Selling beauty products online: a comprehensive guide

Want to sell beauty products and cosmetics online full-time or as a side hustle? Learn everything you need to know, from choosing your niche to creating your website, marketing your cosmetics business online, and more.

Businesses that sell beauty and personal care products, including cosmetics and make-up, are expected to generate $579.20 billion (with a B) US dollars in revenue in 2023. That's a lot of money! 😲

If you're interested in grabbing a piece of the pie, I have good news! In this comprehensive guide, I'll show you everything you need to know to sell beauty products and cosmetics online, including:

• Business essentials: Strategies to build a solid and sustainable beauty and cosmetics business.
• Actionable tips and techniques to market your make-up business effectively and sell beauty products online.
• The exact tools you need to create your beauty products and cosmetics store and start selling online today.

Are you ready? Let's start with a deep dive into the beauty products and cosmetics industry.

Understanding the beauty products and cosmetics industry

Before we look at how to sell beauty products and make-up online, let's consider whether it's worth doing so.

Earlier, I mentioned that companies in the beauty/cosmetics business are expected to rake in $579.20 billion US dollars in revenue in 2023. Now, you may be wondering how much of that revenue from lipstick, eyeshadow, and other cosmetics will be generated online? The answer is a lot.

According to the same Statista report, 17.7% of that revenue will be made online. That translates to $102.6 billion US dollars! Plus, the cosmetics and make-up industry is expected to grow at 3.5% each year.

Bottom line: The beauty product and cosmetics industry is booming; there's probably never been a better time to start selling beauty products and make-up online. At the same time, it's also a huge market with a lot of competition. This means you must use the right approach to run and market your cosmetics business.

Benefits of selling beauty products and cosmetics online

Selling beauty products and make-up online can be pretty lucrative. Here are its top benefits:

Challenges of selling beauty products and cosmetics online

Even though it can be rewarding, selling beauty products and make-up online comes with its share of problems. Here are the top three challenges new cosmetics entrepreneurs face and actionable strategies to conquer them:

Challenge 1: Cautious customers

Customers who shop online are wary about the authenticity of beauty items and cosmetics. After all, no one wants to buy counterfeit or low-quality lipstick or eyeshadow products. This means convincing customers that you're trustworthy can be difficult in the early days of your cosmetics business.

Even where customers are convinced that the beauty products and make-up you're selling are authentic, they may be reluctant to buy online. That's because people buying beauty products need to make sure the lipstick shade matches their skin tone, the eyeshadow works with their eye color, and other cosmetics complement their features.

Strategy to solve this challenge

Although gaining customers' trust can be challenging, it's definitely doable. To start, invest in a professional-looking website that reflects that your cosmetics business is legit. In addition, you can build trust through genuine reviews, excellent customer service, and cultivating an active community on social media.

To reassure customers that a beauty product, lipstick shade, or eyeshadow palette is suitable for them, you can sell or give away cosmetics samples online.

Challenge 2: Plenty of competition

The beauty and cosmetics market is crowded and highly competitive. There are many sellers and brands that offer similar make-up products and are vying for customers' attention, so standing out can be tricky.

Strategy to solve this challenge

You'll need a solid marketing game plan to stand out from competitors. An excellent way to do this is to choose a niche. You can do this by specializing in a particular type of beauty product or cosmetics (like organic lipsticks or vegan eyeshadows) or catering to a specific audience.

Additionally, implementing a robust digital marketing strategy, including SEO, email, social media, and paid ads, can help beat your competition and reach and engage your target make-up customers.

Challenge 3: Brand restrictions

Brands are super selective about who can resell their products. For instance, some cosmetics brands have specific requirements for online sellers, such as a minimum order quantity for lipstick collections or a physical store presence. Meeting these requirements can be tough if you're just starting out in the beauty and make-up business.

Strategy to solve this challenge

First, accept that building relationships with cosmetics brands requires strategic work and a ton of patience. Start by working with companies that are more accessible to new sellers. As your store gains credibility and a proven track record of successful cosmetics sales, reach out to bigger companies.

You can also attend beauty industry events, conferences, or trade shows to network with distributors and brand representatives and establish personal connections.

