Working with a white label manufacturer gives you access to a huge range of benefits, experience, guidance, enhanced safety and liability cover, not to mention the sheer stress relief of having someone else prepare and pack your products.
Life couldn’t be simpler, right?
Having worked with countless white label brands on 4 continents, we’ve seen a lot of really great partnerships blossom through clear communication and aligned focus. We’ve also made most of the mistakes you can make and learned from them along the way.
Below is our list of 5 things you MUST know before you get started
1 | Clarity in your brand and ideals
Finding out what you what your brand to be, as well as who you want to target are both much more complex than it would first appear. Finding simplicity for what your brand is destined to be is one of the pivotal points of discovery in not only the types of products you want, but also the packaging, the labels, the boxes and general branding. This also stretches over into all of your marketing activity. When you approach a white label provider like Apex White Label, the more you can tell us about the brand and the focus, the better we can understand your needs and provide more suitable, brand appropriate options for your range.
This streamlining will inevitably help us provide a high-quality product and enable you to get the most from your marketing and strategy by having a crystal-clear proposition of what you’re telling your audience.
2 | Timelines & Forward Planning
We know that speed is a key part of any business, but we like to ensure we measure twice and cut once. Getting it wrong when you’re launching a new range, or a new brand entirely can be devastating. Rushing a decision is a sure-fire way to cause potential problems.
Setting out a schedule with your white label provider over a set number of weeks will ensure both you and they can work collectively towards the goals, it is critical that you build in a margin of safety for your timings. Unfortunately, delays do happen, products get lost in transit, items are held at port due to ever increasing congestion and the ever-evolving complexity posed by covid and Brexit. All these things can weigh in heavily on availability. When launching your brand, don’t run things too close to the wire as you may end up incurring expedited delivery charges or production movement costs that you weren’t expecting.
Once things are set in place, evaluate the likelihood of when you’ll need a re-stock and work with your white label provider to ensure smooth sailing on your product deliveries for future orders. Clear communication and planning can save everyone involved a lot of time and ensure you always get full access to your range.
3 | NDA’s & IP
White Label providers often work with many market players in the same sector, they may supply two direct rivals with competing products. With that in mind, any White Label provider worth their salt will enable the protection of both your Intellectual Property (IP) and their own.
Before commencing any supply relationship, work with your White Label provider to secure your concept or formula. If you have asked for support with a formula or product blend, the White Label house may be willing to split this IP with you for a fee that factors in their development time and any exclusivity they provide to you on such a formula.
Simple Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) tend to cover a broad range of basic points relating to the sharing of information outside of the relationship and between parties within the business, of which it’s essential information for them to complete their jobs. If you have specific concerns about a formula or process that you would like additional protections over, many white label providers will have links to suitable legal firms who can put such paperwork together for your peace of mind and security.
4 | Understanding Scale and MOQ’s
When you start speaking with any White Label provider, they will often refer to MOQ’s, or Minimum Order Quantities. Whilst it would be great to be able to support every business no matter what stage they are at in their lifecycle, some health products require larger scale than others. This can be caused by all sorts of factors but often it is simply down to the nature of the materials, how they are produced, how you would like them packed or how they need to be sourced.
Complexity and uniqueness will inevitably bring higher requirements for ordering. As the scale of complexity increases, there is a significant change in how things can be produced and both the product development, sourcing, manufacturing and literature that support a complex product all adds to the overall time spent creating said products. That work must be factored into the cost pricing and will inevitably lead to a higher MOQ to balance out the unit cost against the overall amount of work involved.
5 | Label & Packaging Design
Creating new ranges or brands is an exciting and interesting journey from start to finish. Making sure your products look just right is often the cherry on the cake for a well delivered branded item. Working with your White Label provider to ensure your packaging is up to the mark is a critical part of the process and shouldn’t be overlooked.
If you have your own team of designers or a 3rd party company, ensure that there is an established link between the White Label house and their teams, if everyone can speak directly and openly the process is generally much smoother and the products look right at the end of it. Passing information through an intermediary is asking for things to get lost in translation and inevitably mistakes can be made. Often the simplest solution is to directly engage the white label house to carry out all the branding work.
At Apex White Label we provide full access to an experienced team of Graphic & Packaging design experts who can turn your concepts into fully fledged packaging.
Now you know the 5 key things to look out for when starting your white label brand, there’s nothing stopping you from launching your products and turning your note book concept into a living, breathing product range!
Find out more about how the team at Apex White Label can take care of all of the above for you, simply drop us a line on the contact form below and we’ll be in touch to discuss all of the options open to you with your white label range.