Do you have to have more than one flavor to be successful?

What if people don’t like your flavors?

What if one flavor sells better than the others?

We get these questions all the time.

The good news is, we’ve worked with 100’s of brands and have evidence of success to help you decide.

While the correct answer for your brand is always going to be specific to the particular needs of your brand, we do have some rules of thumb that we can use as a framework.

The biggest consideration for making this decision is how much cash (or credit) you have available to invest in products.  

Once you have an idea of how much it costs for a production run of your product, you can use the rules below to make the best decision for your brand.

We are always here to speak with you about your particular situation also, but this will help you begin to understand how to evaluate the question.  

The short answer is: If money isn’t an obstacle for launch, start with 2-3 flavors 

After that, quickly add new flavors over the next few months to give you something “hot” to continuously talk about with your customers.

Pro’s to having more than one flavor include:

• You gain the ability to create “stacks or bundles” (increase avg order size)
• You can add upsell features to your site (again, increasing avg order size)
• Customers will have a greater likelihood of seeing a flavor they’d like to try
• Returning customers who like variety can try something new

I know many of you are probably saying “It must be nice for money to not be an obstacle.” 

You’re absolutely right that the majority of startups need to think a little more carefully about how they make this choice.

So the next most important question is “How do you know if you have enough money to run more than one flavor?”

Having more than one flavor (or SKU in general) creates a some new dynamics for your brand that you need to consider:

• More inventory management/forecasting
• How much cash to keep in reserve for reorders
• Tracking timelines for deliveries

While I am always going to feel like the pros of having more flavors outweigh the cons, here is the rule you should consider for having more than one flavor.

You should consider running more than one flavor if you have enough cash (or credit) to pay for at least 1 deposit after receiving your product.

For example, if you want to run with 3 flavors and you have enough cash to produce all three flavors plus pay the 50% deposit on one of those flavors, you are in a better position to bring all of those to market.

The reasoning behind that is you will have flavors that perform better than others (and that’s a good thing!).

If you’re selling your best flavor quickly and you need to put in a reorder before the other flavors have picked up speed, you want to have the cash on hand to place that deposit.  

Don’t sell out of your biggest mover because you didn’t plan ahead.

The “pace” at which your flavors sell is going to vary (and there will always be favorites).

It is not a bad sign that some flavors don’t sell as fast as others.  

As long as the flavor sells, you have a winner. Even if it’s slower than the others.

Having the reserve of at least one production deposit will give you the flexibility to at least keep your fastest mover live on your site.

As a start up, it’s nearly impossible to project your selling speed or have any real idea of a forecast.

But having a reserve will let you fill in the gaps and act quickly to at least keep your biggest moving rolling.

Hopefully these frameworks have helped you begin to think about your budget and cash flow in a new way.

If you’re still wondering what the right choice is, talk to us about your current situation, and we can build a plan for you that makes the most sense.

To your Success,

Rush Ricketson

CEO, Pure Private Label

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