Steps to sell beauty products and cosmetics online

Here's the short version of the steps to sell beauty products and make-up online:

1. Create your cosmetics website.
2. Set up business essentials: Market research, brand creation, packaging for lipsticks and eyeshadows, labeling, and business processes.
3. Implement marketing strategies for your cosmetics business.

Create your cosmetics website

There are two parts to this:

1. Choosing the right platform for your make-up site.
2. Creating a beautiful, professional-looking cosmetics website.

Choosing the right platform: WooCommerce vs. Shopify

The platform you choose can influence your cosmetics store's success. It shapes many aspects of your business — your site's user experience, how you manage your inventory of lipsticks and eyeshadows, your marketing, the overall cost of running your cosmetics business, etc.

While there are several ecommerce platforms available, we'll focus on the two most popular for selling beauty products and cosmetics online. These are WooCommerce and Shopify.

WooCommerce vs Shopify: An overview.

If you're new to ecommerce platforms for cosmetics, here's a quick primer:

1. WooCommerce: WooCommerce is a powerful, open-source ecommerce plugin designed for WordPress websites. It has a 39% market share, making it the most popular ecommerce platform for make-up stores in the world.
2. Shopify: Shopify is the 4th most popular ecommerce platform for cosmetics in the world. It is a fully hosted solution that comes with web hosting.

Note: Whichever platform you choose, you can migrate your site to a different one in the future. However, it's easier to start with the right one from the beginning to avoid the hassle of moving to another platform later on.

Here's a detailed WooCommerce vs. Shopify breakdown for cosmetics stores

	WooCommerce	Shopify
Feature list Winner: It's a tie!	All the core features to create a thriving ecommerce business for cosmetics.	All the core features to create a thriving ecommerce business for make-up.
Extensions Winner: WooCommerce	There are over 60,000 free/fremium plugins in the official plugin directory plus lots of paid plugins that can add extra features to your cosmetics website.	Shopify's app store includes around 8,000 apps to add more features to your make-up site (e.g., advanced inventory management for lipsticks and eyeshadows, marketing tools, product combo deals or even free gifts).
Cost Winner: WooCommerce	WooCommerce itself is free. You'll need to invest in hosting, domain registration, and any premium themes or plugins you choose to use for your cosmetics store. Costs can vary widely, however it's usually pretty affordable.	Shopify offers various pricing plans, including a monthly subscription fee that covers hosting. Its cheapest plan is $29 per month for the basic functionality to set up an ecommerce store for make-up (that's at least $348 yearly!). This doesn't include the cost of app subscriptions and transaction fees which can quickly add up.
Scalability Winner: WooCommerce	Its platform is highly scalable, and is suitable for small cosmetics businesses to large enterprises. Offers complete control over server resources and can handle complex setups for lipstick and eyeshadow inventory.	Scalable and user-friendly. It can accommodate make-up businesses of all sizes, but some limitations may arise in highly specialized or extremely high-traffic scenarios.
SEO-friendliness Winner: WooCommerce	It provides excellent SEO capabilities for cosmetics sites, especially when paired with SEO plugins like Yoast SEO. Full control over SEO settings for lipstick and eyeshadow product pages.	Its SEO techniques are a bit limited compared to WooCommerce and other platforms. This could affect the amount of organic traffic your make-up site gets from search engines.
Beginner-friendliness Winner: Shopify	WooCommerce is known for its ease of use. You don't need advanced technical skills to set up and manage your online cosmetics store. However, there is a learning curve if you're not familiar with WordPress and ecommerce concepts.	Shopify is easy to use, even for total newbies selling make-up. It offers an intuitive interface that simplifies cosmetics store setup and management.
Customer Support Winner: Shopify	WooCommerce itself doesn't offer direct support, but there's a large online community for cosmetics sellers for help. Support varies depending on hosting and theme/plugin providers.	They provide excellent customer support for make-up stores, including 24/7 live chat and email assistance.
Marketing Integrations Winner: WooCommerce	Integrates with various marketing tools and platforms through plugins and extensions. Allows for extensive customization of cosmetics marketing strategies.	Offers marketing integrations and built-in tools for email marketing of lipsticks and eyeshadows, social media, and more.
Final scores	2.5/8	5.5/8

My recommendation

Both WooCommerce and Shopify have their strengths and drawbacks for cosmetics stores.

