3 Tips for Starting a Private-Label E-commerce Business

Many aspiring e-commerce business owners are faced with a dilemma. How do I build a more personalized brand without having to create my own products from scratch? 

The answer is private labeling. 

In this model, you have the ability to turn any existing product into your own custom brand without having to manufacture or design the products yourself. 

Instead, you’re adding customizations to the product to give it a personalized flair. In this guide, we’ll cover a few tips on how you can get started. 

1. Find a Supplier 

The first step is to find a niche or specific types of products that you want to private label and sell. Virtually any niche, such as beauty, baby, fitness and health, pet, and more, can be privately labeled. 

Validate your ideas using Google Trends, Amazon Best Sellers page, or other competitor research methods. The key is to find a trending market with high demand but low competition. 

Once you’ve identified your product, you’ll need to find the right supplier to customize the product and order samples. For example, let’s say you wanted to wholesale custom hats with a unique design. Look for a manufacturer that can allow you to customize the materials, designs, hat styles, and everything in between. Then place a minimum order, such as ten hats with different designs, to see which ones to add to your store. 

2. Build Your E-commerce Store 

When you’re satisfied with the product you’ve designed and customized, it’s time to start setting up your e-commerce store. Platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce make it easy to set up your store. They offer drag-and-drop features; you can create your store without much technical background. 

However, you want to customize your site’s theme to match your brand identity. Visual aspects like the graphics, colors, and fonts should have a central theme and allow your brand’s personality to shine. 

3. Develop a Killer Marketing Plan that Attracts Your Ideal Audience

Now that your store is all set up, it’s time to put your plan into motion. There are many ways to get your product in front of new eyes. 

The idea is to pick a strategy that works best in your market and suits your skill set. Paid marketing channels are the fastest way to see results fast. For example, Google, Facebook, and Instagram ads allow you to target your exact customer profile through demographic filters like age, region, interests, and even propensity to like certain brands. If you’re creating an athleisure brand, it may be wise to target customers who already buy from Lululemon. 

Besides customer acquisition, you also want to set up back-end processes to fulfill the order and increase the customer’s lifetime value. Email marketing is a great way to build loyalty. You can send weekly newsletters about your brand or introduce new product lines. 

Wrapping It Up 

While there are many aspects to building a private-label brand, we’ve distilled the essentials into these core steps. Private labeling seems to be the sweet spot for most e-commerce business owners, allowing them to stand out from competitors without spending the time and resources to build products from scratch.