Starting a skincare brand with a small batch of product can be an exciting and rewarding venture, but finding a manufacturer to produce your products in small quantities can be a difficult task. There are many options available for if you look carefully, but you should also research your manufacturer before partnering with them to start your skincare brand.

Starting a skincare brand can be a costly adventure, and many people look to small batch skincare manufacturers when they first start out to keep startup costs low. In this blog we will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of working with small batch skincare manufacturers and what you can do to ensure your manufacturer is reliable!

Let’s go!

What is a “small batch”?

In manufacturing and beauty manufacturing specifically, the term “small batch” typically refers to 1000 pieces or less of a single product. I know this may seem like a large number to begin with, but when considering skincare brands that are somewhat popular, most of these brands are manufacturing at least 20,000 units at a time.

While this is probably your goal, and an achievable one, when starting your skincare brand, it can be difficult to start your brand with that large of a quantity. This is why some skincare manufacturers, like Genie Supply, offer small batch skincare manufacturing.

Manufacturing only 500-1000 pieces of product can help take away some of the costs related to starting a skincare brand.

Now you may be wondering:

Why it can be difficult to find skincare manufacturers that will produce such small quantity of goods? The challenges you, as an entrepreneur, face are similar to the challenges manufacturers face when it comes to small batch skincare.

disadvantages of small batch skincare manufacturing:

1. Higher Costs:

Wait, what?… I know, this can be confusing. How does smaller quantity lead to higher cost?

Simply put, it costs more PER PEICE to produce a product on the smaller scale. This is due to the time it takes to create an assembly line, for workers to start a product (get in the groove), and clean up the manufacturing facility between each product.

No matter how many pieces of a product an assembly team makes, the time to set up and clean up is roughly the same. This time and money it takes to do so is spread across less pieces, making each individual piece more expensive to produce than if the quantity were higher.

This means that although the total cost may be lower when producing smaller batch skincare, the price per piece will be higher. Unfortunately this gives you and the manufacturer less room make profit on the goods because the price of production (or raw materials) is higher.

This higher cost is also due to a higher cost of ingredients, where a similar principle applies, but when you are just starting your skincare brand we understand that limited budgets will sometimes lead to a need for lower quantities of production.

2. Less consistency

Producing product on a small scale also leads to less automation overall in the production process. Oftentimes it is more cost effective for your manufacturer to produce the product by hand as opposed to by large machine.

When automated machinery is used to product skincare products, the rate of error is much lower, but (referring to our first point) it is often costly and time consuming to set up and calibrate this machinery.

Creating product by hand leads to potentially less consistency in your finished product, and even the best assembly line workers, which we do have ;), will create the natural affect of human error. Of course quality control measures can help reduce this inconsistency, but it is virtually impossible to eliminate it all together.

Before you are scared away from small batch manufacturing, there are also advantages to small batch skincare manufacturing!

Advantages of Small Batch Skincare Manufacturing:

1. Lower Start-Up Costs

Not everyone has loads of money laying around to start a skincare brand, and we understand that at Genie Supply. Before starting Genie Supply, our founder started her own beauty line out of her college dorm!

Read about her founder story here for some much needed inspiration.

One of the largest benefits of small batch skincare manufacturing is the lower start-up costs of starting the brand. While the per peice price may be a bit higher, the overall cost is much less. This gives you time and more resources to dedicate towards launching and growing your business. At some point in the near future, you may be able to produce much larger quantities per batch, but producing on a small scale to start can ease the fear and financial burden of starting your own business.

2. Produce Multiple Products (SKU’s)

With the money you save producing a lower quantity of product, you may have the chance to produce multiple products to start your brand. This takes the stress off of ensuring your one product will sell, and gives you the opportunity to test out which product performs best on the market. Based on the results of your first round of sales, you can then refocus your brand and marketing efforts to increase profits.

While not everyone that purchases small batch skincare will purchase multiple products, it certainly opens up the opportunity for some sellers to do so.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Some manufacturers will work with you to reduce the minimum order quantity (MOQ) of each individual product when you plan to manufacture more than one with them. This isn’t always the case, but it is definitely worth asking your sales representative when placing your order.

3. Product Won’t Go Bad Before Selling

All cosmetic and beauty products, including skincare, have a shelf life.

A shelf life is the amount of time, from the manufacture date, the product remains safe and effective for use. When a product reaches the end of its self life it may begin to degrade or its ingredients may begin to separate, leading to an unpleasant and even sometimes unsafe user experience.

Manufacturing lower quantities of your product through small batch skincare manufactures will help greatly reduce the risk of your product going bad before you are able to sell it to your customers. Once the product has gone bad, there is no real use for it and it is not safe to sell to customer, so this is a MAJOR advantage of small batch skincare manufacturing.

Find Small Batch Skincare Manufacturers:

It can be difficult to find small batch skincare manufacturers that will product lower quantities of goods with high-quality ingredients. To find small batch skincare manufacturers, a good first step is to search Google to find suppliers.

Once you have landed on site, look for the term MOQ or minimum order quantity, this will tell you the lowest quantity of a single product that manufacturer is willing to produce.

Tips when looking for small batch skincare manufacturers:

• Sample the product before you place an entire order.

• If it seems too good to be true, it may be just that. Don’t get scammed by companies that promise to deliver a small quantity of goods at a price that seems too good to be true, and be especially careful when working with foreign manufacturers.

• Ask if the product is made to order. Some manufacturers will produce a large amount of product and delve it out as it is sold to clients. This reduces the shelf life of the product and amount of time you have to sell it to consumers.

Work with Genie Supply

At Genie Supply we produce a variety of private label skincare formulas. Currently our MOQ is set at 1000 units per product, and all of our formulations use high-quality clean ingredients.

Every single product is made to order, meaning we only produce your product when you place the order.

To get started, take a look at our private label catalog with published pricing!

When you are ready, order samples and try out the product for yourself or contact us.

In the meantime, take some time to learn more about us.

Extra questions? Email us at customerservice@geniesupply.com or give us a call at 812-329-1105.