How to Find a Manufacturer for Your Business Product: A Useful Guide

Do you have an amazing product idea? You may already have big plans for your product, but there are a number of decisions you need to make before you sell the product.

The biggest decision is to find the right manufacturer to fulfill product orders. A manufacturer can make or break your business because if they create poor-quality products, it will reflect poorly on your business.

Read on to learn how to find a manufacturer for your product idea.

1. What’s Your Business Model?

If you’re planning on selling a product, there are a number of ways to do it. Do you want to have someone manufacture the product so you can sell the inventory? Do you just want someone to create and ship the order like a drop shipper?

You need to decide what your needs are right away. This will help you narrow down your options and look for the right suppliers and manufacturers.

Take the time to consider if you have room for inventory or if you prefer to be hands-off and just promote the brand and sell the products.

2. Protect Yourself Before You Look for a Manufacturer

At this stage, all you have is a great idea. You want to make sure that your idea is protected, and you have a product that will sell.

That begins with validating your idea. You need to make sure that you research other products already on the market, your target market, and how you can position yours to sell.

Your idea is the most important asset you have at the moment. You don’t want to lose it because someone else moved forward with a similar idea. You should work with an intellectual property attorney to register patents and/or trademarks.

You also want the attorney to create non-disclosure agreements. This will enable you to add an extra layer of protection. As you talk with potential vendors, they could take your idea and run with it.

3. Ask for Referrals First

Your first step in finding a manufacturer is to get referrals. Referrals can be from any company that you’re aware of that manufactures products. This way, you have a direct connection to the manufacturer.

4. Work With an Agent

If referrals don’t pan out, you can hire an agent to help you find the perfect fit for your new business. An agent will know various manufacturers and can spot potential ones that meet your needs.

The big difference in working with an agent is that they can visit the facilities and inspect them. This ensures that you have a quality manufacturer.

5. They Have a Tight Manufacturing Process

Every manufacturer has a process to meet high customer demands. What separates great manufacturers from the others is the relentless pursuit to maximize efficiencies.

A lean manufacturing company uses processes to minimize waste and make manufacturing more efficient. This is the type of company that you want to partner with because they are constantly looking to improve the process and make it better.

6. Ask the Important Questions

There are a lot of things to be aware of in the manufacturing industry. For example, manufacturers are likely to require a minimum number of orders to fulfill each month. These are some of the most important things that you need to know before you sign up with a manufacturer.

What are the minimum order requirements?
How much lead time is required to produce the product?
Do you require a deposit to begin work?
Is the work produced in-house or subcontracted?
Do you have experience in my industry?
Do I need to provide materials, or do you source them?

You’ll be able to narrow down your choices with the answers to these questions.

7. Build Prototypes

Once you choose your manufacturer, you need to give them the exact specs to create your product. This may be complex, especially if your product relies on several parts that need to be assembled.

You need to make sure that each part is precise to ensure the parts can easily fit together without breaking. If your product is complex, you may want to consult with an engineer to get the exact measurements to send to the manufacturer.

Once your manufacturer has the specs, they’ll produce a prototype of the product. That will allow you to make adjustments, test it, and finalize the product before full production begins.

8. Product Launch

Finalizing the product is exciting for a number of reasons. You’re now ready to launch the product. A successful product launch depends on a solid marketing strategy to drum up excitement about your product.

Make sure that you have a complete marketing strategy that includes social media and SEO. These are two marketing tactics that you can leverage to create buzz around your product.

It’s best to start marketing your company as soon as you know you have a good idea. The reason why is that you need a significant amount of lead time to create momentum and awareness around the product.

If you do that well, you’ll have sales on day one. Otherwise, you might find yourself with a ton of inventory that’s not moving. On top of that, you may need to fill manufacturing minimum orders, which means you’re losing money each month.