Sizes, and the refill question

The counter bottle

Chosen partly on looks because it sits out permanently, with a pump and usually a smaller volume. This is where the packaging spend belongs, because it is the thing the customer sees every day and the thing they keep.

The refill

Larger, cheaper, plainer, and with a closure for pouring rather than dispensing. The economics only work if the refill is genuinely cheaper per unit of product, which means not giving it the same packaging as the counter bottle.

Our range covers both ends

A hundred milliliters through 946 ml spans a travel size to a large refill. The upper end is where a refill proposition lives and the middle is where most counter bottles sit.

Headspace and the last of the bottle

A pump that cannot reach the final centimeter wastes product the customer paid for, and they notice. Matching the dip tube properly is worth more goodwill than it costs, particularly on a premium product.

Travel sizes carry the same label content

Which is a constraint on a 100 ml bottle, and the reason sampler sizes are often less economic than they look once the label is costed.

Cost a bottle as a bottle

A small and a large cost nearly the same to fill, label and handle, so costing from a per-milliliter figure flatters the small one. Decide what each format has to earn on its own terms.

Decide whether the refill reuses the pump

If customers are meant to move the pump from the old bottle to the new one, both have to share a neck finish and the tube has to suit both heights. That is a constraint on the whole range rather than on one SKU, and it is easiest to honor if it is decided first.

References