Tips to build a rejuvenating career in beauty industry: Become a Brand Owner

The ever growing Beauty business is raging in all segments, may it be Hair & Skin care, Color Cosmetics or Personal Care. Of course, it has not left the men behind in this rapid race.

Coming to brands, the easy way to address a product by name, everyone wants to have their own brand. May it be traders, spa or salon owners.

Now launching a product is a daunting task: ideation, formulation, packaging, pricing, not to mention the efforts to get the product to the shelf and promote it. A herculean task.

Ok great, the One-Stop-Shop. Contract Manufacturing! Why this demand?

Brand owners can focus on the promotion and marketing and leave product development to the experts.

Development of new and gender specific products is expected to drive demand in the industry.

What Challenges Brand Owners Face?

Let me give you some tips wherein this can happen without investing too much in development of your branded product.

Let the contract manufacturer manufacture for you, keeping yourself away from the manufacturing hassles and purely concentrating on marketing and promoting your own brand.

1. Licensing: The manufacturer shall procure the license for the Brand owner.
2. Formulations: The manufacturer shall develop your choice of desired proven formulations; say organic, paraben-free, sulphate-free, vegan & SLS free products. Of course at some cost, but worth it!
3. Organically certified: If you wish to get into totally organically certified products.
4. Packaging: Give your artwork and leave the packaging to the manufacturer.
5. Variants & Quantity: Make your plan of initial launch of the variants & quantity; say you may start with minimum of 500 pieces ranging to 3000 pieces depending upon your rapport with the concerned manufacturer. Smaller the quantity, higher would be the price.  But surely, test marketing can be done even if you need to initially pay a higher price keeping in mind your marketability & sustainability in the market against competitive products.
6. Sizes: After doing your market study, fill in the gap of the sizes that aren’t available in the market in the same segment.
7. Cost – Best price with best quality: Here too, you need to decide the best quality with price point and inbuilt godown delivery cost, in comparison to your competitors of the similar products.
8. In case of Exports: Get it made under neutral label so no name of the manufacturer appears thereby keeping you away from the worry of your competitor duplicating the product from the same manufacturer.

Benefits

• You are away from the huge investment in setting up a manufacturing plant; alternatively you invest in your brand promotion.
• No inventory cost of Raw Materials, packaging materials, fixed cost, variable costs for maintaining the manufacturing unit. Get manufactured how much you want.
• No labor problems
• No maintenance of technical records
• No process loss while manufacturing
• No filling and packing loss
• No hassles of various licensing

Drawback

• Formulations lie with the manufacturer unless you have purchased the formulations from the manufacturer and signed an NDA
• Formulations can be revealed if no proper MOUs signed
• Control of manufacturing with the manufacturer
• Immediate or sudden demand of product at stake in case of production capacity if not planned ahead.

About the Author

Mrs. Kajal Anand is the Chairperson and Managing Director of Debon Herbals Pvt. Ltd. Debon Herbals (ISO 9001-2015 / HALAL CERTIFIED / HACCP / 22716 : 2007  / 18001 : 2007 CERTIFIED)  is a manufacturer, exporter, and private label manufacturer of hair and skin care herbal/organic/ayurvedic cosmetics ranging to almost 40+ products. Mrs. Anand is backed by basic experience in product know how of colour cosmetics and herbal/ayurvedic cosmetics from the last 35 years and also a Proprietrix of a marketing company “ENAR International”, Mumbai. She was felicitated by the Online Forbes magazine on 5th Feb 2019 as “Changemaker Ambassador” for UK Finance Company in India.

She is the President of All India Cosmetic Mfgrs’ Assn (AICMA), in the Core Committee of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Vice Chairperson of All India Manufacturers’ Organization (AIMO), National Vice President of Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), and many more. Throughout the years, she has been honored with number of prestigious awards to her credit like “Iconic Brand of the year 2018“, “Best Entrepreneur – 2000“, “Export Excellence -1999” to name a few and many more for the invaluable contribution to the cosmetic industry for last 30 years.