How Do You Dropship Lashes? Worth it? [LOWDOWN]

Fake eyelashes are in demand. In today’s society, it has become part of a woman’s arsenal of fashion items. I once had a friend who asked me, “How do I start dropshipping fake eyelashes?” this question prompted me to investigate further. When a product gets hot, dropshippers usually follow 🙂

The result of that investigation is this guide on how to dropship lashes? These are the things I will share with you today:

• Is selling eyelashes profitable?
• Where can you find suppliers?
• How do you start dropshipping lashes?
• Things you need to know about

Consider this as a tutorial for beginners—by the end of this post, you should be able to decide whether you want to pursue this business or not. You should also be equipped with the right guidance on what tools you need to get started.

Is selling eyelashes profitable?

Going through Amazon, I realized that eyelashes are mostly sold as kits. Most of them come in at least four different pairs, plus an eyeliner that matches the color. This eyeliner is actually more than that—it is like a glue that holds the eyelashes in place.

On average, the eyelashes are priced between $16 and $21 for the complete set. This price does not yet include shipping.

Heading over to AliExpress, we can see that eyelashes are sold either by pack or by strip. One strip of eyelashes costs less than $5, but this does not include the eyelash glue. If you search AliExpress separately for eyelash glue, the cost is about $8.

Now, you cannot sell these items as a bundle to be delivered on the same package. These products are sold by different sellers. However, what you can do is to create your own bundle, and then perhaps offer a free shipping for the other package.

If you search in AliExpress, there are many items there where the seller offers free shipping. What this means is you will not incur any extra cost if you offer free shipping.

Let us take a look at the profit potential, provided that the items you choose to sell do not have shipping fees.

• Eyelash – sell it for $10; your capital outlay is $4
• Eyelash glue – sell it for $10; your capital outlay is $2

Overall, your gross profit is $6 + $8 = $14.

At a profit of $14 and a capital outlay of $6, your gross profit margin is 233%. From this, we can say that the business is profitable. If your only expense is your dropshipping store subscription, which I assume would be $29 for the Basic plan of Shopify, how many sets do you need to sell to break even?

You need to sell only two sets in a month, and your Shopify store is paid for already. If you sold ten sets in a month, your profit is $140, and your expense is $29, giving you a net profit of $111.  

Of course, this doesn’t include your promotion costs for selling your lashes. Also, bundling two items from a supplier can be problematic. What if one product arrives a lot faster than the other? It’s not a great customer experience. If you can find a supplier that offers the items pre-bundled, this would be much better!

Where can you find suppliers?

In our example, we used AliExpress as the source of the product. As a dropshipper, AliExpress is your primary product source. It is a one of the biggest marketplaces in the world, and most of your products will certainly come from China.

To make your product search less stressful, you could use a dropship supplier tool. There are three that I highly recommend. These three are Oberlo, Spocket, and SaleHoo.

• Oberlo – a dropship supplier plug-in or app that you integrate with your Shopify store. From this software, you can search for eyelash suppliers from AliExpress and other suppliers. The Oberlo team sifts through the suppliers, which means only the best suppliers are shown in the directory.
• Spocket – this is like a clone of Oberlo. Like Oberlo, it is free to use with an option to upgrade. Both of them work in the same way. From your dashboard, you can choose products and import them to your store in a single click.
• SaleHoo – this company is independent of the Shopify universe. It cannot be integrated with your WooCommerce or Shopify store. As a supplier directory, you will contact your suppliers from your SaleHoo dashboard. SaleHoo is best used if you would like to do dropshipping on Amazon and on eBay.

All these three tools are directories. The companies have a team that vouch for their supplier members. Oberlo and Spocket are free, but Salehoo costs $67.

The benefit of using these tools is that you have a guarantee that you are dealing with a reliable supplier. They do the vetting on your behalf!  

How do you start dropshipping lashes?

Now, starting an eyelash dropshipping store is not any different from any dropshipping store. You need to first look for a reliable supplier.

Once you have completed that step, you can now start building your store.

What I strongly recommend is to build your store via Shopify. It is a platform where you can build your online store. At the cost of $29 per month, you would get a fully functional store, and you do not even have to learn how to code.

Once you have registered for a Shopify account. The next step is to choose a theme, and then upload your images. It is at this point where you have to also create your different pages, such as the terms and conditions, shipping terms, privacy policy, and others.

After this, you can integrate either Oberlo or Spocket, choose the products, and then import them to your store. Change the product descriptions and re-arrange the photos of your Shopify product pages—make sure that you study how to make tour product page attractive, and apply principles of how to create ad copy that converts.  

Things you need to know about

Now, there are some other things that I want to share with you to help you become successful.

• Target your buyer – when creating your ads, make sure that your message is geared towards a specific group of people—you can choose between teens and adults; create ads that target an event, such as using fake eyelashes for parties, or for cocktails, etc.
• Marketing – use different social media channels to your marketing advantage. Post your products on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.
• Liabilities – only choose eyelashes that are allergen-free. Always take the time to read the product labels and descriptions. Ask the supplier if you are not sure.
• Quality – there is no way you will know if the eyelashes you are selling are of good quality unless you order them yourself. Choose a product from a supplier and have it shipped to you. Inspect the item and see if the supplier is reliable. It will make your business more trustworthy and save you time dealing with returns!

Ordering the product also tells you how the supplier performs in terms of shipping. This should help you set the right expectations with your own consumers. If the supplier takes weeks to process an order, forget about it-choose a supplier who can get the product from his warehouse and pack it and ship it in reasonable time. If you really need a longer shipping time, make sure to warn your customers of this at checkout.

Get lashed!!

So, how do you dropship lashes?

You dropship them in the same way you dropship anything else. It all starts with finding out whether it is profitable or not (crunch those numbers). The next step is to identify your customer, and then see if there is a demand for this product.

Or you can create the demand. Remember, a demand for a product only increases your competition. Sometimes, lack of demand is better—it is you who create a demand by running ads that trigger impulse purchases. If you are in doubt, start with a small test run with lower budgets first!

Get your lash on! If you do it right you can make good money 🙂