Wicks N More Case Study

Wicks n' More is known for their high-quality, hand-poured fragrance candles. I had the chance to sit down with the co-founders and former owners, Beckey and Kim Neal. Wicks n' More was founded in 1998 by mother and daughter, in the garage as a hobby. Both, Beckey and Kim, gave their opinion about a small family business and about the process of the product. This business is successful and is now a multi-million dollar business where candles are sold all over the globe. Beckey and Kim still worked full time as a nurse and a medical tech in Tupelo, MS. They faced a problem at first because they were unsure whether or not they were going to turn this into a business. Beckey's husband, Wayne, was a former salesman and had previously owned his own small business. Wayne's encouragement and help persuaded Beckey to turn …show more content…
Beckey and Kim began reaching out to larger chain stores such as TJ Maxx, Fred Myers, Tuesday Morning, and some of the smaller mom-and-pop stores to sell merchandise to. Kim, being the vice president, handled over 120 sales representatives from all over the United States to help push more of the products out. Figure 15.6 shows the different types of channel distributions. Beckey and Kim reaching out to other stores to help sell their product is an example of an indirect distribution channel. An indirect channel is defined as a distribution system with one or more intermediaries (page 414). The retail store is an example of the retailer channel, where the retailers sell to the consumers or users. A wholesaler channel would Wicks n' More selling their product at a wholesale price to the wholesaler that will distribute through a retailer to a consumer or user. An agent/broker channel is when the producer reaches out to an agent or broker to sell to the wholesalers. As stated before, Kim handled the sale representatives that would bring the business more customers and future