I sell award-winning, specialty gourmet foods made by 3 different co-packers to my specs. No inventory, no hassle, less insurance, etc etc etc. They buy empty bottles by the millions, I get the best price possible. They can ramp up almost overnight to fill any order I get, so if I land a Wal*Mart order or the like, I can handle it. The post by Rob above nails it.

Don't make this stuff, just sell it. That's a full-time gig right there.

Best of luck ladies!!!!

Am no longer doing this and am marketing and doing public relations. I would advise them to focus on unique products, making great products and selling. Manufacturing is good because you get products when you need them and can test sample too and it brings on great responsibity. China got involved several years ago and major fragrance companies were supplying China bringing cheap-great smelling product to the US. Doing niche unique products and branding, building on native american theme and dionized water only (be careful of bacterias)! Price shop raw ingredients and store them well. Stablity is hugely important!!! Sometimes using 3 preservatives if needed. Your bottom line is your bottomline! Buy bottles from a 2nds place is great too – saves on costs.

There are a variety of areas to sell in ie spas (front and back bar) and seperate them…..maybe add a sales person expecially for that area if you wanted.

Building vats of blank lotions for adding fragrance later isn't great because the fragrance needs to be added at certain temp in manufacturing to have it be top of the line and there's also a contaimenation to deal with in it – bottling when it's warm is best. It's better to be product driven and I would stick to only a few products – we had 30 and it was crazy. Having a store is a great idea.

Selling set ups to stores is best. EX: a store buy in would be 850.00 with stands et al and then add to it – I would strongly suggest staying with that and again come out with new products every season…stop your least selling. The major hotels buy from china at .10 each hotel unit and for that they can get some incredible stuff. Can you compete? If you are running a manufacturing plant do all products ie, private labeling for ie house hold cleaners too. If you have SLES, carbomer 940 or others in personal care you can also do cleaning supplies. It's a wonderful business and good luck!

Before making any change to a traditional recipe…especially ones that have been so well received…I would suggest doing some consumer research. Go out to several locations, recruit people who would be in your target and have half the sample try the current product (made with distilled water, etc) and half the sample try the proposed changed formula (made with deionized water). Each proposed change should be tested in a separate cell so the results will be clear. I agree with Ms Odegaard's advice regarding staying true to the tribal recipes in general, but switching the water may be a workable cost savings. I just wouldn't do it (or make any changes) without testing ahead of time.

Another outlet type that may be a "Natural" for these brands are health food stores and chains (Whole Foods, etc…). The premium price for a premium product is already expected in these outlets. They may offer another pathway for sales expansion.

I wish these ladies great success. I am sure that their vision will pay off.

First question is why do you want to manufacturer your own products? Mostly likely because you think you have to and it is a less expensive option, but that is maybe not true.

We produce 20 million dollars a year in goods and use third parties for all of it.

There are many custom manufacturers especially in the body care industry that would be delighted to manufacture for them. They have bigger equipment and more expertise. Besides the obvious advantage of not having to make capital investments in equipment and buildings, there is another huge advantage. If I pose the question what is your Cost of Goods, you will have a moving target answer, as it that depends on out much labor can produce X number of goods, how much product sold divided into the overhead etc. Small businesses almost never know their exact COG because of all of the unknowns. Instead if you contract the production out to third party entities you know exactly your COG.

Now you have an exact known margin and can concentrate the bulk of your efforts into sales. The story is the products not the production. You do spend time on sourcing. So if for example in the breakdown quote from the third party, you see you can get significant savings by supplying the bottles and caps, you contract that out to another party. We routinely buy batteries from one factory and have them delivered to another following this same principle.

Finally, with this method you won't overwhelm your supply chain. Right now if you sales jumped dramatically you could not deliver and would waste the opportunity.

FYI, you can install an in house distilled water system for your needs with a very quick pay back, if you are really paying a hard to believe $1.00 a gallon.

warm regards,

Rob Auerbach, President
Candyrific LLC