How hard is it to make your own product line?

A much debated topic. I am sure CG people like to continue that idea. I have used Adam's and CG undercarriage spray and they are not identical. CG seems to sell 3 different versions of UC Spray depending on what day of the week it is.

 

as has been discussed here, different brands request their own spin on a basic formula

 

Well before we indulge further into this we should first bring up some business points.
A few things you need to consider about:
The capital, no money no go.
Can your capital hold up for the first year? A lot of businesses fail within the first year, and on most cases you will be losing money until possibly after 1/2 year to a year.
Balancing the budget is important and the ability to take on the initial lose. You need to plan for long term as opposed to short term. If you plan for the short term, your long term returns can go the wrong direction unless of course you're gonna pop out after the initial break even/profit
Business License/Certificates/etc, very important, running without the correct license or standards could possibly make you go into lots of problems with the government. You need to have certs for safety and non hazard things for chemicals.It may however be different in the states or re bottling but in Hong Kong, you need to send samples to the government for approval and its a long winding process.
Liquidity of the products and your Warehouse storage all comes into place, if your products dont sell and take up room in your warehouse, you're not earning anything but losing money as warehouse space = money. Thus pricing point of view is possibly what this area would be about.
Economies of Scale is good, but it also again ties into previous point, as opposed to large scale slow moving products, it might still be better for smaller scale fast moving products, reducing cost in warehouse costs as opposed to reducing cost per unit.
Now with the last 2 points in mind, you can possibly draw up the ideal stock levels that benefits you best.

So yeah cast aside profits for first year, break even is good.

 

Idea --> Product fabrication --> Testing --> Publicity --> sales

Pretty much sums up the steps to take. All the "in-between" is the important stuff as well, but that's the general idea. You can't sell something you don't have yet. So an initial investment is needed.

I am a firm believer in this rule of thumb though: "All strong companies start off small and grow into power players." Get in with a bang and you will most likely head out with a bang... failure will come faster than the Stig goes around the track in an Arial Atom 500. Be safe rather than sorry, it's a sea full of sharks out there and if you don't play the cards right, it will bite you in the ass.

 

A great idea of someone to talk to. Small company, loyal following.

Claim to fame...Danase Wet Glaze... although many of the company's other products were popular also.

 

Don't try making your own wax, been there done that got the t-shirt. It's not too hard to make the wax, however to make it last, easy to use, give a good glow, all of that together, now that's a different strory. I have a blog on it on Blogger, your welcome to view it, its under Homemade Wax. I gave up, too busy to care any more about it.

 

Some very good points already mentioned but please allow me to share some points which I feel are very important

1. Higher grade of product to most consumers at a reasonable price to be able to reach out into that market you will need a good product, good products requires good quality of the ingredients in the product and that cost money.

2. Marketing is the biggest expense for any company, for the car care industry is a nightmare, there’s always room for more products but to shine above all others it will be a challenge. Impossible not but difficult absolutely.

3. Even with one product (that’s how many have started) you will soon find out that with only one product you won’t be able to survive or get ahead, customers are demanding and they will want more from you.

4. Obstacles will be part of your daily life, from unhappy unfairly customers to heartless people on the Internet that will be bashing your product in forums sometimes without even giving the product a try. You will be dealing with all kinds of people.:shead::hmph::shakehead:

5. Trademark rights, if you come to the market you better make sure that your logo, name etc. Is protected, if you fail to secure your product trade mark rights you may find yourself in a very stressful situation should someone challenge you. Trust me they will.

6. Educating the customer, after the $ for Marketing this is the biggest and most painful part of this venture, educating the customer is a HUGE task although the internet has provided a great deal of understanding of products and procedures there’s a very high volume of misinformation out here, you will have to proof to each customer one by one that you are correct and that other guy is not, a VERY frustrating process.

We could write a book but I think that’s enough to have a good grip on the subject, either way I wish you nothing but luck, Dreams do come true it just happens that sometimes they take a little longer.:thumb: