After months of brainstorming and ideating, you finally have a product idea and a business plan to market it. Your next step is to turn this idea into reality.
One of the biggest challenges of product manufacturing is finding a factory to create it. Unfortunately, this is where most would-be entrepreneurs slip up. They don’t know how to get their products manufactured, or even where to start looking for a manufacturer.
What manufacturer should you choose — local or overseas?
One of the first big decisions you’ll have to make when looking for a manufacturer is choosing between a domestic or an overseas manufacturer.
Local
Work with people who speak your native language. Communicating in the same time zone also means that you can speak to the manufacturer and get questions answered the same day.
If you can find a manufacturer in your city, take a tour of their facility. Face to face relationships are stronger than online email exchanges and manufacturers are more inclined to work with you and offer free advice.
Pros
- Faster and easier communication without cultural issues
- Locally made products might have a higher perceived brand value.
- Shipping is a faster and cheaper
- More payment choices
- No customs payments
- Lower chances of intellectual property theft
- Possible to verify the manufacturer and product quality in-person
- Easier to get legal recourse in case of conflicts.
Overseas
Lower manufacturing and supplier costs are top reasons products get made overseas. Despite the low costs, getting your product manufactured overseas comes with a laundry list of disadvantages.
- Customers might perceive product as lower quality; can affect your brand value
- High chance of IP theft, especially for innovative products
- Communication problems in terms of language and culture
- Not easy to verify manufacturer or product quality
- Shipping times and costs are substantially higher as compared to domestic manufacturers
- You’ll have to deal with customs
- Little to no legal recourse in case of fraud or theft.
Fortress Nutrition LLC
If you are looking for a manufacturing company to handle all of your blending, packaging, logistics, sourcing, and more then you should look no further.
FORTRESS Nutrition is your full-service food and nutritional contract manufacturing partner. We partner with small to large clients to provide them with all their contract manufacturing and logistics needs. We provide unrivaled expertise in formulation development, blending, packaging, quality control and fulfillment services.