So, you want to build up the next big Australian beauty brand or perhaps a successful niche beauty brand. You may have all the ideas in the world, and have even created a wonderful brand concept, but without a great manufacturer, you’re dead in the water. There are numerous enterprises already established that can help you get set up in manufacturing, and they’re all over the world. How can you choose the best candidate? Below is our guide to help.
1. Made in Australia
A quality beauty manufacturer in Australia is the best way to go for numerous reasons, some of which we’ll cover in more detail below, such as ethical and eco-friendly standards. The first reason to use an Australian manufacturer is that it will help enhance your brand as a true domestic brand.
While it’s quite acceptable in the globalised world nowadays to call a brand Australian but have the product made in China or Vietnam, there’s growing concern about such an approach, and a growing desire to support homegrown brands and businesses.
2. Ethically Sourced Materials and Environmental Standards
Next, you need to be sure that if your manufacturer is assisting you with the formulation of the product that they work ethically to source ingredients. On top of that, they need to manufacture to the right standards, including in terms of employee welfare. It’s bad for your brand to work with any manufacturer that flouts labour laws, disrespects environmental regulation, or engages in questionable practices in acquiring goods or labour from overseas.
3. Minimum Order Requirements
You might find a truly ideal-looking manufacturer candidate, and even embark on encouraging talks with them. They assure you they can manufacture in quick time, and can help with product design, branding, packaging…the works. The problem? They will only manufacture if you make a minimum order of 10,000 units. You might only have the scope to sell about 1000 units per month right now. Do you want to place an order for 10,000 units up front?
Finding a manufacturer that can be flexible on minimum orders early on, and grow along with you, is the best policy.
4. Comprehensive Services
How comprehensive a service do you need from your manufacturer? Do you have every element in hand and literally just need a factory to produce the goods to put into your packaging in large quantities? Or do you just have a product idea and need help with the rest of the development process, including packaging and branding.
One needs to carefully consider this matter and choose a manufacturer that can complement their situation, filling the gaps that exist. Getting all of those gaps filled by a single entity can help bring costs down, and make the entire process less complicated.
5. Flexibility and Customisation
Can your manufacturer produce your products according to your own formulas? If you don’t have a formula yet, can the manufacturer offer one of their own private label formulas for you to use? These are important questions when choosing a manufacturer. The most ideal situation is to have a producer that can do all of the above.
6. Lead Times
Finally, you’ll need to work with a manufacturer that can offer lead times that are reasonable and line up with your planned product launch into the market. Delayed production and supply problems can be the death of a brand. Just as having sufficient bandwidth to support all its users is critical to a web-based business, having a strong supplier who can offer consistent and reliable lead times is essential to a producer of cosmetics.
If your customers rely on your beauty products but production is slack and unreliable, then they’ll never be sure that they can rely on the next pot of cream, moisturiser or other product being available when it needs to be. That’s bad branding right there
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