By
Sean Davis
Creating your own private label collagen powder can be a lucrative niche in the booming health and wellness market. We’ll guide you through the key steps to develop, produce, and market your own branded collagen supplement.
We’ll cover everything from sourcing high-quality collagen to designing eye-catching packaging and navigating regulatory requirements. Whether you’re an entrepreneur looking to break into the supplement industry or an established business aiming to expand your product line, this guide will provide valuable insights to help you successfully launch your private-label collagen powder.
Need a fulfillment or shipping partner for your new private label collagen powder? Print Bind Ship can help you take care of everything from custom product labeling printing to customer returns! Learn more here.
What is a Private Label Collagen Powder?
Private label collagen powder is a collagen supplement that’s manufactured by one company but sold under another company’s brand name. This allows businesses to offer their own branded collagen products without having to set up manufacturing facilities.
Private label collagen products give companies control over branding, pricing, and marketing while leveraging existing production capabilities. This approach is popular in the supplement industry as it allows for quicker market entry and potentially higher profit margins.
The collagen market is booming. And private label collagen powder presents a potentially low-risk way for entrepreneurs to enter the playing field. In 2023, the collagen market was worth about $5.1 billion. Experts predict it will grow to $7.4 billion by 2030. That’s a steady increase of about 5.3% each year. This growth shows that collagen products, such as private label collagen, are becoming increasingly popular with consumers.
Why is private label collagen becoming so popular? Well, collagen is a protein that keeps your skin elastic, your bones strong, your hair shiny and your joints flexible. Its natural production slows as we age. Though collagen powder isn’t the fountain of youth, some research suggests that ingesting collagen can help slow the signs of aging by repairing the skin’s elasticity and can help the body produce more collagen in the long term.
Advantages of Launching a Private-Label Collagen Powder Brand
The advantages of starting a private-label collagen powder brand include:
- No royalties to pay on sales of your collagen powder, which can save you money
- The ability to leverage your existing brand into an already successful product category
- Sell directly to consumers, allowing you to drive down your overall costs and increase your profit margins
- Full control of your production, from the ingredients to the process in which they are made, gives you more control over the quality and cost of your product
- Tailor your product to your customers’ needs
- A new way to expand your fitness business
How to Launch Private-Label Collagen Powder
To create your own collagen brand, partner with a manufacturer to produce the powder, then add your unique branding. Services like Print Bind Ship can handle the rest, from custom packaging to shipping, allowing you to focus on growing your business.
1. Identify Your Target Market
Just as with any other business venture, you need to know who your target market is. If this is your first foray into the supplements category, it’s important that you know who is looking for the type of collagen powder you are formulating.
Are you selling to people who are just looking to de-age or reverse the effects of aging and are new to collagen? All of your messaging should be geared toward explaining and convincing potential customers of the benefits and features of collagen powder. If your target market already understands the collagen market, you need to give them a better value with the same or better results as their more expensive collagen powder.
If you’re banking on your own personal brand, figure out what segment of your captive audience is interested in skin care products and fold it into your existing product line with a free sample. You can also find segments to your collagen powder audience through competitors that are already in your market and carry products similar to collagen, such as facial serums, and figure out what did or didn’t work for them.
Whatever market share you’re after, ensure that production choices from ingredients to packaging resonate with your target consumer.
2. Create a Compelling Collagen Powder Brand
Once you’ve identified your target market, figure out how a collagen powder brand fits in your brand story. If this is the beginning of your brand, you need a reason for someone to pick your collagen powder over all the others on the market. Once you’ve figured out your niche, or your improvement, build a brand story around that — consumers in the health and wellness sector are often seduced by implied results, but long-lasting brands are based on trust, results and authenticity. Your packaging, messaging, logo and color story should all be thought of through the eyes of your target consumer.
3. Work with an FDA-approved Manufacturer
It’s important to verify that you’re working with a fully Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved manufacturing facility. It’s also important to ensure your partner has a working regulatory compliance audit program to make sure they are implementing best practices in accordance with all federal and state regulations.
