What Is White Label?

White labeling, as Shopify defines it, is when one company produces a product or service that other businesses then sell under their own brands. Shopify says the phrase suggests a blank label that's ready to be personalized: manufacturers that specialize in generic goods make white label products that businesses can customize and sell under their brand names.

• What the seller does: Shopify describes white labeling as purchasing pre-made products from a white-label provider, typically with minimal or no customization, and rebranding them with your own logo and packaging. The seller has no hand in design, development or production and is responsible for marketing and distribution.
• Buying: Shopify says sellers usually purchase white label products upfront and may need to meet minimum order quantities.
• Shared supply: Shopify says multiple businesses can sell the same product under different brand names, including competitors. When they do, Shopify says differentiation may come primarily from branding, packaging and price.
• Goods and services: Shopify says white labeling is common among many categories of consumer products and services.
• Rules still apply: Shopify calls white labeling a legitimate business model, assuming companies follow the relevant regulations and intellectual property laws.

• Who sells it: Shopify says white-label products are produced by a third-party manufacturer and can be sold by multiple companies, while private-label products are sold by one company.
• Customization: Shopify says private-label products are customized to the brand's specifications, while white-label products are pre-made and limit customization to packaging, labels, or tags.
• Speed and cost: Shopify says that because they're pre-made, white-label products can reach the market faster and at a lower cost than private-label products, which need more upfront investment in research and development.
• Control: with white-label products, Shopify says you're restricted by the manufacturer's preexisting offerings.

A janitorial supply distributor adds a line of shop towels from a white label manufacturer.

• Buy-in: the manufacturer's minimum order is 2,000 packs at $1.20 a pack, so the first order costs 2,000 x $1.20 = $2,400.
• Branding: the towels are the manufacturer's standard product. The distributor's change is the label on the pack.
• Margin: the distributor sells each pack to facility buyers at $2.00, a gross margin of $2.00 - $1.20 = $0.80 a pack, or 40% of the selling price.
• Competition: another distributor can buy the same towel from the same manufacturer and sell it under a different brand.

The figures are illustrative.

• Descriptions: Shopify's product page guidance tells resellers not to use a manufacturer's exact description, because you want your products to be unique to search engines.
• Barcodes: if you don't have a GTIN for a product, Shopify says you can request it from the manufacturer. Some sales channels might require a GTIN before a product can be published.
• Vendor: the Vendor field records the manufacturer, wholesaler, or other vendor for the product, and you can filter your product list by vendor.

Uncap's guide to running wholesale on Shopify lists white-label versions among the signs that wholesale and retail catalogs barely overlap, one of the reasons it gives for running wholesale as a separate Shopify store.

• Private label
• MOQ (minimum order quantity)
• Wholesale price
• Distributor
• Channel conflict

• Shopify: White Label Guide: How White Labeling Works
• Shopify: Private Label vs. White Label
• Shopify Help Center: Product details page