How to sell cosmetics online: The comprehensive guide
Building a beneficial cosmetics ecommerce store and having a leg up in the big market such as the beauty industry, this is really not a simple thing, especially with newbies. Although there is a lot of fierce competition, the beauty industry, specifically the cosmetics business, still has room for really talented store owners who can bring new breezes to this industry. If you want to be successful in selling cosmetics online, you’ve come to the right destination. Because in this article, Arrowtheme will deliver you most useful knowledge on the topic of how to sell cosmetics online effectively through step to step in details. So, let’s explore with us right now!
How is the beauty industry?
More and more consumers are choosing beauty care and eye makeup products. The most popular things purchased are mascara, concealer, eyebrow pencil, eyeliner pencil, and foundation, according to Amazon’s Best Sellers list.
For more details, in 2020, the beauty business, which includes skin care, cosmetics, hair care, etc had a bad year. Specifically, color cosmetics sales plummeted by 33% internationally, while overall retail sales in the beauty category decreased by 15%. However, the business has proven to be resilient in the past, and experts believe that growth will resume in 2022. In the next section, we will review for you how to sell beauty products online effectively.
What are cosmetics’ best-selling ecommerce channels?
In reality, the biggest issue of selling cosmetics online is identifying your target market and establishing your brand as trustworthy enough for customers to buy your items without first trying them. In this section, we will deliver you several outstanding best-selling ecommerce channels for you to sell cosmetics online.
#1. An online store
In case you wish to establish a brand identity as well as maintain strong consumer communication for your business, the best method is taking advantage of an online store. Thanks to it, you may implement personalisation on your website, and acquire a distinctive branded look. As a result, it will provide customers with personalised support, and develop a digital experience to win over a choosy population if you have complete control over all business activities.
#2. Social media
Social media is also the ideal choice for you to drive sales in the cosmetics industry. For example, Instagram has a sizable influencer base. Engaging micro and macro influencers to review beauty goods and promote them to their audiences is one of your business options. So, you should carefully choose the suitable individual who shares your brand’s ideal in order to achieve this right goal.
#3. Marketplaces
Coming to another ecommerce channel you should know to gain higher profits from selling cosmetics products. When it comes to marketplaces, millions of shoppers can choose from a wide range of product categories on popular marketplaces like eBay and Amazon, and makeup is no exception. Besides, a marketplace community is a fantastic way to get your business in front of a large audience right away. Hence, you should join it to help your ecommerce store to have a leg up in the global market.
#4. Multichannel sales
Last but not least is multichannel sales that is also the awesome method you need to know for ecommerce stores. Thus, in order to make it easier for customers to find you, you should utilize multiple sales and marketing platforms. What’s more, to expand your business faster, you should showcase your products on your own website and link it to your social media and marketplace presence.
How to sell cosmetics online step to step?
Step 1. Research the targeted customers
First and foremost, it’s crucial to know who you’re selling to before you start selling makeup online. So, you can tailor the experience for your customers to give them the highest satisfaction. Then, you should consider some following points:
- Due to COVID-19, an increasing number of people are purchasing makeup online, even though many of them preferred to shop for makeup in person prior to the epidemic. Moreover, with each product, you should describe as much useful information as possible, including extensive descriptions and high-resolution product photographs. Hence, clients won’t feel like they’re losing out on trying things out in person before buying.
- Besides, don’t forget to include images of your makeup on a variety of models so that consumers can see how different hues appear on them.
- What’s more, as you may not know, before making a decision to purchase anything, 95% of customers read reviews. So, this is the reason why you need to make your cosmetics brand more dependable in customers’ eyes, including user evaluations. To put it plainly, you can collect reviews utilizing a website builder’s comment sections or forums. In addition, you should also offer incentives to clients. For instance, raffle prizes or free samples, to entice them to submit a review.
Step 2. Find your right niche
In order to know How to sell cosmetics online, the next stage you need to do is find your right niche. Although the beauty industry is growing more and more rapidly and is considered as a promising one, this also means you have to stand out compared to competitors. To distinguish yourself unique, don’t strive to appeal to everyone. Because if you do, your items will fail to strike a personal chord with anyone. Instead, to narrow down your target audience by answering two inquiries below:
- What makes your product unique?
- Who will that unique selling point (USP) attract?
Basic things such as: Low costs or unusual colors could be your USP, or it could be something more complicated like a sunburn-reversing cream. What you should aim for is anything that plainly and loudly distinguishes your goods from the competitors. Then, in order to get more excellent ideas as well as great inspiration, you can refer to a few more thought-provoking questions below
Is there anything in your beauty routine that you wish you had?
