What is a white label product?

If you’ve ever bought a product from an influencer or as a limited time drop, that product was likely a white label product. White label products are goods that are manufactured by one company, and then re-branded and sold by another company. Makeup, supplements, candles, generic coffee, wine, or any good that can be mass produced can be a white label product. White label products are made by manufacturers that are expert in production, and only sold by other entities that don’t have or want that manufacturing expertise.

White label products are excellent for one time promotional drops, because you don’t need to invest in R&D before releasing your product. White label products are also great for influencers, or other small businesses, because the product already exists in the world, only waiting for a novel re-brand.

Some white labeling services are automated and directly built into website hosting platforms like Shopify. Searching through the Shopify App Store, you can find private labelers for generic coffee brands, generic makeup brands, or services that will print and ship apparel on demand. With the help of these white label services, you can start a coffee brand, a makeup brand, or a clothing company literally overnight.

White label products rely on the re-branding of the influencer or business in order to make sales. White label products are made specifically to be consistent and able to be repeated in mass production. Once branding is applied to the white label product, it becomes either novel or differentiated in how the product is sold.

These white label products are often utilized in the creator economy, as influencers and creators generally don’t have full unlimited access to a manufacturing warehouse. White labels are great because they democratize a lot of product categories so that anyone can build a business within that category. You no longer have to own roasting equipment to be a coffee roaster. What you can do is start with a white label coffee product, build your brand, then buy roasting equipment if you want to specialize more. Now that you can make anything, what do you want to make?