My experience is actually in the retail sector. And somehow, by accident, I started a manufacturing business just over 2 years ago, which proved to be very successful and has enormous potential. We are banging our heads against that "small business ceiling" at the moment, and I am investing a lot of time now in a proper business plan, to help us break through this ceiling.

One of the key strategies I am just not sure of, is how high I should plan our future GP%. Where we are now, is far too low, and for all the right reasons: entering the market, insufficient supplier base, manufacturing small quantities, etc. All of these reasons will be phased out, as we purchase more machinery to reduce manual labour, streamline production lines to reduce the stop-start waste, etc etc.

I would just like some guidelines as to what is an acceptable healthy average GP% to aim at. I know the answer for retail, but not for manufacturing. And does it also vary according to the type of product/brand/organisation, as it does in retail?