Solar Flood Light Supplier? A 7-Step OEM/Private-Label Checklist from Sunna Design

I keep a spreadsheet of my own order mistakes. That sounds sad, but it is the reason this checklist exists.

I handle OEM/private-label orders for Sunna Design, a solar lighting manufacturer. For six years, I have been the person on the other side of inquiries from distributors who want to put their brand on solar flood lights, area lights, and street lights. In the early years, my errors were expensive. One 120-fixture area light quote missed a 3000K color-temperature requirement and cost $4,800 to rework. By my count, my first two years of avoidable mistakes totaled roughly $27,000 in wasted budget. So yes, I now maintain a checklist.

Who This Checklist Is For

This list is for people who buy solar lighting as a product line: distributor product managers, electrical wholesalers expanding into solar, importers, and contractors who want to sell fixtures under their own brand. If that sounds like you, these seven checks are worth reading before you send another RFQ.

If you are buying a single floodlight for one farm or parking lot, some of the private-label details will not apply. Keep the first two checks, then ignore the rest. Your mileage may vary because every buying context is different.

The 7 Checks I Use Before Every Quote

1. Define the job in lux and hours, not wattage

When a buyer asks for a 50-watt solar flood light, my first response is a question: What are you lighting? We need the mounting height, the area size, the target light level, and the hours the fixture must run after sunset. A 50W LED can produce a beautiful beam or a light pollution disaster depending on optics. Searching for a flood light supplier is easy. Finding one that asks about your lighting task is harder.

Wattage alone tells me almost nothing. A good quote should state the actual system wattage, the correlated color temperature, and the optical distribution. If the first number on the datasheet is “equivalent to 400W,” that is normally a warning.

2. Ask for photometric data, not a PDF that says “bright”

A photometric file, usually .ies or .ldt, lets a lighting designer simulate the fixture. If a supplier cannot provide one, that is a red flag. For a flood light supplier in the private-label market, that file is often the difference between selling predictable light and selling a metal box.

When evaluating LED performance, ask whether the data was measured according to IES LM-79. Also ask whether the LED component testing follows LM-80. Photometric testing is not free, which is one reason low quotes deserve suspicion. That testing cost should be visible in the price, not hidden as a budget surprise.

3. Define autonomy as weather, climate, and load

“Three days of backup” is a phrase I hear weekly. What does it actually mean? Three days at full load? Three days at 50% load? At what time of year? A solar fixture in northern Europe faces a completely different winter problem than one in southern California.

Ask about battery chemistry, battery management system, low-temperature charging behavior, and expected replacement interval. If a supplier cannot explain how their system behaves after three rainy days, the autonomy claim is not a spec; it is a wish. This matters even more when you sell an outdoor lighting private label product line, because your customer will not call the factory. They will call you.

4. Street lighting OEM vs private label: choose based on optics, not ego

The street lighting OEM vs private label decision is one of the most misunderstood parts of solar lighting procurement. In a private label arrangement, the factory has an existing fixture design. We add your logo, your packaging, and sometimes minor options like cable length or connector type. In a true OEM arrangement, you are specifying a design change—a different optical distribution, custom mounting, different control protocol, or a completely new fixture.

Neither path is automatically better. Private label is not a weak version of OEM. It is simply a lower-risk move when the existing product already does what you need. OEM is worth the cost only when you need something genuinely different.

A distributor once asked for full OEM street lights because they did not want the same design as their competitor. After several months of engineering edits, the only real difference was the color of the driver box. The original fixture had already met their project’s optical requirement. It was custom for the sake of being custom.

If the existing performance fits your project, private label gets you to market sooner. If it does not fit, OEM can save you from launching a mediocre product. The question is not which one sounds more impressive. It is which one solves the project requirement.

5. Ask for the “what is NOT included” list

The quote with the lowest starting number is not always the lowest final number. I have learned to ask about excluded costs before comparing prices. This is the check that makes procurement conversations uncomfortable, and that is exactly why it belongs on the list.

When you receive an outdoor lighting private label quote, it should either include or clearly exclude the following:

• tooling or mold amortization;
• packaging, labels, and barcodes;
• certification documents or third-party testing;
• sample units and sample freight;
• firmware customization;
• delivery terms and banking or transfer fees.

I would rather look more expensive at the beginning than surprise a customer at the end. In my opinion, a supplier that hides extras to win a shortlist is telling you how they will behave when a real problem appears.

6. Verify with a production sample before trusting the datasheet

This step sounds obvious, but I still see orders approved after a photo review. A photo does not tell you the actual beam angle, actual battery drain, or whether the controller firmware matches your integration protocol.

Ask for a production sample, not a golden showpiece. Install it for a few nights. Measure the light level at the ground. Compare the real power draw with the claim. Open the housing if you can. Check the label on the battery and the LED board. I once approved a sample with the right logo but the wrong optical distribution because I did not run it through verification. The supplier had placed our label on a stock fixture that was not the version we had tested.

The surprise was not that the first sample underperformed. The surprise was that the final mass shipment differed from the approved sample because of a silent component substitution. If a supplier wants to change components, that should be a conversation, not a footnote.

7. Write the spare parts and failure process before your PO

Solar lighting systems include a PV module, battery, controller, LED engine, and housing. Components fail. What matters is what happens after failure.

Ask these questions before purchase: How long will spare parts stay available? Can the control board be replaced without replacing the whole fixture? What is the expected failure rate in year one and year five? Who pays for return freight on a warranty claim? If the model is discontinued for your region, will they supply spares for the next few years?

A warranty is only as real as the spare parts plan behind it. If an entire street light must be thrown away because a small controller failed, that is a design problem, not a service issue. This is where outdoor lighting private label gets risky: once your brand is on the fixture, the warranty belongs to you. Make sure your factory is committed to backing you after the sale.

What I Still Do Not Have Hard Data On

I do not have hard data on industry-wide failure rates for solar street lights. I wish I had tracked those numbers more carefully in my first years. What I can say anecdotally is that after we started asking for the “what is NOT included” list, the quality of our negotiation conversations changed. The cheapest quote did not always become more expensive. But the vague quote did.

The checklist is not perfect. In Q3 2025, I still approved an order with the wrong controller firmware because I skipped the production-sample check. The hardware was correct. The integration protocol was not. Even a checklist needs discipline.

Bottom Line

A good solar flood light supplier should ask about your project landscape before sending a price list. A trustworthy partner should show you what is included and, more importantly, what is not included. That discomfort is preferable to manufacturing a product with your name on it and someone else’s hidden assumptions inside.

When you compare Sunna Design solar lighting with other suppliers, use this checklist rather than brand names alone. The goal is not to prove that any product is perfect. The goal is to help you choose between OEM and private label, understand the real cost, and avoid the mistakes I made early in my career.