To open an online cosmetics shop on Shopify e-commerce is the dream of many peoples. Especially girls passionate about the world of beauty who try to monetize one of their passions.

The problem faced by those who try to open e-commerce or an online store is that they do not have a checklist, or a roadmap to follow, and often end up getting lost along the way. Or worse still, he doesn’t even know where to start.

That’s why we have created this guide for you where we explain step by step. What are the essential steps that you absolutely must follow to start your beauty product business?

Best steps to open an online cosmetics shop on Shopify

To open an online cosmetics shop on Shopify: Take your time to read and study each of these phases. Only in this way will you be able to turn your dream into reality and start selling your cosmetics line online.

Define your brand

Before you start selling anything, you need to work on building your brand.
Obviously, building a brand from scratch is not easy, but it is of fundamental importance. If you want to be able to carve out your own space in the market and attract a slice of potential customers interested in buying from you.

Even creating an e-commerce brand for a niche product like cosmetics is not an easy process. There are some steps that are of fundamental importance and absolutely cannot be skipped.

So let’s start with the most important phase of all: the market analysis.

Market analysis will help you understand who your target audience will be, and what strengths you can have over your competition.

Creating effective positioning is the foundation of any successful brand or e-commerce. So take the time to collect data and research both your target audience and your competition.

With the data you have collected, you can finally move on to the actual construction of your brand. Choosing the name of your business, the payoff or slogan that distinguishes you. And the corporate colors and the mission that will guide you throughout the journey that you’re about to start.

Select the line of beauty products to open an online cosmetics shop on Shopify

After defining the details of your brand, it’s time to choose the line of beauty products you want to sell, produce or even make from scratch.

At this stage, it is important to understand how much it costs to produce a cosmetic line? And what is the best business model to follow for our business?

As we will see shortly, in fact, it is possible to choose different types of activities according to our needs. Therefore, it is important to understand what we want to sell and which products we want to focus and invest in.

Right now you need to figure out what works best for you. Because the choice you make now will guide you for the rest of your business. And it’s nearly impossible to change once you’ve already started this project.

The market analysis you did earlier will help you understand if you need to focus on a single product category or if you have the possibility to work with multiple products. However, you must never lose sight of one of the most important concepts for a business: understanding what are the opportunities that the competition leaves you and being able to create the best possible positioning to cover the shortcomings that arise in the market.

Define your business model to open an online cosmetics shop on Shopify

The second step to starting a cosmetics business is choosing a business model: once you have defined your brand, in fact, you can start looking for the products you intend to sell with your e-commerce.

There are several ways to find beauty and cosmetic products that you can resell.

Before starting, however, you need to understand if you want to sell products from other brands, if you want to work in private labels, or if you even want to open a natural cosmetics laboratory.

In this way, you will sell products that directly present your brand, and you can differentiate yourself from the competition by at least partially abandoning the price battle.
Your customers will perceive your products as unique and unavailable on other channels, and this will give you even more authority.

On the other hand, if you decide to sell a line of products from other brands, you risk losing customers because you will inexorably end up being compared with other e-commerce companies that sell the same product at a lower price.

So let’s see which are the most popular business models with the pros and cons of each of them.

Selling cosmetics in dropshipping

Dropshipping is the fastest and easiest way to open cosmetics e-commerce and start selling online.

You don’t need a warehouse, you just need to find a supplier who has the products you are selling.
With drop shipping, when a customer places an order on your e-commerce site, your supplier will automatically prepare the shipment and send the purchased products.

You will not have to do anything, you will not have any warehouse to manage or shipments to prepare, but you will only have to worry about the customer acquisition part and manage relations with your suppliers in case of any problems or delays on shipments.

Is it really worth opening a dropshipping cosmetics e-commerce?

Let’s see the pros and cons:

Pros:

• Quick and easy way to start selling online;
• You will not have to worry about logistics and warehouse;
• It requires a little budget to get started.

Cons:

• Shipping times are often long;
• You have no control over the packaging and products;
• Medium-high risk of returns or wrong orders.

Selling private label cosmetics

In the long term, working in a Private Label is much more profitable than in a dropshipping store. However, a much higher initial investment is required.

Opening a private label cosmetics e-commerce means finding a company willing to manufacture our products and apply our brand on the packaging, on the packaging and on all the material produced.

Often the products are manufactured by a company and then they are turned over to different retailers who apply their own labels. In this way, even if the product is always the same. The brands that put it on the market change and therefore the perception that customers have.

In summary, here’s why you should open a Private Label cosmetics e-commerce:

Pros:

• Create a more profitable brand;
• You can customize the layout and packaging of your products;
• You can really find your positioning in the market.

Cons:

• The high initial investment is required;
• You will also have to manage the warehouse and logistics;
• You need a more structured organization.

Selling cosmetics with exclusive production

With this model, your products are manufactured exclusively for you, and you have the legal rights to formulas, recipes and ingredients. In this case, finding reputable manufacturers to partner with can be quite challenging.

However, by contacting different suppliers, it will be possible to find who will be able to customize your product, offering you the possibility to choose all the ingredients and recipes you prefer.
In this way, you will really have a unique and exclusive product different from that of all the others not only for the brand but also for the quality and the formulas of the ingredients.

Pros:

• Create a unique product;
• You have full control over the production and ingredients of your cosmetics;
• You can conquer a specific market niche.