4. Fine Tune Your Formula
So far, 28 types of collagen have been identified, but five types have become the most sought-after formulations. The benefits you want to boast to your customers depend on the type of collagen you choose. The five most-popular collagen types and their potential benefits are:
- Collagen Type I: Major structural protein used throughout the body, densely packed in skin, muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons and other connective tissues
- Collagen Type II: Minor structural protein used throughout the body, less dense than Type I, found in cartilage, blood vessels, ligaments, bone marrow and tendons
- Collagen Type III: Used for protein synthesis and energy production and is found in organs
- Collagen Type IV: Helps regulate wound healing and cell movement found in the layers of your skin
- Collagen Type V: Normally found in anti-aging collagen supplements, helps maintain the elasticity of the skin and is typically found in the Bowman’s membrane of the eye’s cornea and in the tissue of the placenta
Though you can go beyond these five types of collagen to promote specific niches of repair and beauty benefits, the type of collagen you choose, and its formulation, should be in line with your target consumer.
5. Obtain the Necessary Certification and Registration
Just like all supplements, collagen powder is not FDA regulated because it is not technically a drug. But a handful of organizations like United States Pharmacopeia (USP) have standards for creating pharmaceutical compounds for manufacturing. Verify that whatever collagen powder you are creating falls under a topical supplement so that you don’t need FDA compliance or U.S. Department of Agriculture approval.
6. Differentiate Your Private Label Collagen Powder
A wealth of branded collagen powder products are on the market that will compete with your products. Though making bold claims with visual results is a great way to acquire customers, every company is going to do that. When the secret sauce of your product is legally required to be printed on your packaging, you need to make quality, efficacy, safety and customer service the backbone of your brand.
7. Consider Your Distribution Strategy
Though most product designers want to see their brands flying off the shelves of a big box retailer, that’s not the correct route for every product or brand. Securing shelf space is expensive and can eat up your inventory, only to have it returned or sold at a drastic discount. The best way to reach your target market is via your own website, health and wellness websites and specialty stores that curate products in your like category.
8. Market Your Private Label Collagen Product
You can market your private-label collagen protein powder in many ways. There are tried and true digital marketing standards like SEO, Google AdWords campaigns, targeted social media campaigns on platforms your audience uses, email newsletters and other paid pay-per-click (PPC) opportunities.
Other creative options that you can use to help your growing collagen powder brand include time-lapsed photographs of users who have been in a trial campaign, targeted direct mailers with Print Bind Ship’s Mail Genius and in-person activations.
Whatever marketing strategy you decide to use, make sure you have your target audience in mind. You can market to places you’re unsure how an audience will convert, but it’s always smarter to go where you know your audience is rather than guessing where they might be.
Learn more tips on how to market supplements here!
9. Set Up Your Store
As mentioned before, the best way to maximize your profits is to control where your audience finds you and how customers can get your products. The easiest way to do this is by having your own online store. With your own website you can easily start selling your private-label collagen powder and, depending on your content management system (CMS), use a variety of payment processors, marketing tools, subscription services and shipping services.
Print Bind Ship works with the most popular e-commerce storefrons so that your shipments can go out within 24 hours of processing. White label collagen fulfillment has never been made easier
Create an Ageless Collagen Business
Creating a private label collagen brand is all about sourcing white label collagen from a dedicated collagen powder manufacturer and inputting your own brand identity and label on it. Print Bind Ship can help you with custom label printing, product warehousing, fulfillment, shipping, customer returns, and so much more!
As a third-party logistics (3PL) company, we can be your dropshipping partner — our system links to your e-commerce store and ship your warehoused orders as soon as they are processed.
Learn more about taking your private label collagen brand to the next level and get a free quote!
FAQ
Minimum order quantities can vary widely depending on the manufacturer. Generally, they range from 500 to 5,000 units. Some suppliers may offer lower minimum order quantities for startups, while others might require larger orders. It’s best to shop around and negotiate with different manufacturers to find one that suits your needs and budget.
The timeline can vary, but typically it takes 3-6 months from concept to launch. This includes time for product formulation, packaging design, manufacturing, and obtaining necessary certifications. Factors that can affect the timeline include the complexity of your formulation, your chosen manufacturer’s capacity, and any regulatory approvals needed.
Look for manufacturers with certifications such as Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), ISO 9001, and possibly organic or kosher certifications if relevant to your target market. For collagen specifically, ensure the manufacturer can provide documentation on the source and purity of their collagen. Third-party testing certificates and FDA registration (in the US) are also important quality indicators.