Is doing lash supplies business profitable?

Yes, lash supplies business is very promissing! In this article, we’ll give you both qualititive and quantitive arguments. We’ll go through both the average cost breakdown of a typical lash box to some market analysis to have a deeper insight.

1. COST BREAKDOWN OF A TYPICAL LASH BOX

Production cost: The cost that a lash supplies business needs to pay for her lash manufacturer (lash vendor).

Transporation cost: The international transportation cost from a lash manufacturing country (Vietnam, China) to your country (USA, Canada, EU, Australia…)

Import Tax: The tax that you need to pay for the Custom at your country (buyer country). In case of Europe, it’s about 20% of the buying amount (production cost plus international transportation cost).

Sales & Operation cost: it’s all the cost that you need to pay to operate and sell the lashes, like: advertising, place, warehouse, human resource, discount…

Margin & Tax: What you get. And the tax will be count on what you get.

The golden fomular in retail industry: Do you know that there is a golden fomular in almost any retail industry? it is (1/3-1/3-1/3). It means that 1/3 for buying for buying, 1/3 for selling, and 1/3 for margin and tax.

2. MARKET ANALYSIS FOR A LASH SUPPLIES BUSINESS

Lets take Australian Market as an example. We’ll see how big and potential it is.

In accordance to the data by Australian Bureau of Statistics, by 2024, There are 13.5 Mil womens in Australia, and 51% of them is at the age of 18-55 yrs (about 6.8 Mil women).

These women can use the lash extension service regularly, and not reglularly. Lets convert “irregular” to “regular” and lets say 20% of women in the age of 18-55 yrs using lash extension service. They pay for about 50 USD per month averagely (for both new extension and refill service).

And lets says only 5% of the total service cost is for the lash product cost (about 2.5 usd/month)… we have the lash product market value of 3.4 Mil USD/month.

And please note that about 65% of the Australian population is living in 5 biggest cities of this country. And 35% remaining live in smaller cities right next to those 5 biggest cities. So it’s a big and concentrated market. This point means a lot:

1. A Growing market: And as you may know, lash extension services link to the modern world, the image of the city girl (more modern, more attractive, save makeup time…).. So there must be a growing market in Australia.
2. Low Marketing & Logistic cost: Since we have concentrated market, it’s easier to reach a big demand. And logistic cost (for example: transportation cost to delivery the lash product to your customer) would be lower too.

3. IS IT EASY TO FIND A GOOD SOURCE OF MANUFACTURING?

Nowadays, the lash manufacturing service is dominated by China and Vietnam, due to many reasons. It implies that we also have a concentrate market of lash manufacturing service. Basically speaking, it is easy and cost-saving to find a good source of lashes (in the comparison with other industry).

And since the lash industry has already developed for many years, there is already a balance in negotiating power between the buyer and the seller. So there is not much chance that you depend heavily in 1 not-good-enough-manufacturer. You can easily making a choice. There are many manufacturer with different segment and scale of capacity. So that, no matter at which stage or segment your lash supplies business is, there will always suitable lash manufacturers.

If you would like a step-by-step guide to find a good source of lash in Vietnam, you can refer to this article: https://senlash.vn/how-to-find-lash-vendors-in-vietnam-_-guiden-by-detail/

4. CONCLUSION

In short, lash supplies business is worth to invest. Good margin percentage, growing markets everywhere, concentrated manufacturing market, balanced negotiating power, diverisfied segment of manufacturing service… I strongly believe that it’s not really easy to find a more promissing business to start with.