Developing your own product line is similar to starting any kind of business. You must have a good understanding of your customer, the market, what separates you from the competition and the niche you intend to target. Lets pretend your moving forward with a line for kids.

The bottle and cap have been picked, the product is approved and the logo design finished. Luckily the artist was efficient because you were specific about the concept.
Artist development for a logo, with stylized lettering and layout

$75.00 x 3hrs = $225.00

You are going to ‘roll out’ 3 different 8oz products for kids called GIGGLES, starting with a bubble bath, shower gel and a lotion. There is 1 scent common to the all 3 items and for the fun of it, lets say Tutti Frutti.

The logo is exactly the same for all 3 products and you are using 3 colors in total. Two colors are for the logo, the third color varies on each bottle. Now you have Tutti Frutti Bubble Bath, Tutti Frutti Shower Gel, Tutti Frutti Lotion (Premium), each with a similar logo, but the product name is colored differently to separate their appearance.

These 3 labels need a separate printing plate for each color, requiring a set of 3 plates for each front label (making 9 plates total). The back label would require 1 plate for each product also, but the color can be similar to one from the front for consistency.

1000 Front Labels costs $676.00 each (3 plates included) x 3 products = $2028.00
1000 Back Labels costs $382.00 each (1 plate included) x 3 products = $1146.00
Total Printing costs $3174.00 (around 1/3 of this cost a one time charge for plates)

Your 3 products are a similar style, bottle and cap, being 8 ounce each. Lets say your confident in projected sales over the next couple months and can afford to go to the next level up at 500 pieces

500-8oz. Tutti Frutti Bubble Bath @$2.62 = $1310.00
500-8oz. Tutti Frutti Shower Gel @$2.62 = $1310.00
500-8oz. Tutti Frutti Premium Lotion @$2.80 = $1400.00

Cost of 3 bottled products at 500 pieces each is $4020.00

Expense Summary

Art Work $ 225.00
Product $4020.00
Labels $3174.00
Total = $7419.00

So you have spent $7419.00 to make your new items. Quite expensive.
Don’t despair...much of these costs are one time charges and you have another 500 labels left. This business is up and running and at a fairly reasonable cost.

However, if these costs are a big eye opener, lets look to simplify things. Offer one item less, taking nearly $2400 off the bill. Possibly your design can be produced in one color printing, that would save you nearly $1000 dollars. Roll back to 3 items at 250 pieces each and save $2000. You would still have 750 labels left but your per unit cost has gone up $.80 for the product.

Let’s say its still crazy. What if you label these items yourself (see our section called Design Fundamentals ). This will help retain capital and can print to order, but some printing choices might not have the same impact as a professional product, so be selective. If you’re not certain about sales or who your customer is, at least you can label items yourself to test the market.

Return on Investment (ROI)

Like any business venture, there are certain costs to get started. You need to know your return on investment as a benchmark for working out expenses, overhead, salaries and profit. Not all of these costs can be realized at once, so be realistic that the printing plates and remaining labels should be spread out over more orders. You can get label costs down substantially by ordering more units and spreading the cost.

So let’s assume you went with our original Tutti Frutti line using 3 products. The total is $7419.00 where the labels cost $3174.00 of this total. Simply dividing by 3000 pieces gets us $1.06 per front/back label; but remember nearly 30% of this is for plates and cheaper if ordering more. The bottled products themselves cost on average $2.83, but adding the expense of these 1500 labels pushes it to $3.89 each.
To wholesale this would be difficult, but lets say you get retail dollars at $7.95 for each item. At $3.89 each for the Bubble Bath, Shower Gel and Lotion, that’s $5835.00
material cost and receive $11925.00 dollars in sales! Of this $6090.00 remaining, you have to figure your time line, expenses, overhead and hidden costs...plus find a profit.