This is how you take a standard private label activewear product and make it stand out.
Satisfy Running is a great example of how to nail down on your customers’ user experiences, and create a fantastic product you can sell for a premium. There’s also my free product development guide on building a private label activewear brand in this niche.
Let’s do this.
By the way, if you missed my TikTok short on this, you can catch it below, or scroll to keep reading here on the blog.
There are dozens of companies on Alibaba that offer basic polyester shorts for activewear. These designs are relatively well thought-through and modern, in an affordable price range.
These above will run you about $7.75 each for 200 pairs.
This pair from Satisfy costs $270 because they’ve really zeroed in on the intense, long-distance runners’ user experience.
So, how do you take a short and customize it to be effective for a target niche?
Creating the Perfect Private Label Activewear Brand
This comes down to the user experience for exactly the sport or whatever active lifestyle element that your customer is looking for. So, what Satisfy has done is to make all of these little features that are perfect for the long-distance runner.
These features include things like this sweatproof back zipper pocket so you can carry your credit cards and cash with you. It also has inner key pouches to stop your keys from jingling in your pockets as you run.
As any long-distance runner knows, these are really annoying things that you need to think about while you’re running.
Follow this up with hip pockets that carry the gels you use to hydrate and get fuel in on a 10+ mile run.
There’s also a sweatproof phone pocket that’ll keep your screen dry. The pocket is on the inside (not the outside) which is key for running.
The drawstrings tuck into the double waistband to avoid chafing, and also so you don’t have them just flying around while you run. A great addition is the mini carabiner you can use to clip in valuables or jewelry while you run, which can also be stashed in the double waistband.
All of these visible benefits add up to the perfect user experience while you’re running.
So, if you’re designing activewear for a specific niche like yoga, baseball, lacrosse, etc., how can you find all these little details and add to the base short so your customer feels your product is speaking directly to them?
As a distance runner, I’d look at this product and think, “Okay. I’m about to run a marathon. I’m going to be wearing these because they have the perfect user elements for what I need as a distance runner.”
Now, how can you achieve that in your target niche?
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Using Style and Design as Differentiators
In this cheetah print (that I love, by the way!), you’ll see the detachable care label. I don’t have to remove the tag to avoid chafing, but the option is there if I want it. There’s also the unique style and design of it to consider, as well.
A super-crucial thing to consider is materials. All of those Satisfy designs are using 100% polyamide, or 72% polyamide and 28% elastane blends, which they’ve actually created themselves as part of their process.
All the shorts I’ve shown you are usually going to start off as polyester, but what you’re going to want to do is identify other high quality products and ask your vendor if they can find similar materials or things that will produce a similar effect.
Polyester really isn’t a great material, and I believe there could be a great opportunity to offer these shorts in linen and some other, more-natural fabrics. Either way, experiment with this, look at what the blends are (because they’re listed on almost any product listing these days) and then ask your vendor for what that better material is. That’s going to be the big thing that sets your product apart.
Hope this introduction to private label activewear was helpful for your product ideation. Let’s take a look at product development next.
Private Label Activewear Product Development Guide
So, what separates one product from another larger, more successful product is:
- a great supplier
- innovative designs
- brand authenticity
- a sense of community
- and content.
I’m breaking this down with a particular emphasis on activewear. The factory link below is the perfect vendor to get started with your own private label activewear brand.
I break all of this down in my TikTok short on product development for private label activewear brands, using Satisfy products to guide you. Watch it now or scroll to keep reading here on the blog:
This is a $220 pair of running shorts from Satisfy Running, a cult brand who makes super performance items for specific sport niches.
Here’s where the real brand advantage is:
- take a specific niche (like running) and create the highest end product you possibly can
- add every little user experience detail you can think of to your design (like pockets, pain point solutions, etc.)
- now charge a premium for it.
This is a pretty extreme example of a premium for a pair of running shorts, but this is an activewear vendor from Alibaba. Most of the scaled activewear is made in Vietnam or Cambodia (not China) and you can get some pretty decent, high quality stuff on the platform.
You’re looking at $7.74 at scale for those. They’re also a blend in a similar way, featuring customized pockets, etc. While they’re not quite as customized as Satisfy is, you can still take a vendor like this and work with them.
Differentiating Your Product From Other Activewear Brands
One of the key things in your design that’s a major differentiator is materials. That’s also definitely one of Satisfy’s key differentiators, and that’s because they’re made of 72% polyamide and 28% elastane.
There’s a significant difference between these and say, a typical polyester short. The blend is definitely of better, more-durable, and longer-wearing quality than plain polyester is, for instance, in the long-distance running niche.
You can take information like this and approach manufacturers to find out of they can replicate it. Send them links to the shorts, or better yet, send them a sample of the shorts and ask if they can improve on the materials, design, or user experience.
There is currently a big, untapped advantage in linen or non-polyester/non-poly-based activewear, really. There are so many runners and athletes getting into the idea that comfortable may not always be good for you line of thinking, and that includes their clothing.
Finding the Right Vendor for your Private Label Activewear Product
The big opportunity is to niche-down in this, and here’s what I would do:
- find a vendor that’s already “invented the wheel” (like Satisfy) for what you’re trying to create
- make a list of similar vendors you can approach that are more affordable yet can also solve the specific user problems your product will offer
- reach out to bridge the gap of how you can create your own material blends and designs that solve those problems for a niche sport.
This is a great approach to get you started on building an activewear brand of your own.
If you’re looking for a vendor to do it with, I recommend Guangzhou Jinfeng Clothing Co., Ltd.
Their designs have been featured here in some of the images above. They also have a bunch of ongoing sales and lots of existing styles to choose from.
Talk to them and work with them on what you can customize. Let me know how it’s going in the comments below or anywhere you see my tips and tools.
Thank you for reading this Private Label Activewear Product Development Guide! If you found this content insightful and helpful, please be sure to like and share this article with your circle. Also, make sure to subscribe to the newsletter for more product development tips! – Oren
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