WooCommerce is cheaper and highly customizable, making it a great choice if you have specific needs for your make-up business or prefer complete control. However, it has a bit of a learning curve. On the other hand, Shopify is known for its beginner-friendliness and excellent customer support. But it can get costly very quickly for cosmetics sellers.

WooCommerce is the better choice for most people selling lipsticks, eyeshadows, and other cosmetics. There are thousands of beginner-friendly tutorials to help you get over the learning curve. And once you get the hang of the platform, you'll find that it's pretty easy to use for your make-up business.

Creating a beautiful, professional-looking cosmetics website

Once you've selected your ecommerce platform, it's time to build your cosmetics ecommerce website. For this, you'll need the WooCommerce Product Table plugin.

WooCommerce Product Table is an easy-to-use plugin that lists cosmetics products in a beautiful, functional, and professional-looking order form.

For context, here's an example of how it looks on the front end of a website that sells beauty products, lipsticks, and eyeshadows:

WooCommerce Product Table is used on thousands of cosmetics sites and comes with tons of customization options so you can tweak it however you like for your make-up store.

Top benefits of using WooCommerce Product Table for cosmetics

There are five big benefits of creating your make-up site with the WooCommerce Product Table plugin:

Fast one-page ordering

Customers can order multiple beauty products and variations with just a few clicks. For example, if a customer wants to buy different lipstick shades, mascara, eyeshadow palettes, and skincare cream, they can easily add all these cosmetics items to their cart from the same page. This gives customers a better shopping experience because it saves them from having to open up the individual product page for each make-up item.

Advanced search and sorting options

Shoppers can quickly find the beauty products and cosmetics they're looking for using instant search and sort options. For instance, imagine that you sell 50 different types of eyeshadow. Customers can search for a specific shade by typing in the name of the brand or product. Alternatively, they can sort by product category, subcategories, price, etc., to quickly find their preferred eyeshadow or lipstick.

Show relevant product details

The plugin lets you customize the information that's presented to customers in the product table to showcase images, videos, prices, attributes, and even custom fields. You can show cosmetics product videos, lipstick swatch images, eyeshadow application tutorials, unboxing videos, customer reviews, etc., to share detailed information about each make-up product and easily convert customers on the fence.

Choose the products to show in the product table

You have complete control over which beauty products and cosmetics are displayed in the table. For instance, if you want to showcase only skincare products like moisturizers, makeup products like eyeshadow palettes and lipsticks, or cosmetics items from a specific brand, you can do so easily.

Create unlimited tables and list unlimited products

There's no limit to the number of product tables you can add to your cosmetics store, so feel free to create as many as you want for different make-up categories.

Also, you can list as many products in each table as you'd like — whether that's a few dozen lipsticks or even thousands of eyeshadow products. The plugin comes with AJAX lazy load, which helps make sure your cosmetics site loads fast.

Add extra product options to your cosmetics store

Once you've set up WooCommerce Product Table on your online make-up store, it's time to think about how to make the shopping experience as smooth as possible.

Beauty stores typically sell products with a lot of variations. For example:

• Lipstick with different colors and finishes.
• Foundation and concealer with various shades.
• Eyeshadow palettes with multiple color options.
• Face serum in regular and mini sizes.

By default, WooCommerce lets you present additional cosmetics product options to customers using basic dropdowns like these:

While the dropdowns are fine for some options, they're just not ideal for cosmetics like lipstick shades or eyeshadow colors. So, how can you present make-up variations in a more user-friendly way to customers?

Using the WooCommerce Product Options plugin.

WooCommerce Product Options is a flexible plugin that lets you use a variety of add-on fields to present additional cosmetics options to customers. You can use it to create make-up product options with:

WooCommerce Product Options works really well with WooCommerce Product Table. Here's how both plugins transform the cosmetics 'shop' page:

That's not all. WooCommerce Product Options also upgrades the default single product page, i.e., the individual page shoppers see when they click on a lipstick or eyeshadow product. Here's the single make-up product page without WooCommerce Product Options:

And here's the cosmetics product page with the extra options that WooCommerce Product Options adds. See how the shopping experience for lipsticks and eyeshadows is now more intuitive?