Simply speaking, you should think about your own skincare, hair, and cosmetics routine. Then, see if you can come up with any ideal products that would make your life easier.
Is there a specific beauty issue that I can help with?
There’s a good chance there’s a market for items that are more environmentally friendly, natural, or better suited to specific skin tones, eye colors, or hair types. Can you come up with a way to close one of these holes?
To whom am I attempting to appeal?
In fact, it’s impossible to find a product that satisfies every population. Hence, in case you are stuck for ideas, you should consider what the age group, occupation, or other demographic you’re targeting might be looking for.
What’s more, you can ask several free web tools for help to determine what kinds of things are trending right now.
#1. Forums
First and foremost, you can take part in beauty-related forums, start to ask questions and get answers from people interested in buying and/or selling makeup online on these forums. For instance, MakeupAlley and even Reddit’s makeup section are gold mines for serious conversations about what’s going on in the world of beauty, so what are you waiting for without joining now?
#2. Searching for keywords
The second method that you can’t ignore if you want to determine the beauty trends nowadays is searching for keywords. Keyword research is a terrific approach to figure out what products and subjects are popular right now by researching common search terms that people type into Google.
In addition, keyword research can be done with a variety of free and commercial tools. And, Google Trends is a free tool that allows you to get information straight from the source that displays the search volume of a keyword over time in simple graphs. Besides, you can narrow down the results by geography and time period, as well as look at similar inquiries for more ideas.
Step 3. Identify a reliable manufacturer
The next step in the process on how to sell cosmetics online is choose a reliable manufacturer. In fact, you can find the suitable one through two main approaches.
The first alternative is to collaborate with a manufacturer to create your own one-of-a-kind product. This entails looking for cosmetics producers, both locally and internationally, who will collaborate with you to develop an original line of goods. Overall, this is an excellent choice because you retain the branding benefit of labeling your products as “unique”. Further, you could even be able to locate a suitable manufacturer in your vicinity. Thus, it will make the creation process much easier to manage.
On the other hand, you can white label, or use a generic product that the manufacturer enables you to rebrand under your own label. In the case of cosmetics, this usually entails subtly modifying the color, scent, or other characteristics of a beauty product before selling it under your own label. In reality, white labeling is really convenient since you can acquire a ready-made product with a single click. After that, you can sell these items under your own brand. However, you should consider this solution because you can’t claim that your products are one-of-a-kind so that it will be difficult for you to create credibility in your customers.
Furthermore, with this second model, you need to do a lot of research on your supplier before making a decision to use this. Following that, as you investigate white label producers, you should keep the following questions in mind:
Do the products they offer have any substances that you don’t want?
Firstly, and most importantly, you should make sure that your supplier can satisfy your needs. Besides, you should pay attention to the preservatives used by a supplier to keep products fresh in order to choose the most suitable one.
Is the vendor recognized in your country?
In case your business is located and run in the United States, you must ensure that your supplier complies with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) as well as the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA). Although cosmetics products do not require FDA approval before being sold, the FDA nonetheless conducts inspections and enforces laws to guarantee that “adulterated and misbranded” items are taken off the market.
Does your supplier have a minimum order requirement?
You shouldn’t work with a supplier who asks for greater volume than you’re willing to commit to right away. Your inventory orders will increase as your company grows and attracts more clients. However, when you first begin selling beauty online, you should conserve as much money and resources as possible, especially on inventory.
Is the product packaged by the supplier?
In case your products aren’t packaged by your supplier, you will need to find a source for it. You can package your products on your own if you have the great ability to design in order to control the quality. Otherwise, you could instead use a third-party vendor. There are numerous specialised cosmetic packaging companies to select from, with the majority allowing you to customize the packaging to match your brand.
What’s more, you won’t have to worry about finding a manufacturer if you make your products at home. However, you will have to observe any local and national regulations to ensure your business always works fluently. Above all, taking a look at the FDA’s Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) rules for cosmetics is extremely useful. Because it will help you determine whether to develop your own cosmetics, partner with a manufacturer, or white label products.
Step 4. Build brand and package your cosmetics
Branding plays a significantly important role in any brand, because it will tell customers who you are and build the trustworthiness of them about your brand. For more details, it includes all of the seemingly insignificant details that contribute to how people view your goods such as: logos, graphics, tone of voice, etc. Working with so many moving parts can be intimidating, but the objective is to take one element and completely change it, then match the rest of the elements to that tone. Hence, this saves you a lot of time while also ensuring consistency in your branding.
