Selling private label skin care is a great way to run your own home business and create a full-time income. Private label selling is a competitive field, but by choosing to sell skin care products you are selecting a niche that allows you to stand out.
Decide What You Want To Sell
There is a great deal of potential in the private label skin care industry. Skin care is a huge market and people are easily influenced by factors such as texture, smell, and packaging.
You can also start a little bigger than is generally recommended for private label selling. Typically, it makes sense to start by selling one private label product. Once you get through the learning curve of how the process works, you may find you want to expand.
With skin care products, it often makes sense to produce a product line to sell, as many people are happy, and even expect, to buy a face wash, toner, and moisturizer together. Launching a line at once allows you to boost your sales potential.
You can select products that target a particular type of consumers, such as cruelty-free, anti-aging, or clear skin products, or you can build your products around a particular ingredient, such as rosehip oil or shea butter.
Source Your Private Label Skin Care Product
The first step in selling private label skin care is to select the manufacturer you want to purchase your products from. There are several things to consider when choosing the company you plan to work with.
You want a company with extensive experience in providing private label products. You want a company that provides the products you want to sell and allows you to customize them in the way you want.
You can do much of the preliminary work online. A simple Google search of “private label skin care manufacturers” will provide you with a starting point. You can get a more extensive list from Thomasnet.com and MFG.com.
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Once you have some manufacturers, you will want to get some samples of their products. Some will be happy to send out free samples, while others will charge a small fee for a sample kit.
This is an important part of the decision making process. You want a product that you like the look, feel and smell of if you are going to build a brand around it.
Pricing
Price is important, you cannot hope to build a successful business if you aren’t making a profit on your product. On the other hand, you cannot hope to sell your product unless it is priced competitively.
Make sure you understand exactly what is included in the price of the product. Some private label manufacturers include the cost of packaging design and product fulfillment with their product, some charge extra for this service and some do not offer it at all.
Minimum Orders
When ordering products for private label selling, it is important to find out exactly how many of an item you must purchase too for the company to fill your order. Some companies require a minimum order of 500, others 250, some require no minimum order. If you find a company you want to work with but they require a large minimum order, ask if that is negotiable. Some private label skin care companies are willing to be flexible on the minimum orders with the hope of developing repeat business.
Before committing to a specific supplier, you should do a thorough internet search on the company and make sure they are reputable. While any established company is likely to have some complaints, you need to look for red flags such as products not being delivered as described, long shipping times, or difficulty communicating with the company.
Avoid Legal Headaches
One of the drawbacks of selling skincare products as opposed to many other items is that there are specific regulations you must meet when selling skincare. For example, you are not permitted to make any medical claim about the products you are selling.
While this seems straightforward, there is a grey area that can be confusing. A product can talk about ways it may improve appearance, but if it claims that it promotes a change, that is considered a medical claim. Using a reputable manufacturer, based in the US, is the best way to ensure you stay on the correct side of these regulations.
A reputable and established skin care manufacturer will understand the labeling requirements for skin care products. It is important that your products list exactly what is in them, in order of decreasing amounts, to be considered properly labeled for sale in the US.
Build Your Brand
Your brand is made up of your company’s name, logo, and even a slogan if you want. All of these combine to create a brand that people recognize and seek out. Select packaging that is attractive, easy to read, and professional. Buyers should be able to easily tell what your product is and what it is used for without having to hunt around on the label.
You should also give some thought to how you want your brand to be perceived when designing your packaging. Different fonts and package design can make an identical product look luxurious or young and fun. What message are you hoping to convey? Your packaging should reflect that.
As you go through the brand building process, you also want to trademark your name and logo. Doing so prevents another company from coming in and copying your name or logo, confusing buyers and taking advantage of the work you have done to build your brand.
Performing a trademark search early in the brand building process also prevents you from inadvertently selecting a brand name or logo that is too similar to an existing one. While this may seem harmless, you could end up having to entirely rebrand your product later on, or even face a lawsuit.
Registering your trademark also gives your products an advantage in the marketplace. For example, Amazon prioritizes registered brands in their listings and offers specific optimization tools to boost sales.
Prepare To Market Your Product
If you plan to sell your private label skin care products on Amazon, be prepared to do a little more work than in other categories. To sell skin care products on Amazon you have to get approval. This is to prevent counterfeit products from being offered.
If you already have experience selling on Amazon, you can use this to your benefit. Solid past performance is one thing Amazon looks for before approving sellers. Working with an experienced manufacturer and having your own product website can also boost the likelihood of approval for Amazon.
There are other ways to market your product aside from Amazon. You can set up your own website to sell from, as well as sell through social media links. You can also set up a store on Shopify or Etsy. Amazon gets a lot of attention with their private label selling business because you get a huge built-in customer base with the Amazon name, but it is not the only way to sell private label skin care.
Selling private label skin care also allows you to market in spas and salons. If you own or work for one of these, you can offer direct sales to your customers. If not, you can visit local shops with samples of your products. You may be surprised at how eager shop owners are to offer these types of products as an add-on to their services.
Stand Out
Getting your private label product to market is only part of building your business. Once you are ready to sell your product you need to make sure it stands out. Attracting buyers requires as much work as nailing down a supplier.
One way to attract buyers is to build a social media community around your product. High engagement from social media will translate well into sales. You don’t need anything fancy, just a link to your Amazon sales page or website in your bio is enough. Blogging about skin care, healthy living or other related issues is a great way to build a community of those who may be interested in your product.
If you have an active social media account, you can also sponsor giveaways for your products. This is a great way to get your products into circulation and build up interest. It can also be a great way to get some reviews for your products. While you cannot require reviews as part of the giveaway process, a simple note letting the winners know you would appreciate them leaving a review is perfectly acceptable.
Keep Track of Your Inventory
If you are managing your inventory yourself, you need to figure out a process for that early on in your business venture. You will need to balance having enough product in stock to avoid having unavailable products listed with having too much money tied up in stock. It is a delicate balancing act, and it only gets more complicated if you are in charge of fulfillment as well.
If you are using Amazon’s Fulfilled By Amazon or another fulfillment service, you have the advantage of not needing to handle the merchandise yourself, but you still need to decide how much to stock.
It is important to remember that, unlike many private label products, skin care has a shelf-life. Buying a large amount of product to get a break in price is not beneficial if you have to throw it out because it expired before you sell it.
Keep in mind, the sale by date is for your end user, so you need to get rid of the product while there are at least a few months left before that date. Customers will not be happy to receive products that will expire before they can finish them.
Assess Your Business
Once you start making sales, the reviews will start rolling in. While it is tempting to ignore less than positive reviews, you need to listen to that feedback if you plan to build a successful business.
While positive reviews give you an opportunity to hear about what you are doing right, negative reviews let you know about any potential problems that you may have. Whether it is with the formula, packaging, or even unclear product descriptions, you need to know what is not working.
Some people will always find something to complain about, and you shouldn’t total shift directions with every criticism. Instead, take a look at the negative comments, see if there is something to them, don’t let the criticism make you defensive, and use it to improve your business.
Of course, a common problem is not getting any reviews at all. The fact is, most people do not write reviews. It can be a difficult cycle when you are just starting out. No reviews make it harder to get a sale, and without sales, there are no reviews.
It is important to understand what Amazon does and does not allow. You are not permitted to sponsor reviews for your product. You can include a note with your packaging, on your website, on in an email asking for the customer to leave a review.
Conclusion
Private label skin care is a great way to build a profitable business. Many people find this type of private label business particularly rewarding because they are able to create a product they love and feel passionate about. Anyone interested in skin care who is also looking to start their own business should consider selling private label skin care products.
