Make an Innovative Product without Mold Open? (90% Cost Saved)
Many imaginative sellers want to develop unique products that nobody else sells, but this is a tough way for most sellers to realize.
There are lots of clients asking us to develop brand new products. Actually, we won’t help our clients develop or customize products blindly before calculating customization costs. Apart from product features, most people ignore customization costs, which is quite an investment, especially for small businesses.
But is it impossible to realize your product ideas due to expensive mold costs? Not exactly. I’ ll show you a real case of how we helped this client realize his product idea at a 90% lower cost.
Make an Innovative Product without Mold Open? (90% Cost Saved)
Many imaginative sellers want to develop unique products that nobody else sells, but this is a tough way for most sellers to realize.
There are lots of clients asking us to develop brand new products. Actually, we won’t help our clients develop or customize products blindly before calculating customization costs. Apart from product features, most people ignore customization costs, which is quite an investment, especially for small businesses.
But is it impossible to realize your product ideas due to expensive mold costs? Not exactly. I’ ll show you a real case of how we helped this client realize his product idea at a 90% lower cost.
Make an Innovative Product without Mold Open? (90% Cost Saved)
Many imaginative sellers want to develop unique products that nobody else sells, but this is a tough way for most sellers to realize.
There are lots of clients asking us to develop brand new products. Actually, we won’t help our clients develop or customize products blindly before calculating customization costs. Apart from product features, most people ignore customization costs, which is quite an investment, especially for small businesses.
But is it impossible to realize your product ideas due to expensive mold costs? Not exactly. I’ ll show you a real case of how we helped this client realize his product idea at a 90% lower cost.
Initial Product Ideas from Mazin
Mazin comes from South Africa, he wanted to develop a mosquito net. He’s full of fancy ideas, and he hoped this product equipped with more functions to differ from ordinary products on the market. He sent us the 3D design models. Let’s see the product design from Mazin.
1. Equipped with a Multifunctional Fan
First of all, Mazin wanted the mosquito net equipped with a multi-functional fan based on the users’ demand. And this fan with various components is the most important for the whole product, so it has many design details, including the following parts to realize their functions:
- Three gears of fan speed
Mazin wanted the fan to have three gears for adjusting fan speed. What’s more, the three gears should correspond to three colored indicators so that users can distinguish the fan speed more conveniently.
- A LED light
On the top of the fan, Mazin added a LED light with switches on the top of the fan to make users more convenient inside the net. It can provide enough separate lighting, so users needn’t get out of the net to turn on or off lights in the room.
- Continuous Power Supply
Electricity supply is quite unreliable in Africa, so some people may have to live with no electricity for several days, and the power may be back at midnight. Mazin didn’t want his users to get up to charge the fan at that time, so sustainable power supply was very necessary.
In this case, the fan he designed attached a built-in battery as well as a detachable power cable to charge in case of the dead battery.
- A Detachable holder
To increase extra selling points and attract users, Mazin wanted this product attached with a detachable arm to hold electronic devices. The joint of the holder was fixed on the fan, and users can install or detach it flexibly.
- Fan stand support
Mazin wanted the support legs of the fan made of strong and durable materials to support the whole weight. While considering its portability, the material needed to use plastics.
The joint between the fan and the stand was not fixed, but flexibly rotating so that the fan could tilt downwards to a maximum of 70 degrees to blow from different angels.
2. The Mosquito Net
- Heat resistant material
Due to being equipped with the fan and its necessary heat dissipation, Mazin wanted the mosquito net made of heat resistant materials for security, like Nylon, while the net also needed to be made of common material for ventilating.
So his design was to add a part Nylon material on the top and the other part was durable and transparent cotton net.
Infeasible Reason for his Original Design
Well, it looks like an amazing product, which is more functional than other general products on the market. However, after confirming with Mazin for more details, we conclude the following factors for which his product idea is hard to realize.
1. Difficult customization with high mold cost
It’s obvious that the functional fan includes many components according to the 3D model design. We contacted our factory and the total budget for all the parts of the fan to be molded and customized would be at least $50,000, which means a great investment. Moreover, if Mazin invests a lot in new molds, he will not have enough funds to pay for goods later.