#1. Imagery
In order to get success in building a brand for your business, the first factor you must focus on is your brand’s imagery. Because later decisions on logos, packaging, and tone will be influenced by this. In fact, knowing your specialization will come in handy in this situation. Color psychology can be used to match your brand colors to the interests of people in your niche. For most individuals, purple, for example, conjures up images of riches and elegance. This is a fantastic hue to utilize if you’re presenting a refined and high-end product.
#2. Logos
As soon as you’ve decided on a hue, you may utilize it to guide the rest of your design. Of course, if you choose with a blue color scheme, your logo and product photos should match. However, you may utilize it to determine your brand’s tone of voice.
#3. Packaging
After that, you can start thinking about packaging once you’ve decided on the design of your brand. While packaging is often just seen as something to keep your product safe in transit, you should still consider it an important element of increasing your brand recognition. Hence, you will surely boost your business effectiveness. To put it plainly, branded packaging gives customers a more complete experience, which is especially vital for an online business. Because you don’t have a physical store to create an experience for customers, you’ll have to rely on your “unboxing experience” to fill in the gaps. Not only that, as you may not know, even without the issue of online engagement, an attractive packaging still creates your business’s success and helps your business go a long way.
#4. Labeling your cosmetics
If you wish not to have any struggles when selling cosmetics products online, you should keep in mind the laws for labeling beauty product packaging in your country, state, and region. Besides, many things such as: ingredient lists, safety and allergy warnings, and any messaging or claims on the box are all subject to these standards. For more details, you can consult the FDA’s Cosmetics Labeling Guide to make sure your makeup is properly labeled before sending it out.
Step 5. Choose the suitable platform
The next stage on the topic of How to sell cosmetics online is choose a platform where you sell your items. Ecommerce website builders, online marketplaces, and dropshipping are the three most effective platforms, and depending on your items, you can choose the most suitable one. The best approach to sell makeup online is ultimately determined by what works best for you. In order to help you have a detailed overview of these platforms, we will go through the specifics of them so you can make an educated selection.
#1. Ecommerce website builders
In reality, the goal of creating Ecommerce website builders is to make the process of constructing your own website as simple and painless as possible. Following that, you are able to build your own unique and special ecommerce store through choosing a template. And then, customizing the layout of your site with a guided drag-and-drop editor are typical steps in the setup process. After that, you may quickly integrate ecommerce features via applications and widgets, which generally come pre-installed in order to make your store run perfectly.
In the market, there are various ecommerce platforms, each of them are excellent and all come with a huge number of advanced features. However, in this article, we will only review Shopify – one of the most common and friendly ecommerce platforms that is widely used by a wide range of retailers all over the world. Shopify is the most ideal choice for store owners to increase consumers’ purchasing experience. There is no denying that Shopify includes everything you need to stand out among the crowd as well as gain the maximum score in customers’ eyes.
Then, let’s take a peek at the Shopify editor below to see how easy it is to get your site up and running by clicking “add product” or “customize theme”.
However, its disadvantage is that you won’t have a built-in audience to deal with because you’ll be developing your own site rather than selling things as part of a larger marketplace. Instead, you can employ techniques like SEO to improve your site’s rating on search engines like Google’s results pages. Above all, Shopify is really worth-using.
>>> Read more: Top 15 stunning Shopify beauty themes with modern design.
#2. Online marketplaces
The second platform you also should invest a lot of time to sell products is online marketplaces. In terms of online marketplaces, they can be thought of as communal online environments where many different sellers offer things on the same website. Amazon is the most well-known example of an online marketplace. Online marketplaces are very popular because of the diversity they can offer for clients.
As you probably know, between online marketplaces and ecommerce website builders have a major difference is that you can get started faster with online marketplaces. For example, because the Etsy platform, a common online marketplace, is already built up, all you have to do is add your product listings to the current site, whereas on Shopify, you’d have to spend time building the website first. However, the drawback of online marketplaces is they are unable to provide a personalized and unique buying experience like Ecommerce platforms.
#3. Dropshipping
The last one is Dropshipping – an effective method for how to sell cosmetics online successfully. Dig down further into Dropshipping, it is a deceptively simple business strategy in which you don’t have to handle or ship any merchandise. Customers instead place orders through your online store, and you notify your provider. The goods are then delivered to the customer by your supplier. Hence, you don’t need to worry about the problem of budget because you won’t be stocking goods yourself.
Moreover, to begin dropshipping, you can totally utilize either an ecommerce website builder or an online marketplaces.
In general, ecommerce website builders are still the better tool for selling makeup online. They offer more personalization without sacrificing ease of use, and Shopify even offers a dropshipping app called Oberlo.
