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?

From sales forecast to production

Start with a forecast by product and month — your own sales history for the same months last year, adjusted for growth, is the most useful base. Our example business sells a 200 g candle in the White Matte Glass Jar (200 g is a tested fill; the jar's fill weight is not published) and an 85 g candle in the Golden Aluminium Tin, both at 8% in Luxury Soy Wax Chunks. The forecast below is an example; replace it with yours.

Then move each month's sales to the month the candles must be poured. We assume a candle needs roughly two weeks between pouring and sale for cure, labelling and dispatch — a working checkpoint, not a CSI specification. So a month's first-half sales are poured in the second half of the previous month. In an ordinary month, half the sales fall in each half. In a Diwali November, far more fall early: our example puts 80% of November's sales in its first half, because Diwali is on the 8th. December production also includes the first half of January, forecast at a quieter 250 jars and 100 tins.

October pours 1,390 candles — 2.0 times what it sells. (October's own first-half sales come from candles poured in late September, already on the shelf.) November pours only 485 because most of its sales were made in October. That shift is the single most important step in a festive purchasing plan: it moves the peak material requirement a month earlier than the peak sales. I'm Entering Diwali with Average Sales of 100 Candles a Week but Expect Demand to Triple — How Much Wax and Fragrance Should I Secure Beforehand? looks at the size of the Diwali jump itself.

Production into materials

Each month's production converts exactly as in a single order: units × fill weight gives finished weight; × 0.92 is wax and × 0.08 is oil at an 8% load; each has a 3% loss allowance. Wicks add 2% for defects and jars 1% for breakage — labelled working assumptions. The four festive scents share the oil 35/25/25/15. The month-by-month gross requirement is:

The month-by-month plan

Each material runs through the same five lines each month. Net need = gross need + closing target − opening stock. The closing target is a quarter of next month's gross need — about a week of production, a working assumption that protects the start of the next month. Round net need up to packs; the rounding surplus becomes part of the closing stock and next month's opening stock. The example starts on 1 October with 15 kg of wax, a little oil, 150 wicks, 60 jars and 36 tins.

Notice how the pack sizes shape the plan. Wax rounds to 5 kg bags, so each month's surplus is at most a few kilos. White Matte jars come only in fives and Golden tins only in twelves, so their closing stock wanders slightly above target. Wicks are ₹5.90 each at every pack size, so the plan buys the cheapest combination of packs that covers the need. None of this changes the logic; it only means the closing stock is never exactly the target.

Four festive oils, planned per scent

The same five lines run for each oil. The pack choice matters more here, because these four festive oils behave very differently on price and stock:

The order calendar

Each order must land before the pour it feeds, by at least its delivery time. CSI does not publish delivery times, so the figures below — 7 days for wax, 10 for oils, 14 for glass and tins — are examples; use your own. Pouring for each month is assumed to start on its first working day.

Order 1 is the tight one. On a 14-day delivery, glass and tins for an early-October pour should have been ordered mid-September. If that has slipped, split the October pour: start with the scents and containers already on the shelf, and pour the rest when the order lands. That is also why the closing-stock target exists — to give each new month a week of runway.

Re-run the plan at every month end with the real closing count and, if needed, a revised forecast. Keep the dates of each order and each delivery; after one quarter you will have your own delivery times in place of the examples above. 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? is the one-month version of this sheet, 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 minimum floors, I Have ₹1 Lakh Available for Raw-Material Inventory — How Do I Decide How Much Should Go into Wax, Fragrance Oils, Wicks and Jars Based on Actual Monthly Consumption? splits a fixed budget across the lines, 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? joins it all into a single procurement model.

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