Top benefits of using WooCommerce Product Options for cosmetics

16+ field types

You can add extra fields like image and color swatches, text, checkboxes, radio buttons, number, dropdowns, date/time, text fields, customer-defined pricing, price formula, and more. Here are some examples of ways to use the extra fields on your cosmetics website:

Either create these cosmetics options directly in the plugin, or select existing variations to display as checkboxes, images, color swatches, and so on. Either way, it's a much more visual way to let customers select their desired lipstick shade, eyeshadow color, and other make-up information.

Conditional logic

This simply means to show or hide fields based on the other options customers select. Instead of presenting all the cosmetics options to every customer, even if they don't need it, this helps keep the product page neat, prevents clutter, and provides a better shopping experience for make-up purchases.

For instance, if you offer various styles types of gift wrap for lipstick sets or eyeshadow palettes. Using conditional logic, you can hide the wrapping paper options until the customer chooses the gift box option. This way, the cosmetics product page remains clean. Like this:

Minimum and maximum quantity rules

These rules limit customers to only selecting a minimum or maximum quantity of a particular cosmetics product option. For example, you can set a maximum quantity rule to prevent customers from buying more than seven eyeshadow palettes or limit bulk purchases of lipsticks.

Extra fees

The plugin allows you to charge additional fees for the make-up product options. For example, you can charge $10 for classic red lipstick and $12 for limited edition metallic lipsticks, or add premium pricing for luxury eyeshadow palettes.

Overall, the key benefit of the WooCommerce Product Options plugin is that it makes the shopping experience easier and more intuitive for cosmetics customers. This leads to more make-up sales and greater customer satisfaction in your store.

Offer cosmetics product samples to boost sales

Another popular option for many beauty store owners is offering customers free and paid product samples of lipsticks, eyeshadows, and other cosmetics. Essentially, this lets them get smaller make-up products before buying the full sizes. Customers like to try out beauty or cosmetic products for many reasons, including:

1. To make sure that they are happy with the cosmetics product quality.
2. Check out how lipstick colors or eyeshadow shades look on them in real life.
3. Compare multiple make-up options, e.g., various lipstick shades or eyeshadow finishes, before choosing their preferred ones.

On the surface, offering cosmetics samples may not seem like a big deal. However, it's a powerful marketing tactic that's been proven to boost make-up sales.

To offer cosmetics samples to customers, you'll need the WooCommerce Product Sample plugin.

This handy plugin lets you add a seamless and efficient product sample engine to your cosmetics ecommerce store. It includes:

WooCommerce Product Sample works well for both wholesale and retail beauty and cosmetics stores. It also integrates well with the WooCommerce Product Table plugin:

Here's how WooCommerce Product Sample upgrades the individual cosmetics product page with an 'Order Sample' button for lipsticks and eyeshadows:

Top benefits of WooCommerce Product Sample for cosmetics

1. Free or paid samples: You can offer lipstick samples for free or charge customers for make-up samples.
2. Lots of control: It lets you add custom prices for eyeshadow samples, add to cart button text, manage cosmetics stock, and update shipping and tax settings.
3. Maximum quantity: This prevents customers from adding more than a specific quantity of lipstick or eyeshadow samples to their carts.
4. Email follow-up system: Create and send tailored email reminders to nudge customers to buy the full size of the cosmetics products.

Samples work because they give customers the chance to try out mini versions of your lipsticks and eyeshadows before committing to the full size. And, with WooCommerce Product Sample's email nurture features, you can easily convert customers to buy the regular/full make-up product sizes and increase your cosmetics store's sales.

Business essentials: Market research, branding, and packaging for cosmetics

Conducting market research for your make-up business

Market research helps you narrow down your target audience and pinpoint people who are more likely to buy your cosmetics products. You can glean details like their age range, gender, interests, beliefs, where they live, preferred lipstick shades, favorite eyeshadow palettes, and so on. This helps you create make-up products and tailor your marketing strategies to appeal to them.

But if you've never done this before, where do you even begin to find out details about your cosmetics customers?

