Setting up a business selling beauty products is something that many of us dream of doing. What could be better than making your own skincare formulations, soaps or perfumes with only the ingredients you want in them and your favourite scents, and then selling them to like-minded people?
But the nuts and bolts of making that dream a reality are challenging. It’s not always clear, how you go about inventing your own products and making them sellable.
That’s where this post can help. It looks at how to set up a personal care product business and what it requires to get it right.
You may still encounter some stumbling blocks along the way. But if you can get the basics right, you will often go a long way.
Research And Pick A Niche
You want to start by doing your research and picking a niche. Ideally, you’d find a gap in the market, or an opportunity to do a better job than an existing brand.
When researching, try to find out what’s missing, and what people want. Often, you will discover that your rivals aren’t quite providing the services you think they should be. Maybe there is a product that you would like to use yourself, for your particular skin type, or with your favourite scent, that you can’t easily find elsewhere? Maybe you want to use vegan skincare, or a brand without particular additives in it.
Try to understand everything about the market you can, including the challenges your rivals face. Sometimes, this allows you to offer unique products that bridge an invisible gap that others can’t detect.
My hairdresser has formulated his own shampoo, using all natural ingredients and essential oils and he makes and bottles it in a shed in his garden. At first he only used it within his hairdressing business, but it smells so good and makes his clients’ hair smell and feel so amazing that they begged him to sell it. So he went through the process of getting it licensed for sale, and now he makes as much money from selling his hair products as he does from his haircuts. It was a struggle getting the required m[ermissions to sell his haircare range, but the rewards were worth it.
Create Your Plan
Creating your business plan is the next critical stage. You need to know who your audience is, what they want, and the strategy you need to use to reach out to them.
Your plan should also include financial projections. It should clearly show how much money you might make and over what timescale.
Check Compliance
Once that is done, you will need to check compliance. It is critical to ensure that you are following the proper rules to avoid being shut down. Rules may vary depoending on the products you are making and the country that you live in.
For instance, you should follow health and safety regulations and check whether your products or ingredients are allowed under local rules. You may also need to get your manufacturing facility inspected and certified,
Don’t sell anything that doesn’t have a history of testing on human skin (unless you’ve done those trials yourself). Always adopt a risk-averse attitude to the process. You will also probably have to name all of your ingredients on your packaging and highlight any comon allergens that are included.
Next, you’ll need to find a chemical manufacturer and other suppliers for things like the bottle and the packaging. These can provide the raw materials you need for your formulation and product (as they appear on shelves).
Obviously, you need something attractive, but you also want it to give consumers what they want (i.e. in terms of hair or skin care). If you don’t want to manufacture your own products, you can “white label” them, meaning you get an external manufacturer to do it under your specifications. (This approach saves on equipment).
Set Up Sales and Delivery
You will need to have a way of selilng the products , a webiste or similar, and a way of marketing and advertising the products – maybe one or more social media platforms. Finally, you’ll need to set up your delivery process to get your products to the people ordering them. For this step, most business owners go to external providers because they are so much more efficient and already have the setup to deal with large volumes.
So there you have it: how to set up a personal care product business. It’s easier than you think!
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