The Great Yankee Swap

Our Manager, Jami (a/k/a Ryan's Mom), posing with our friend Erin, owner of the Met Coffeehouse who caters all the events at Soyfire.

Our best customers are former Yankee Candle customers, and we hear stories everyday about the soot they're so tired of. Now, we don't like to pick on just one competitor, in fact we think Yankee is one of the best petroleum candles available- but it's still petroleum. Truth is, we're New England based, and in these parts Yankee Candle set the standard... but we have the new standard.

Another great New England tradition at Christmas time is the Yankee Swap. It's a way to make gift giving at the office much easier and more fun. (Okay, that' the premise, but there is some debate as to whether that ever happens.) So, this year we conducted our version of a Yankee Swap.

Customers brought in their old, used (completely or partially burned) sooty candle jars and we would swap them for a brand new free, soy candle from Beanpod. No purchase was necessary, just come in and swap. If they made a purchase of at least $14, we would swap their new free candles again to upgrade to a larger jar candle at the register.

We did lots of swapping, and as you can tell from the picture, our completely burned, clean Beanpod candle jar is photographed in front of a table full of other sooty old candles. That pictures says it all for many of our customers.