Here are a few ideas to help you get started with cosmetics market research

1. Google Search (and other search engines): Start by searching for beauty-related keywords and phrases relevant to your cosmetics products. Look at the top results, websites, and forums that appear for searches like "best lipstick brands," "eyeshadow tutorials," and "make-up reviews." This can give you ideas about what people are searching for and talking about in the beauty and cosmetics niche.
2. Online forums and communities: Hop onto Facebook and search for 'beauty', 'makeup', 'cosmetics', 'lipstick lovers', or even related terms like 'eyeshadow palettes' and 'glam'. You'll find plenty of pages that you can join. Then, you can observe discussions and pay attention to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about make-up products, common problems with cosmetics, and trends.
3. Customer reviews: Read cosmetics product reviews on popular ecommerce platforms like Amazon, eBay, Sephora or even on competitor websites. Analyze what customers like and don't like about the top-selling lipsticks, eyeshadows, and other beauty products. This will give you insights into make-up customers' preferences and pain points.
4. Online survey tools: You can create surveys about cosmetics preferences using platforms like Google Forms or SurveyMonkey and share them on your social media profiles and relevant beauty forums or groups (like Facebook pages) you're part of. If you don't have access to a sizable audience of make-up enthusiasts, use market research platforms like PickFu or Poll The People.
5. Google Trends: Google Trends is an underrated and valuable market research tool that can help you identify trending cosmetics topics and keywords. Simply enter cosmetic products or trends like "lipstick trends 2024" or "eyeshadow techniques," and it shows you the popularity of make-up search terms over time, helping you understand what's currently in demand.

Choosing a cosmetics niche

A niche is a specific corner of your industry that you can occupy and become the go-to expert in. Choosing an area of expertise for cosmetics means you won't try to appeal to everyone. The result is that you'll face less competition in the make-up market, and it'll be easier to gain customers' trust and convert them. These tips will help you choose a cosmetics niche:

Passion and knowledge

Essentially, this means what you're interested in and have some form of experience. For instance, if you're a nail technician, you might focus on selling nail polish and other nail care products, as you're already exposed to that. Or if you're passionate about bold lip looks, you might specialize in lipsticks and lip glosses. Similarly, if you love creating eye looks, focusing on eyeshadow palettes and eye cosmetics could be your niche.

Market trends

Keep an eye on trends in the beauty and cosmetics industry. Are there emerging trends or make-up products that align with your interests and expertise? It could be organic skincare, vegan makeup, sustainable haircare, waterproof lipsticks, long-lasting eyeshadows, or anything else in the cosmetics world.

Market gaps

Look for underserved areas in the cosmetics market. Research what's missing or not well-addressed by existing make-up brands. This could be specific skincare concerns, uncommon makeup shades, unique lipstick formulations, eyeshadow textures for mature skin, or unique fragrance blends.

Finally, combine the audience data from the market research you conducted earlier to choose a cosmetics niche that focuses on solving specific customer needs, preferences, and pain points.

Creating a solid cosmetics brand identity

People are more likely to buy from cosmetics brands they feel an emotional connection with. Your beauty and make-up brand should evoke trust and credibility in potential customers looking for quality lipsticks, eyeshadows, and other cosmetics.

Here's what to focus on while creating your cosmetics brand:

1. Identity: Craft a concise and compelling brand vision, mission, and message that articulates what your cosmetics business stands for and why customers should buy your lipsticks and eyeshadows from you.
2. Name: Select a brand name that's memorable, relevant to your make-up products, and easy to spell and pronounce.
3. Elements: Opt for a color palette and fonts that match your cosmetics brand's personality and use them consistently across your business.

Use a consistent look and feel on your make-up website, social media profiles, cosmetics packaging, marketing materials, etc.

Packaging requirements for cosmetics

A lot can happen, from when you ship lipsticks and eyeshadows to customers to when they receive them. For instance,

Sturdy packaging materials are the best way to prevent your cosmetics from becoming damaged. Opt for outer boxes and containers specifically designed to protect fragile make-up items like pressed eyeshadows and delicate lipstick cases. Wrapping products in bubble wrap, foam, or packing peanuts helps to cushion them.

You'll also want to seal cosmetics products securely using shrink wrap or tape so they don't leak or get contaminated.

Labeling requirements for cosmetics

There are rules that you have to follow when selling beauty products and cosmetics online. For instance, regulatory agencies, like the FDA in the United States, have specific rules about what information must be on cosmetics and make-up product labels.

But it's not just about following the rules; it's also about ensuring the safety of your customers. Labels should mention ingredients, usage instructions for lipsticks and eyeshadows, potential allergens, expiration date, and safety warnings — basically, all the essential details about what's inside the cosmetics products.

