This article will provide you with a systematic approach to starting your lash supplies business, ensuring you understand the strategic areas where to invest your money, time, and effort.

Before focusing on the three key success factors, use the Business Model Canvas to analyze your lash business in depth. This will provide a deeper understanding when considering the key factors.

Business Model Canvas

This is a modern framework that can help you effectively identify your key success factors. Those factors are the most important to develop strategies, and make informed investment decisions for your business.

1. Customer Segments

Who are the specific groups of customers you want to serve? You need to clearly identify them. Avoid saying ‘All the lash artists around here’ because you won’t be suitable for everyone. Instead, list criteria to classify them, select the segments you want to serve most, and leave other segments for other suppliers.

Some creterias for your reference:

• Scale: Big/Medium/Small/Home-based/Mobile Lash Extension Studios.
• Techniques: Student/New Graduated/Experienced/Advanced/Master…
• Segment: High-end/ Low-end/ Cheap Service
• Service: Online/Offline/Takeaway…
• Location: Local/Nation-wide/Worldwide…
• …

Consider targeting even more specific niches, such as studios transitioning from home-based to medium-luxury salons. These businesses often seek well-known branded lashes to elevate their new luxurious image.

Understanding your customers’ needs is crucial. By dividing them into smaller groups, you can gain deeper insights into their specific requirements and tailor your communication accordingly.

2. Value propositions

Value propositions are what you offer your target customers. They make their lives easier, address their pain points, and maximize their benefits.

For example, lash artists with limited client might struggle to afford a wide range of lashes in their stock. They may need to purchase the right type on demand. You can help by offering “Same-day delivery of various lashes”

3. Channels

Your lash business delivers value to customers through various channels. For example, if you sell “lash trays”, your channels could be an online store or a physical storefront. If you also offer “advice”, you might use an online blog, product details on your website, or instant messaging services.

4. Customer Relationships

What kind of relationships do you want to build with your customers? Let me give you two examples.

Many lash academies and supply services create Facebook groups to support thousands of lash artists, not just with product purchases but also with business-related advice. This is a great way to foster customer relationships.

Another example is lash brands creating blogs on their websites to share valuable knowledge. They become trusted sources of information for lash artists, not just sellers of lash trays.

5. Revenue stream

You have to list out the way you got the money. Ex: Revenue from selling products, selling online courses, subscriptions fees…. to later balance with your cost.

6. Key Resources

You can’t create value for your customers without resources. If you don’t understand the key resources your lash supplies business needs, you risk investing money in the wrong areas. These resources can be human, financial, physical, or intellectual. In the next part of this article, we’ll discuss some essential resources for a successful lash supplies business.

7. Key Activities

The most important activities in executing a company’s value proposition. For example, with a lash supplies business, the key activities might be: sourcing and mange supply chain for high and stable quality of products… Managing a good operation to make sure that all orders will be processed smoothly, running Ads or building a strong brand to keep attracting customers….

8. Key Partners

Sometimes, there are key activities that you can’t perform effectively or efficiently on your own. Additionally, you might lack certain key resources or be unable to afford them. In these cases, you need partners who can provide those resources or assist you with the key activities.”

For examples, to have lashes to sever the needs of lash artists there, you basically need to “develop and produce the lashes” and “ship the lashes”. A lash manufacturer in Vietnam can help you on all of those key activities. Sen Lash Factory Vietnam is a good example of a lash manufacturer offering the comprehensive support services.

9. Cost

You have to master the structure of our cost, have an estimation of both fixed cost and variable cost. And then later, control everything under than estimation.

Key Success Factors of a Lash Supplies Business

Using the Business Model Canvas to analyze hundreds of sucessful lash supplies bussiness, we found there are 3 common key success factors:

• Having the right stock at the right time
• Having a proper operation
• Having a good relationship with your potential customers

From the hundreds of tasks involved in starting a lash supplies business, prioritize these three Key Success Factors.

How can a lash suppplies business have the right stock at the right time?

These are step by step basic instruction:

Step 1: Define the right stock

No one has enough money to stock everything, and no one can sell everything. Below are some simple ways to get to know which type of product you can sell well:

• Talk with a lash artists or lash salon.
• Spy on your competitor.
• Analyzing from Micro to Macro factors.

For more details, you can refer to the following post:

• How to defind the right stock of lashes that I should have
• How to spy our competitors

Step 2: Build an optimized supply chain

Selecting the right suppliers and building strong relationships with them is key to having an optimized supply chain. To ensure the availability of the right products at the right time, you primarily need to perform the following tasks:

• Designing the products.
• Sampling and developing the product.
• Have the product massively produced.
• Have the product transported and delivered to your warehouse.

You can choose a supplier who can assist you with all of these tasks, or divide them among several services and work with multiple partners. The choice is yours. Refer to the following post to select suitable suppliers for your business.

Step 3: Implementation and Trial run

Take this opportunity to gauge your customers’ reactions to both your products and your communication effectiveness. Any research conducted in advance can only be determined as accurate or inaccurate after implementing your business in reality. Your efforts to increase customer awareness of your products and services also consume a significant amount of time and money. Therefore, Quick Tests and A/B tests are now the most efficient and effective methods for obtaining genuine customer insights.

Step 4: Continuously build and adjust your forecast

You need to have the stock in advance, but how much advance? It’s actually an easy question to answer but not everyone know the logic behind.

To have stock in your warehouse, you need to place your order to your lash supplier in advance (of production and transportation leadtime). At the time of order placement, you have to make the decision based on your forcast. And to have a good forecast, you should have tested them in several weeks. If you think that you need at least 2 months to test the forecast, you should have started building the forecast 2 month in advance.

You can also refer to a deeper sharing on this topic: How to build the sales and purchasing forecast?

How can your lash supplies biz have a proper operation?

The ultimate purpose of having a proper operation here is to ensure that the customers receive their lashes in the most satisfiving way possible. To achieve this, you should carefully consider these three criterias:

• The accuracy of your operation
• The speed of your operation
• The experience your operation provides to your customers

The secret to a successful operation lies in keeping it as simple as possible. Avoid pursuing expensive tools or procedures that do not simplify your process. You can learn from your competitors, but do not blindly replicate their actions just because they appear impressive. Always justify your decisions with clear reasons that add value to your customers, rather than simply satisfying your ego.

How to build a good relationship with your potential customers?

It’s important to understand that, in today’s competitive business environment, customers often prefer to buy from suppliers with whom they have established a positive relationship. This means that if you want to sell lash trays, you need to offer your customers additional value or benefits. Moreover, customers may expect to receive some of these benefits even before making a purchase.

Consider this example: A lash brand establishes a blog that shares valuable knowledge for lash artists. Over time, lash artists often rely on such websites as a reliable source of information, significantly aiding their daily work. They trust these websites. A relationship is formed. When these lash artists require quality lashes, they are more likely to purchase from the trusted website.

The key to building strong relationships with your potential customers lies in considering the value you can provide before, during, and after sales. Strive to offer some of these benefits for free, as doing so can significantly increase customer awareness and trust.

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