2. Not meet the MOQ
Mazin is a new seller for his business, and it’s his first time trying this product, so he just wanted to purchase 200 pcs for testing.
But as is known to all, customized products require a certain MOQ for production. If Mazin finds a factory directly to develop this product, just let’s put aside costs, the complicated customization of every part plus the small order quantity make factories refuse such a order.
3. New attempt
As a beginner, Mazin didn’t do overall market research, but just focused on his imagination and possible requirements in his country. So he could not ensure whether this designed product would be successful or not.
Meanwhile, he did not analyze competitive products as well as their sales, so he neglected the similar functions of these products that could replace his designed functions.
In this way, blind investment in customizing molds may not get ideal returns, and it will even be a large loss in the end.
Our Solutions
Due to the factors above, it’s impractical to develop new molds with a great investment for Mazin.
But considering that Mazin really wanted to realize this product idea, our sourcing agents Ranran and Joe concluded its core functions and details, and then provided our solutions that bundling spot products as a set instead of customizing new molds.
Generally, purchasing stock costs less than model customization, and also the required MOQ is much lower, so this way is much easier and more suitable for new sellers without enough initial funds.
As for product features, we simplified some needless functions at first. Then we found certain spot products on the market could satisfy the product functions Mazin designed. So we selected the following products to combine:
- Multi-functional fan
As the fan is the key part of the whole set of the net, we chose a multi-functional fan with excellent quality. It includes these parts:
- The fans (pics below for your reference) have three gears of buttons to adjust fan speed.
- It has a clip on the bottom to clamp on the pole of the net, which replaces the function of the fan stand support in Mazin’s design.
- It’ equipped with a LED light integrated with the fan, turning on and off freely.
- It has in-built batteries for sustained use and a USB interface for recharging in case of running out of batteries.
- A power bank
At first, Mazin quite agreed with the fan we selected, but he wanted to add another fan to provide more continuous power as he considered the fan equipped with only an in-built battery.
According to his requirements, we proposed to add a power bank (high capacity about 20,000mAh) to the product set because the costs of two fans were higher. The power bank can not only supply power for the fan, but also recharge users’ electronic devices.
Moreover, with the power bank, the power cable in his design was left out to keep safe usage. Also, we added his brand logo on the power bank.
- The selected net material
As for the mosquito net material in the design, we contacted our partner factory and got the answer that adding a part of heat resistant fabric on the top was hard to realize, because thick fabrics (like Nylon) cannot seam with thin mesh fabrics, which made the product quality difficult to guarantee.
After comparing and discussing with the factory, we provided two solutions for Mazin:
- To make the whole top with heat resistant fabric;
- Not to add the heat resistant material; and we made the pole (used for hanging the fan) lower so that the fan would not touch the mosquito net and users needn’t worry about the heat from the back of the fan.
Finally, Mazin preferred the second solution.
- A detachable holder
As the fan has a clip to clamp on the fan, the detachable holder required by Mazin is not suitable for attaching on it.
So the detachable holder we chose has a clip to clamp on the pole as well. Except for holding electronic devices (like phones, pads) of users, it can also hold the power bank. So the width of the end clamp can be adjusted flexibly for holding devices in different sizes.
Therefore, the final set of products we chose includes the following items:
- A mosquito net with poles
- A multi-functional fan
- A power bank (20,000mAh)
- A detachable holder
Thus, compared to mold customization, the costs of bundle products are much lower. Mazin quite satisfied with the solution as well.
Sample Display
The video below shows that our sourcing agents Joe and Ranran were assembling the sample of the mosquito net set for Mazin. Part of the components changed after Mazin received the samples, so the video is just for your reference.
Summary
If you develop a product from the very beginning, especially new sellers with many ideas, you should consider three aspects, including customization costs, product functions necessary or not, and alternative products.
Then if you have innovative product ideas, you can find us to help you realize them. Actually, we won’t advise you to invest and customize blindly. Just like this case, we will analyze and negotiate with our clients in detail to give the best solutions.
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