(As a side benefit, transparently labeling make-up products builds trust with shoppers, which makes them more likely to buy your cosmetics and recommend your store to others).

Effective marketing strategies for your online cosmetics store

These nine strategies will help you market your make-up products online:

Start with a solid cosmetics business foundation

This is more general business advice than a marketing strategy. However, it's worth mentioning because the other strategies will likely be harder to implement if you don't get your cosmetics business basics right. This includes: picking the right lipsticks and eyeshadows to sell, creating efficient order fulfillment processes for make-up products, and creating a beautiful, user-friendly cosmetics website.

Create lots of (high quality!) SEO content about cosmetics

Search engine optimized (SEO) content is content written to rank high on search engines like Google, Bing, etc. Filling your website with valuable SEO-friendly content about lipstick trends, eyeshadow tutorials, make-up tips, and cosmetics reviews helps customers discover your brand when they search online.

Multichannel marketing for cosmetics

There are a lot of channels to market your make-up products online — email, social media, paid search, etc. These channels work together to create a cohesive cosmetics brand and drive your store's revenue. For instance, you can use social media to build a make-up community, paid search to reach new visitors searching for lipsticks and eyeshadows, and email marketing to retain existing cosmetics customers.

Promotions for lipsticks and eyeshadows

When done right, offering discounts on cosmetics can actually increase your store's revenue and profits. The key is to use them strategically. For instance, you could promote specific lipstick collections or eyeshadow palettes, sell combo make-up products or set up limited-time offers on cosmetics to create a sense of urgency and encourage purchases.

Build an online cosmetics community

Earlier, I showed you how to conduct market research online using social media platforms. But you don't have to stop there. Create a dedicated social media profile for your make-up brand and build a following. Actively interacting with your audience online about lipstick trends, eyeshadow techniques, and cosmetics tips builds a community around your brand, fosters loyalty, and encourages word-of-mouth marketing.

Networking at cosmetics events

Personal connections are invaluable. Beauty industry events and conferences like CosmoProf are excellent ways to meet cosmetics manufacturers, make-up brand representatives, influencers, and experts in the beauty space. Building 1:1 connections can lead to collaborations, partnerships, or other opportunities for your lipstick and eyeshadow business down the line.

Create a personable cosmetics brand

People support make-up brands they feel emotionally connected to. A way to create an emotional attachment to your cosmetics brand is to add a human touch. For instance, you can share your founding story, share behind-the-scenes in your life as a cosmetics business owner, upcoming lipstick launches, eyeshadow collection previews, or create podcasts on make-up topics your customers can easily relate to.

Partner with cosmetics influencers/creators

Influencer marketing works for make-up products. As many as 50% of Millennials trust influencers' lipstick and eyeshadow product recommendations, and 33% of Gen Z-ers have bought a cosmetics product recommended by an influencer within the last three months. The key to make-up influencer marketing success is collaborating with people who have a genuine following and whose audience matches your ideal target customers for lipsticks, eyeshadows, and other cosmetics.

Offer personalized cosmetics shopping experiences

Studies show that 75% of shoppers are more likely to purchase from brands that offer personalized online experiences. You can build a fun product recommendation quiz for cosmetics (similar to those popular BuzzFeed quizzes). Shoppers can answer questions about their skin tone, preferred lipstick finishes, eyeshadow color preferences, and what make-up looks they're going for, and your site will display relevant cosmetics recommendations based on their answers.

Start selling beauty products and cosmetics online today!

The beauty and cosmetics industry is flourishing and will continue to grow. There's no better time to start selling beauty products, lipsticks, eyeshadows, and other make-up online.

If you've read this far, you know everything you need to build a sustainable cosmetics business.

To recap, the key steps are:

1. Set up your cosmetics business foundation based on market research, a standout make-up brand, and proper packaging and labeling for lipsticks and eyeshadows.
2. Use marketing strategies and channels like email, social media, paid search, etc., to reach and convert your target cosmetics customers.
3. Create a functional and beautiful make-up website with WooCommerce, listing your beauty products and cosmetics using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin. You can also add lipstick and eyeshadow product options using WooCommerce Product Options, and sell free or paid make-up samples using WooCommerce Product Sample.

Ready to start selling beauty products, cosmetics, lipsticks, and eyeshadows online? Get start today!