.87 kg of wax a day — which is the unit every other stock rule is built on.

Why 30 days and not 14 or 60? Thirty days of cover is a common choice for a small business because it matches monthly ordering and absorbs most supplier delays. Fewer days frees cash but leaves less room when a delivery slips; more days protects against stock-outs but ties up money and shelf space. The right figure depends on your lead times and how variable your sales are. I Want to Maintain Two Weeks of Safety Stock for My Candle Business — How Do I Calculate the Minimum Quantity of Wax, Fragrance, Wicks and Jars I Should Never Fall Below? sets the minimum you should never fall below, and My Wax Supplier Takes 10 Days to Deliver — At What Stock Level Should I Reorder if I Produce 50 Candles Every Day? works out the reorder point for a known delivery time.

One more distinction: 30 days of raw material is separate from finished candles on the shelf. If you also keep two weeks of finished candles, those already contain their wax and oil. Your total material cover is then roughly six weeks, and you may choose to hold a smaller raw-material target. Decide which you are counting and write it down.

Target minus shelf: the order

The order is never the whole target. Count what is on the shelf, subtract it, and only then round up to packs. Our example maker counts 14 kg of wax, 700 g of Roasted Coffee, 300 g of Jasmine, 450 g of Sandalwood and 100 g of Fresh Strawberries. Wax is simple: 56.00 kg − 14.00 kg = 42.00 kg, which rounds to 9 × 5 kg of Luxury Soy Wax Chunks for ₹26,955.00. Oil is done per scent:

Look at the rounding. Every scent's order ends up above its exact need, because packs come in fixed sizes. That surplus stays on the shelf and is subtracted next month, so it is not waste — it simply means your real cover drifts a little above 30 days. It also means the pack choice should follow the need, not habit: a scent needing 700 g is better served by a 500 g and two 100 g than by a whole kilo, unless its per-gram price drops at 1 kg.

Wicks, jars and tins

Wicks and containers skip the weight steps: one candle, one wick, one container. Their allowance is for defects and breakage rather than pour loss — here 2% on wicks and 1% on glass, both labelled working assumptions. Tins are counted without a breakage allowance. Wick size per container is not published, so the Eco Candle Wicks Thin C1 below is a pricing example; use the wick your own burn tests settled on.

The Salsa jar is the one container here with a real quantity break: ₹40.12 each in a pack of 5, ₹29.50 each in packs of 50 or 100. Buying the 92 jars as packs of 5 would cost ₹3,811.40; as 1 × pack of 100 it costs ₹2,950.00. That break is worth using even if it pushes you slightly above 30 days of jars. The White Matte jar is listed only in packs of 5, and the Golden tin in packs of 12; for larger monthly volumes of either, ask on WhatsApp.

Material cost here excludes labels, boxes, freight, labour and GST — add your own quotes for those. Next month the same sheet runs again with a fresh shelf count. If sales change, change the units at the top and everything below follows. I'm Planning Production for the Next Three Months — How Do I Convert My Candle Sales Forecast into a Purchasing Plan for Wax, Fragrance Oils, Wicks and Jars? extends the same sheet across three months, and I Want to Know Exactly How Much Candle Raw Material to Purchase Every Month Without Constantly Running Out or Overbuying — How Do I Build a Procurement Model Using Sales, Formula Consumption, Lead Time, Wastage and Safety Stock? adds lead time and safety stock to turn it into a full procurement model.

If a new product or a new scent is joining the range, keep it out of the 30-day target until it has a month of real sales. I'm Launching Three New Fragrances but Don't Know Their Demand Yet — How Much Fragrance Oil Should I Initially Buy Compared with Established Bestsellers? sizes those launch buys separately, so an unproven scent does not inflate a stock level built on history.

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