I’m Buying Jars, Lids and Boxes Separately — Could Choosing Compatible Standard Sizes Reduce Both Material Cost and Storage Requirements?

What buying separately costs

Here is a worked example of one candle from a range where jars, lids and boxes each come from a different supplier: a 150 g candle at 8% (12 g of oil, 138 g of wax, load as a share of total weight) in your 7 cm jar. Eucalyptus Spearmint's page states "Recommended fragrance load up to 10% for soy wax"; Luxury Soy Wax Chunks states "up to 13% fragrance load capacity", so 8% sits inside both and is a starting point your tests confirm. Jar, lid, box, fill, reject rate and label are your figures, shown as worked examples.

The container-and-packing lines (jar, lid, box, fill and rejects) are 42.9% of this candle. Three of them are inflated by buying separately. The box is bought in four sizes at short-run prices. The fill is high because the boxes were picked off a list rather than sized to the jars. And the reject line exists because a lid from one supplier and a jar from another meet for the first time on your bench: a worked 2% of sets need a second lid or a different jar, which is ₹1.40 on every candle.

The fit check, with stated CSI sizes

The working rule (packing judgement, confirmed by test parcels, not a standard): box inside width ≥ jar outer diameter + 2 × side cushion, and box inside height ≥ jar height with lid + bottom pad + top pad. For two jars side by side, the inside length must take both diameters plus three cushions (outside, between, outside). Here we use a worked 1.0 cm cushion each side and 1.0 cm pads; heavier jars may need more.

To show the method with real figures, the table uses seven in-stock CSI jars whose pages state a size. These are the pages' stated figures, which do not say inside or outside for the boxes, and for some jars do not say whether the height includes the lid; treat the yes/no as a first screen and confirm with a jar and a box in your hand. The 200 ml Salsa jar's page states no dimensions at all, so it cannot be screened until measured.

Three patterns come out of it. Jars up to 7 cm wide and 8 cm tall with lid form a family that shares the 7 x 5 x 4 inch box, singly or in pairs (the 150 g jar has only 0.16 cm of height to spare, so this is the box to confirm first). Short jars, up to about 6 cm tall with lid, fit the 11 x 11 x 8 cm box; the 120 g shiny jar is 0.5 cm short on height under these pads, so it belongs with the taller family. Tall or wide jars (the 300 g bamboo-lid jar at 10 cm, the 500 g apothecary jar at 10 × 13.2 cm) need a box CSI does not list.

From twelve parts to seven

The worked range today has four jars, each with its own lid and its own box: 12 parts. Applying the fit check and a lid rule (buy jar and lid as a matched pair, or specify the lid's tolerance with the jar) gives a system of three jars, two lids and two boxes, 7 parts: one box sized for a single jar of the 7 cm family, and the 7 x 5 x 4 inch box for two-jar orders. The fourth jar either moves into the family or is retired; how far to consolidate jars is the five-jars-to-two post, and choosing jars that share one neck and lid is the jar-and-lid systems post.

At a worked 600 candles a month that is ₹3,480.00 a month and ₹41,760.00 a year. Each line is a separate effect, so they add without overlapping, but each depends on your own suppliers: the box line only exists if your box supplier prices longer runs lower, and the reject line only if mismatched lids are really costing you sets today. If your boxes already fit snugly and your lids come with the jars, most of this saving is not there, and the gain is storage and simplicity.

Storage: shelves, positions and flat packs

Every part number needs its own shelf position, its own reorder point and its own safety stock; you cannot sensibly mix two box sizes in one stack or two lid sizes in one carton. So going from 12 parts to 7 cuts the positions you need by close to half even if the total number of units on hand stays the same, and it removes the partly empty positions that slow-moving parts leave behind.

Cube maths for boxes (worked shelf: 120 cm wide, 45 cm deep, 36 cm of clear height). Assembled 7 x 5 x 4 inch boxes (2,294 cubic cm each) fit 6 across, 3 deep and 3 high: 54 per shelf, filling about 63.7% of the shelf's volume. Assembled 11 x 11 x 8 cm boxes fit 10 × 4 × 4 = 160 per shelf. At 1.5 months of stock for 600 candles a month (900 sets), assembled boxes alone would take several shelves. The 11 x 11 x 8 cm page says the box is "easy to assemble" with "self-locking tabs", which implies it arrives flat; neither box page states a flat size, so measure a flat one and plan storage on flat stacks, assembling only a day or two of boxes ahead.

Jars and lids. Glass is the bulky part. Unboxed 7 × 8 cm jars would fit about 408 to the same shelf if stacked four high, which is not a good idea for glass; keep jars in their cartons or on dividers and count shelf space in cartons. Jar and lid as a matched pair (a jar sold with its cap, like the Salsa family) saves a separate lid position entirely. How much jar stock to carry is a cash question, covered in the five-jars-to-two post.

What CSI can and cannot match

What we list: jars with stated sizes (the 150 g clear and coloured jars at about 7 cm wide and 8 cm with lid, the 200 ml matte and frosted jars at 7 × 8 cm, the 120 g shiny jars at 6 × 6.5 cm, the 130 g shot glass at 6 × 8 cm, the 300 g bamboo-lid jar and the apothecary dome-lid jar), jars sold with their own lids (the Salsa family's 63 mm lug cap, the golden-lid jars), two plain boxes and packing tissue.

What we cannot: inside dimensions for our boxes (not stated on the pages), a box for jars taller than about 8 cm with lid, separate lids, and printed boxes. Several of our jar pages give one "width" or "diameter" without saying whether it is outer; and some, including the 200 ml Salsa, give no size. Ask us on WhatsApp for any measurement before you design around it. If you want a candle that looks substantial without heavy packaging, the jar-choice side is the look-substantial-without-the-weight post.

A box size change also changes parcel size, and couriers commonly bill on actual or volumetric weight, whichever is higher; check your courier's terms, and see the heavy-jar courier post for the weight-slab side.

Building the system without waste

A box or lid change is a packaging change: wax, oil, wick and jar formula stay as approved, so there is no burn retest. A jar change is different: it changes diameter, glass and heat behaviour, and needs the full retest (which changes count as a revised formulation is the which-changes-count post). Keep the two separate.

Once the box is shared across jars, the next step is often one box design across scents rather than one per scent, which is the one-standard-box post; the order in which to standardise wax, wick, jar, box and oils is the standardise-first post.

What to buy, and what to skip

Four CSI items for building a compatible jar, lid and box set, chosen on stated sizes, pack prices and stock on 4 October 2026. Box fit is screened from stated sizes; confirm inside dimensions before you commit.

Skip for this decision: 100-packs of boxes for a discount that is not there, a box for a jar you have not measured with its lid on, and any jar whose page gives no size until you have one in your hand.

Frequently asked questions