What Should Your First SKU Be? Categories New Brands Often Choose
Your first product becomes the face of your brand. Here are popular categories and their pros and cons.
First SKU Candidates
- Toner·toner pads
- Advantage
- Short repurchase cycle
- Challenge
- Extremely competitive
- Sunscreen
- Advantage
- High demand and favorable for export
- Challenge
- Functional claims and testing burden
- Serum
- Advantage
- Easy to build a story around
- Challenge
- Needs a basis for differentiation
- Cleanser
- Advantage
- Easy to enter
- Challenge
- Price competition
| Category | Advantage | Challenge |
|---|---|---|
| Toner·toner pads | Short repurchase cycle | Extremely competitive |
| Sunscreen | High demand and favorable for export | Functional claims and testing burden |
| Serum | Easy to build a story around | Needs a basis for differentiation |
| Cleanser | Easy to enter | Price competition |
Poll
What would you choose as your first SKU?
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If I were choosing a first SKU, I’d vote for a serum. It’s easy to show your brand’s perspective through the formula and the way it’s used, and it’s easier to narrow down the core concept to one sentence than with a toner or cream. However, if you lead with ingredient names alone, your product can get lost among similar ones, so it’s important to start by deciding whose problem with what kind of feel you’re addressing.
By category, sunscreen can bring repeat purchases and interest, but it comes with a significant burden from UV protection functional review and testing, as well as formula refinement. Pads are easy to understand at a glance and work well for content, but the variables and costs add up across the container, pad material, and essence. Cleansers have a low barrier to entry, but they’re difficult to differentiate. Creams can also receive very different assessments of their feel depending on the season and skin type.
If your initial budget and production experience are limited, I recommend first consulting a manufacturer that can provide small-batch samples and focusing on a single core SKU. Which would you prioritize more in your first product: “brand identity” or the potential for repeat purchases?