Hobby & Craft Forums

One thing which has become apparent to me over the last few days is that ordering over the internet isn't always practical. It often means that heavy items are more expensive once postage is added and my biggest bug bear is that I have to wait days and days for them to arrive. I tried looking for local suppliers of soy wax this morning on the Wirral where I live but don't seem to be able to find any...surely there must be a local supply for this stuff? I've tried the normal searches such as 'soy wax supplies Wirral' and 'candle making supplies Wirral' etc but have drawn a complete blank- plenty of places selling the finished product but not the actual stuff to make them. Is it too much to ask to source your supplies locally? It's sooooo frustrating that I can't just get in the car and go and pick these things up. Does anyone else have these problems?

Have you tried ordering oils and butterers by the ton?????

To be honest - usually the cost of fetching it from say 20 miles away, is more expensive than paying carriage.

Jane

Even if it's more expensive I'd still like to be able to just get in my car and go and pick it up...I'm not normally impatient but when you start making something and then realise you haven't got enough of something and can't finish it, it's really frustrating. Take my candles as an example...I'm obviously new to making my own candles, thought I'd done all my research and ordered appropriately only to find that I don't have enough wax to complete what I want to do. I thought I'd ordered way over what I needed but as it turns out, I'm actually quite a bit short. I got up espsecially early this morning at 5.30 to do my candles and I will now have to wait another 4 or 5 days before I can finish what I started...I guess you live and learn eh! It'd just be so nice to be able to be able to get this stuff locally instead of the long wait for Royal Mail to deliver it- that's if they decide to deliver it at all lol!

Have you tried www.yell.com for local craft shops?

At least then you could ring up and find out if they have what you want.

Not only the cost of petrol - but, if you're in business, the cost to your time.... I usually calculate my time at £10 per hour so if it takes me 2 hours to drive somewhere to buy something, I calculate a loss of time of £20 - in fact were I to stay at home and make something the loss may be greater...

The other thing is the price - internet businesses often have lower overheads than shops, so their prices are often cheaper - if you calculate all of that you might find the wait is worth it

I was just looking at how far away my nearest HobbyCraft store is- it's not too far away but given the weather I don't think I'm going to attempt the 20 mile journey today lol! We have a big craft centre closer to us and I've just been looking at their website but there's no mention of candle making supplies there. I'm going to ring them as soon as it hits 9am. I will try the yellow pages too...thanks for listening to me rant btw lol!

judivenn wrote:Not only the cost of petrol - but, if you're in business, the cost to your time.... I usually calculate my time at £10 per hour so if it takes me 2 hours to drive somewhere to buy something, I calculate a loss of time of £20 - in fact were I to stay at home and make something the loss may be greater...

The other thing is the price - internet businesses often have lower overheads than shops, so their prices are often cheaper - if you calculate all of that you might find the wait is worth it

Oh yes, very definitely but if I were in business I'd be buying in mass quantities which in most cases will bring the price down anyhow. I'm not planning on selling candles though lol, it's just something to do and have a go at while I'm off work and will defo only ever be a hobby!

There is a supplier, about 20 mins drive from us, they are very expensive, compared to our usual suppliers.

However, I do buy the odd thing from them because on the odd occasion that we do run out of something, it is great to be able to phone them and collect it 30 mins later.

Take last week, I had 5 litres of Lavender EO on order, but the snow made it late coming at least I was able to pick up

500ml from the expensive company to keep our production going.

Yes, it's definitely handy to have a supplier nearby, even if you only use them for emergencies- not that my circumstances are an emergency, more of an annoyance lol! I can imagine it's even more important to have local suppliers when you're running a business- imagine if you didn't have that craft store near to you, creaks and paddles come to mind lol!

How absolutely ironic- just found a major multi national manufacturer of wax for all types of use including candle wax right on my doorstep, less than 3 miles away from me lol! Still, I don't think they'll be interested in supplying me with the odd 4-5 kilograms of the stuff lol! I've emailed them though asking them for local stockists of their soy wax products...I don't know whether this makes me happy or just makes me even more frustrated lol! I'll let you know when they reply- it'll just be my luck that the nearest supplier will be 20 odd miles away lol! http://www.sasolwax.com/en/Home.html