If you’re really into your beard care regimen and enjoy getting your hands dirty and trying new business ventures, you may be interested in starting a beard care business.
Today, we wanted to share a solid foundation for creating a small online business specializing in beard care products.
Product Lineup
When you’re looking into starting a beard care business, you should, first of all, define your product lineup. You need to know what you’re planning on selling before you can even start creating a brand – after all, how can you market a business without knowing what to sell?
An initial lineup of products that we see a lot of beard care companies offer right away includes beard oils, beard balms, beard washes, mustache wax, styling tools, and merch.
If you’re not sure what you want to stock, it’s worth looking for emerging trends. One way to do so is by getting familiar with trends.google.com. The website allows you to explore interests in specific terms that people are currently searching on Google. Here, for example, we can see that beard wax might be breaking out of its usual trendline:
Scope the Competition
When building any business, it’s important to know who your competitors are, their product lineup, what specific markets they are targeting, and what price they sell their products.
Here’s a list of several beard care companies that are well-established that you can use for your research:
- Arlo’s
- Baxter of California
- Beardbrand
- Beauty and the Bees
- Billy Jealousy
- Bossman
- Bulldog Men’s Skincare and Grooming
- Cantu
- Crafted
- Cremo
- Dr. Squatch
- Duke Cannon Supply Co.
- Every Man Jack
- Gibs Grooming
- Grave Before Shave
- Hawkins & Brimble
- Honest Amish
- Jack Black
- Just for Men
- King C. Gillette
- Layrite
- Leven Rose
- Mad Viking Beard Co.
- Mitch
- Mountaineer Brand
- Old Spice
- Percy Nobleman
- Scotch Porter
- SheaMoisture
- Striking Viking
- The Art of Shaving
- The Blades Grim
- The Gentlemen’s Beard
- Tom Ford
- V76 by Vaughn
- Viking Revolution
- Wild Willies
- ZEUS
Market Research
Aside from competitors, you must get a deep understanding of your potential customers. Online communities are great for this. In this post, we share several online beard forums. Visit these communities regularly, understand common pain points, and get involved by answering questions.
Names for Your Beard Care Company
Once you know what you want to sell, you need to create a name for your business. You can, of course, try to think of a name yourself. Or, if you are looking for some inspiration, Shopify has a great name generator that you can use.
It’s essential to find a name that works well with your target market. For example, masculinity and authenticity are common themes among beard care brands. Additionally, your company name can hint at your specific offering – especially if you plan to target a particular market, such as beard growth, beard conditioning, homemade products, high-end products, or low-cost products. Just be careful not to box yourself into a category should you want to expand five years from now.
Register the Domain
You will then have to register the domain for your beard care business. This gives you sole use of that URL, meaning that you can use it for your beard care brand’s website. One of the best places to register a domain is with Namecheap, as it is affordable, secure, and easy to use.
Host the Site
How you choose to host your site depends on how hands-on you want to be. You can easily use Shopify to sell products, but you will have to pay a subscription cost plus a percentage of each transaction. This can quickly add up and eat into your profits.
Alternatively, you can choose to self-host. This is great for anyone willing to put more work into their business and want total control over the process. The most popular open-source platform for websites is WordPress. With WordPress you can install WooCommerce, a popular plugin for selling products.
To host your site, we recommend Kinsta. Kinsta.com is easy to use, has excellent customer service, and is built on top of world-class servers.
Incorporate the Business
To set up a legal business, you need to incorporate your company. How exactly you have to do this, and the exact process will differ from state to state, so it is worth checking your local regulations. Once you’re ready, plenty of online services allow you to incorporate; one of the most popular services is LegalZoom. Alternatively, you can find a local small business law firm to help you out.
Make the Product Yourself
When it comes to creating or sourcing your products, its best to make the product yourself. A hands-on approach ensures that you’re using authentic ingredients and providing the customer with an all-around better product. It also means you can be mindful of any expiration dates on your products, reducing the risk of any adverse reactions or poor reviews when your customers use the product.
You can opt to get the products made elsewhere with a private label manufacturer, but this instantly takes manufacturing and control out of your hands. You would also have to place minimum batch orders, leaving you products that require the cost of storage and potentially expiring if you don’t sell enough.
Fulfillment
Getting your product out to your customers can be done a few different ways. You can either self-ship (good when first starting out) or use a fulfillment center. When using a fulfillment center, try to find a nearby business that can easily and affordably send your products.
Branding
If you’re not a confident artist or designer, there are ways to create a logo and label that don’t involve learning graphic design from scratch. For example, you can hire a designer on Upwork or Fiverr to create your logo and label. You can just pay them a one-off charge and provide them with your ideas and any draft designs you might have sketched.
Labeling Requirements
The beauty industry is loosely regulated, but there are some standards that you must follow when it comes to creating labels for your beard care products. Check out the FDA’s Summary of Cosmetics Labeling Requirements to learn more.
Starter Recipes
Making your product may sound daunting, but it is relatively easy, especially if you follow a simple recipe! To help you out, check out our detailed guides on how to make some popular beard care products:
Watch for This When Testing
Keep the following in mind when designing your products:
Allergic Reactions
Certain ingredients may cause allergic reactions in your customers. Just because an ingredient is natural does not always mean that it is safe to use. Research your ingredients before using them and include a full ingredients list on your website for each product.
It is also important to know about contact dermatitis, a red and itchy rash caused by an allergic reaction to a product (source). You should know what to do and how to react when a customer experiences this to provide them with the right advice and quality customer service.
Fragrances
Fragrances will be something you play around with the most when designing products. Therefore, you will need to do market research to see which fragrances are the most popular among men. It would also benefit you to learn the fragrance wheel, as this helps determine which fragrances pair well together (source).
Marketing
Marketing is incredibly important when starting a beard care business, and it is something that you should be considering throughout the entire process. You need to put your brand out there and make sure people hear about you and what value you provide. You can do this through social media like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube and discuss your product in detail on your website.
When using social media to market your brand, following trends that fit your products is a great way to appear on people’s feeds. You can also benefit from using hashtags and creating connections with ‘influencers’ or people with large followings that might enjoy your brand.
Costs
What’s the point of starting a business if it’s not profitable? Be sure to track all revenue and expenses carefully. Get familiar with Google Sheets (it’s free) and keep a close eye on where costs might be eating into your bottom line.
Sell it Everywhere
Logically, the more places you list your product, the bigger the funnel, and hopefully the more sales you generate. That’s why we recommend listing your products everywhere that you can. It is easier than ever to list on multiple websites, which can really benefit small businesses.
Some of the best websites to get your listings on include:
It is also worth searching for and pursuing online boutique businesses, local barbershops, small drugstores, etc.
Remember Us When You’re Famous
Be sure to share this information with any other entrepreneurs who could benefit from it, and when your beard care business really starts to kick off, tell us! We want to hear all about your success!