From ingredient supply chain challenges to distribution red tape, independent beauty and personal care brands can face a variety of roadblocks as they try to enter the marketplace. Packaging with high minimum order quantities (MOQs) can be a formidable cost barrier. Rather than turn away budding new brands, packaging suppliers are adjusting their MOQs, making it easier for brands to get a look they like at prices they can afford.

“Stock packaging and low MOQs are two of the main reasons that Indie brands are able to launch their companies,” comments Jeff Carbone, key account manager, southeast region, Baralan USA Inc./Arrowpak, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. “Most startups are not ordering hundreds of thousands of components, but rather start slow, and build their brand organically, [while having the flexibility] to spend money on digital campaigns, sending samples, attending trade shows, etcetera.” 

Small Run Adaptability

For Cosmogen, low MOQ means giving brands the opportunity to explore and define their position in the marketplace without overextending. In a recent partnership with dome BEAUTY, Cosmogen worked to accommodate the brand’s wishes to pair expert eyeshadow application with healthy, clean beauty implements, delivering a 5,000 MOQ run of a charcoal-infused eyeshadow brush that helps reduce the proliferation of bacteria growth, according to Cosmogen’s Lynda Pare, North America market director, New York.

“The charcoal grey fibers are perfectly paired with the brand’s overall design, which carry through to the brush’s gun metal ferrule and rich gray color handle,” she says. “dome BEAUTY has always focused on the importance of application and wanted to improve on their current brush design, so the brand has re-designed all of their brushes to incorporate this feature.”