Private-label Products

Scott stresses this point even further: “Sourcing is an incredibly complex undertaking.” One Step Ahead’s answer has been to contract with a sourcing agent to handle the details of its private-label manufacturing.

“We funnel most of our buying through that agent,” Scott says. “They also do the factory quality-control sampling. We tend to outsource most of the sourcing of our private-label merchandise. We brainstorm the ideas in-house and then take it outside to have it produced. This works for us, because we know our market and our customers best but don’t have all of the in-house capacity for manufacturing.”