Step 6. Ship your cosmetics
It’s time to figure out how to actually ship your makeup to clients once you’ve put up your inventory and website. Now, let’s refer to how to ship your items for your customers below.
#1. Set your origin address
The first element you must pay attention to is to set your origin address. The address from which you ship your products is crucial since it influences how taxes are computed. Most of the time, the origin address will be your home address, the address of the workshop or office space where you work.
#2. Check the destinations
Depending on whether you’re sending locally or nationally, shipping charges will vary. Then, you can construct “shipping zones” with various prices based on zip code, state, or nation to specify geographic boundaries.
#3. Ensure that customers are aware of their options
It will be much easier if clients are aware of shipping prices before proceeding to the checkout process to make sure there are not any unexpected issues in the last-minute. Besides, you can supply three main shipping options. Respectively, exact shipping, flat rate shipping and free shipping.
#4. Select a courier
Choosing the well-known couriers such as USPS, FedEx, UPS, Canada Post, and the Royal Mail of the United Kingdom, etc will help you build trustworthiness in customers. Furthermore, some ecommerce website builders even include interfaces to make things easier. For instance, BigCommerce offers real-time shipping quotes for all of the carriers listed above.
Step 7. Promoting for your cosmetics brand
#1. Social media
With the development of social media, using them as the places for selling beauty products will surely bring you many benefits. Because social media is the quickest method to increase your brand’s reputation through word-of-mouth, and the rate of beauty companies having a social media presence is up to 96%. Through them, you can increase the ability to interact with your audience and then, boosting sales becomes easier than ever.
Moreover, in order to have a big customer base and many followers, you must start by following popular people and pages in your chosen specialty and interacting with them. Besides, to get people talking about your brand, let’s tweet, pin, post, and share relevant unique content. Because clients tend to trust recommendations from people they know above those from impersonal advertising, social proof from real people is the finest form of promotion you can undertake.
#2. Work with Influencer Marketing
Working with great influencer is also the excellent method for you to know how to sell cosmetics online effectively. In recent days, store owners tend to frequently work with social media influencers to sell makeup online. In fact, 49% of consumers seek out influencer recommendations almost as often as they seek out suggestions from friends. Besides, consumers will be introduced to your products by someone they already trust, influencer marketing is a significant opportunity for a digital brand. Also, consumers trust influencer messaging more than brand messages.
For more details, choosing the platform on which you wish to sell is the first step if you want to get started with influencer marketing. There are other options, ranging from TikTok to Twitter. However, given that 83% of beauty brands collaborate with Instagram influencers, starting with the photo-sharing app is the best place. Then, in order to choose the right influencer, you need to browse the hashtags linked to your items to see who people are talking about the products you are selling. In addition, the amount of money you must spend on influencer marketing will vary depending on whether you’re working with microinfluencers (those with 2,000 or fewer followers), higher-level influencers (those with 5,000 to 10,000 followers), or even large-scale celebrity accounts.
#3. SEO
Aside from two methods above, you should consider utilizing SEO as a great way on how to sell cosmetics online effectively. The better SEO you make, the higher result your website appears on search engines. As a result, your brand will easily access more potential customers as well gain higher profits on the nearest day. SEO tips and tools are available from all ecommerce website builders, however SEO support from online marketplaces is less versatile.
In any case, there are certain basic SEO tactics that you may do right away. For example, writing intriguing meta titles and descriptions for your product pages is a must. They are extremely important. This is because they are the titles and descriptions that appear in search results as a preview of your page. However, in case you don’t write these descriptions yourself, Google will use some content from the website, which isn’t always as entertaining for readers deciding which search result to click on.
Coming to the second easy SEO strategy you can’t ignore is to compress pictures to lower their file sizes. Because it will improve page load speeds and result in a better user experience. Following that, don’t forget to use alt text to describe what each image depicts. Hence, search engines can figure out which search terms it pertains to. Best of all, when uploading photos, most website builders, such as Wix’s simple editor, provide you the ability to add alt tags.
Furthermore, another simple technique to make your site appealing to search engines like Google is to use alt text. Thanks to that, your site will have many opportunities to rise in the search results, resulting in more hits.
To sum up with How to sell cosmetics online
All in all, although the beauty industry in general and the cosmetics business in particular are always full of competition, if you are really dedicated and know how to sell cosmetics online effectively, you will surely defeat any competitors. After all, Arrowtheme hopes our comprehensive guide will bring you a lot of useful information. And then, you will apply them for your business and gain amazing results. Moreover, if you have any question about this topic, don’t hesitate to CONTACT US to be clearer.