Cons:

• You have to find the right manufacturer;
• You will have to check ingredients and formulas thoroughly to find the right balance;
• Great knowledge of the sector is required.

Write your first Business Plan to open an online cosmetics shop on Shopify

If you’ve chosen your business model, it’s time to take action and start preparing the strategy you want to use for the development and growth of your business.

We are talking about the business plan, a fundamental document to define the business objectives that must be achieved in the short and long term. A detailed business plan for your beauty products e-commerce can help you identify your strengths and growth opportunities, define your goals, understand potential obstacles, and evaluate what resources you will need as your business grows.

The Business plan is a document that not only serves you but is also required by all potential investors who may decide to collaborate with you and invest in your business.

You can prepare an effective business plan by following different templates that you find online, however, the default scheme provides an initial summary with the description of the company and the products or services you offer.
Then you will also have to carry out a market analysis, very similar to the one you did at the beginning, in which you highlight your strengths with respect to the main competitors present.

And in the end, we move on to the strategic-financial part where you will present your marketing plan and your financial documents to share with potential investors the resources you need and the economic returns they can expect from this investment.

Always remember to conclude your business plan with an appendix and a summary of the main points addressed within the document to help the reader quickly find the information they are looking for.

Register the brand and open the VAT number

The next step to start selling online with your e-commerce is to register your brand and register for VAT.
The opening of the VAT number, therefore, represents a step that you absolutely cannot skip to sell online without incurring penalties and fines. Because it is fundamental both at a tax and accounting level for each type of business.

At this stage also make sure to check what permissions are needed to sell cosmetics online. Because depending on the ingredients and products you will use you may need special licenses or permits.

Choose the Shopify platform and give life to your eCommerce

Today, selling beauty products on Shopify online has become extremely simple. Because there are tons of marketing tools and platforms for creating Shopify e-commerce, which gives you the possibility to create your personal shop in no time.

When you contact a marketing agency for the creation of e-commerce, always remember to take stock of some key factors, which must absolutely be taken into consideration in order to have a professional and reliable result.

Sponsor your Shopify eCommerce

When your e-commerce is ready, it’s time to start sponsoring it to sell your cosmetics and beauty products.
Many businesses fail because they don’t sponsor their e-commerce effectively. But a correct marketing strategy is essential for any online business.

Depending on the budget you have available, there are different marketing tools and channels that you can use to promote your products, and understand where it is better to sell makeup rather than cosmetics. Or other beauty accessories can make the difference between e-commerce. Launched towards success and e-commerce that will have to fight every day for survival.

So let’s see the main promotion channels for e-commerce. So you can have a complete picture of the opportunities you have available to sell your products.

Social Media Marketing

If you don’t have a lot of budgets to use, Social Media is a great platform to start communicating with your potential audience.

Facebook, Instagram and TikTok give you the opportunity to create communities and get in touch with all the people who may be interested in buying your products. Just register for an account and start posting images, videos or stories with the content you want to sell or the offers you are about to sponsor.

If you have a higher budget, you can also use paid advertising campaigns and be able to identify a more precise audience thanks to the demographic information or interests of your potential audience.

Content Marketing and SEO

SEO is search engine optimization, and it helps you get higher rankings on major search engines like Google or Bing.

To do SEO you need to create content such as blog articles that contain the keywords searched by users on search engines. As well as a good technical strategy that optimizes and improves all the data and pages of your e-commerce.

Even if writing articles is a time-consuming activity, the results will not be long in coming. If you are able to work the right way and position yourself correctly with the keywords most relevant to your products or your brand.

Start a content marketing strategy if you want to offer your potential customers valuable content. For example, if you sell skin care products, you can start posting beauty tips on daily routines to follow in the morning or evening. If you sell cosmetics such as foundation or face concealers. You can write blog posts about contouring or how to find the best colors for your skin tone.

Collaborations with influencers

Influencer marketing is a marketing strategy that in recent years has recorded an increasingly high return on investment. Especially in sectors such as fashion, fashion, and even beauty products.

In fact, due to the nature of the product, and the visual impact that cosmetics have. Customers follow the advice of their favorite influencers before buying from a new brand.

Working with beauty influencers who have a blog, YouTube channel, or Instagram page can help you grow faster. Because it gives you more authority and allows you to reach a target audience in no time.

How much does it cost to open a cosmetics e-commerce

As you can imagine, there is no exact amount to open cosmetics e-commerce. A quote for an e-commerce site includes several elements, and it all depends on the needs and requests you are going to make to the agency.

First of all, it is good to specify that the price for the creation of e-commerce depends on your financial resources and on the business plan you have previously created because we have seen that it will influence the entire development of your project.

E-commerce can cost from 3000 to 100,000 dollars, the important thing is that it reflects your expectations. And it is useful for achieving the objectives you have outlined.

Never as in this case, in fact, we are talking about an investment rather than a real cost. Because e-commerce will be the basis of your business. And it will help you acquire more customers and sell your products.

Create the Shopify eCommerce of your dreams and start selling online

The time has come to move from theory to practice, and finally, you can create the e-commerce you have always wanted to sell your cosmetics and beauty products online.

With a member of our team, you will analyze your requests and you will receive a quote in line with your needs.
And if you are wondering why you should request a quote from us, just know that everything we have told you in this article represents the way we work and how we relate to our customers.

Webrito is a professional partner for those who want to achieve ambitious goals and grow their business.
Now you just have to request a quote and share with us what your needs are and the problems you hope to solve.