Transcript Listed Below...

Hey, everyone. This is Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA. Today, we're going to be talking about private label products for retail chains. For this particular training, when I say private label products, what I mean is you selling to a retail chain under their brand name. I'll explain that more in a minute; but essentially, if you have a product that's great and you don't mind your packaging saying your name all over it, we talk about private labeling in various ways in our different programs. But ultimately for this training, it's about getting your product out to retail chains without your name listed on the packaging. That's what we're talking about here today.

Now, the reason I decided to create this particular training is because for the last 11 years, I've taught close to 50,000 consumer product brands across the globe on how to generate revenue with physical products to chain stores, online retailers, catalog, small retailers, HSN, QVC, and so forth.

Private label comes up all the time. It's a revenue stream. It's an opportunity. I have a personal vested interest in helping as many people as possible generate revenue with their consumer products and private labels. Important to understand, we've done other videos in the past on it; but this time, we're going to do a little bit of a different slant on this.

Private label products, essentially again, means that you're selling to a retail chain under their brand name, not yours. So if you go to a retailer like Safeway and it's a grocery store, you'll see they have Safeway Select products. Most retail chains are making a nice fortune off of private label products. It means that their name, it's company-owned, it's their brand, it's under their name. But most people think that they're making those products. A lot of times they're buying from companies like you, who just give them a little bit of a better deal, and they tell you where to go package that product. Then they place it on store shelves.

The way it all works is this. There's a buyer who specifically buys for private label products or company-owned products. It's an entire category at chain stores. Most people [inaudible 00:02:07] to sell to chain stores and sell their products to them with their brand all over the packaging and everything, but some people don't care. Some people just want to make money. Some people have to do it. Jewelry, you're going to have to deal with the fact that a lot of retailers, private label jewelry, and they put it under their brand name and the packaging says their name, not yours. Some products, you actually have to do private label.

The reason I talk about this is because with retailers, they really, really, really care about how they're perceived. So if they are going to be working with you and they are going to be buying products from you and your product is representing them, they're going to make sure that your product is perfect.

If you want to go this route, they're going to check your warehousing. They're going to check out quantities. So you can't be just a tiny little startup setup; and you need to be a little bit more established, at least in terms of the manufacturing and stuff that you have in place. Because they're not messing around, they buy massive quantities with private label.

For you, if you're going to go after stores, you have a couple of ways to go after them. One way is to sell to the buyers who care about branded products. Then the other way is to sell to retailers with non-branded products. It's the same concept. The difference is, if they decide to give you a purchase order, they'll give you the name of the packaging company. They'll tell you where to get your stuff, and you set it up with them on their backend. That's how it works.

Now, most people think that they're buying only products from overseas, and it's not coming from US manufacturers and so forth. It's actually not true. They're buying from people like you. Why would they do this? Because you're handling all the day-to-day stuff, and these retailers are so busy. They don't have time to go and hustle and whatever. You guys are doing all the work for them, so it's a win-win.

Again, if you are going to do private label, remember that your name is not going to be on anything, that they're going to buy higher volume. They're going to beat you on price a little bit because it needs to be a little bit better than the branded products. Otherwise, why would somebody buy a branded product over their private label products? That's something to consider. Can you get massive deals for the quantities that they buy? When I say massive, I'm talking multimillion dollar deals and so forth.

Now, the one thing that you're going to do is you're going to have to think about whether or not you're willing to do this. It's going to come down to how badly do you want your name on the packaging? Also, do you want to have them all up in your business and going to your manufacturing and all sorts of stuff? It could be a huge opportunity for you. Also, you have to be ready for a big partnership with a retailer.

Now, sometimes if you have jewelry or food or clothing, they put it under their brand name a lot of times. Not always, but a lot of times. Again, there's certain categories that are going to come up with more; but sometimes you reach out to a retailer, and they say no to you with your branded product. You could conceivably go after them under the private label option if you're willing to do so. You don't have to stick to private label for every retailer. You can go to one retailer and try to sell them with your branded product. If they say no to you, you come back to them with a different approach for the private label solution. We teach how to do all this, but the concept there is you could go after stores and, say, sell your branded product to one retailer and then go to a different retailer and do private label.

Why you want to do this? Because there's millions of dollars of opportunities there, and it could pay your bills. It could literally pay your bills because they're paying for all of that.

Do you need all of your branding on everything? Sometimes you have really innovative products and you'll never do it; but for mass appeal products that a lot of people can in quantity, it could be a great opportunity for you. But it is a business decision.

You can go to trade shows to learn more about private label and understand. There's the PLMA Private Label Trade Show. Or if you want to learn more, how to approach, pitch and sell to retailers, understand this business better, we actually have a free training. You just go to retailmba.com/free. It's a 90-minute webinar where we spend some time with you walking you through how retailers operate. We go into more details and so forth. We have more time. If you're interested in learning more, join us at our next event, retailmba.com/free.

Or take a look at what we're up to. We have done-for-you programs, do-it-yourself programs. We can go after retailers for you or teach you how to do it yourself. Our time-tested methodologies are proven and time tested for close to two decades. We have live events, where you get to hang out with other like-minded individuals, virtual events. We have masterclasses where they're intensives. We have buyer lists and contacts. Everything we do is related to generating revenue with consumer products. So join anything that we're up to because you learn all about how to make money with products wherever you are with your budget and so forth. We're happy to assist you.

Anyways, also you can go to retailmba.com to learn about our services and programs and also take a look at our success stories. We have so many. A lot of people had a lot of fun learning about this stuff over the years with zero experience whatsoever,

Either way, please subscribe to this page. Please like this post. Please comment below if you like our information. Keep in touch with us. We're always creating new content, and we're just here to help. Thanks so much your time. I appreciate you. Karen Waksman, Retail MBA. I look forward to working with you further. Thanks so much.