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Looking for how to start a dropshipping business? Interested in selling beauty products? You’ve come to the perfect place to explore how to step into the world of skincare entrepreneurship and learn everything about dropshipping businesses.

Any business idea and venture can be tricky to wrap your head around at first, but dropshipping eases quite a few steps for you if we compare starting a business through more traditional methods. But it can still become a sustainable source of income in the long run when you do it right!

If you’re passionate about skincare and to take the leap into entrepreneurship, keep reading! This guide will show you exactly how to transform your vision into reality with dropshipping, all in just a few simple steps.

Table of Contents

What Is a Dropshipping Business and How Does It Work

First, let’s go through the dropshipping basics, the A–Z of it all, before we learn how to start a successful dropshipping business.

Dropshipping is a business model where you sell products online but don’t hold any inventory yourself. You don’t produce, package, or ship the products you sell, instead you work with a partner or partners that do those things for you.

This way you can focus on other parts of the business such as marketing or customer relations.

Here’s a simple step-by-step of how it works:

A customer buys a product from your website or an ecommerce platform (more of these later!) and pays you the retail price,
You forward the order to your supplier and pay them manufacturing cost,
Your supplier makes or picks the product, and sends it directly to your customer.
Ta-da, you pocket the profit and everyone’s happy! 😄

Dropshipping is popular business model and favorable compared to other methods due to many factors:

It has a low entry barrier. You don’t have to invest in products upfront or worry about overhead expenses, plus you only pay your supplier once the customer has made an order.
You can test different products quickly and efficiently, and you won’t be drowning in unsold stock either.
You’re flexible to work from anywhere and as much as you’re willing. Dropshipping is an excellent side hustle for beginners, but it’s also scalable if you’re willing to put in the work.

beauty products stacked on boxes — Selfnamed Skincare Product Sample Set

Is Dropshipping Still Worth It?

I get it and I’ve heard it all. Some more seasoned entrepreneurs and online enthusiasts are sceptical of dropshipping as a business model in 2026 and honestly? That’s fair.

Let me tell you why it’s important you know of these doubts that are floating around before you go look at how to start a dropshipping business.

The main concerns about dropshipping are that the whole space is oversaturated. It’s hard to differentiate and margins are really low. This concern is definitely justified because a lot of dropshipping business owners are using dated strategies and selling the same generic old products as everyone else. To them I say: keep up with the times!

Dropshipping is very much still worth it if you’re researching exciting new product categories to sell (like skincare), perfecting your branding, being aware of trends, and creating an excellent experience for your customers. It’s really about the mix of it all, because you can’t expect success if you sell plastic fidget spinners on a no-name online store in 2025, right?

The numbers speak for themselves — the dropshipping market is expected to reach $1 billion by 2030. It just proves that dropshipping businesses that are putting in the work are still very much reaping the rewards this model offers.

You shouldn’t, however, be intimidated by the high standards dropshippers are now held onto. It’s not a coincidence that it attracts people who are creators, first time entrepreneurs, and folks that just want to experiment with ecommerce and online side hustles. The beauty of dropshipping is that it’s easy to do bit by bit and starting with, for example, a strong hero product before committing to something more.

It’s a good sign you’re searching how to start a dropshipping business. You’ve made more effort than most already! I encourage you to hold these standards as a guiding light rather than a restriction, and give dropshipping a go.

Why Skincare is a Strong Niche for a Dropshipping Business

Bottom line, we’re here to see whether dropshipping skincare is a good idea. Sorry, I have to spoil it for you: it is!

No matter if you’re looking at how to start a dropshipping business in the US, Europe, or around the world, it makes sense wherever you decide to sell your beauty products, and here’s why:

Skincare is something most of us use every day (or at least with some regularity), so the same as you and I, your customers will always have a need for it.
Skincare isn’t seasonal either — it’s not swimsuits or puffer jackets, your customers need to nourish their skin both in winter and in summer.
You have excellent branding and storytelling opportunities as often beauty is about how it makes us feel and whether the brand aligns with our values. Beauty brands can capture customers through the stories of the ingredients, the packaging, sustainability aspects, and much more.
It allows you to craft a place in a specific niche. Skincare is so diverse and so are your customers! When you clearly define things like what skin concerns your products address, you’re defining your audience more clearly and differentiate your brand from mass-market competitors.

These are just a few of the advantages skincare dropshipping opens up for you as a business owner, I’m sure you’ll unveil many more once you take the plunge. Now, let’s learn how to start a dropshipping business for real, shall we?

How to Start a Dropshipping Business Step by Step

Step 1: Do Your Research

So, you have decided to start a skincare dropshipping business with skincare, what now? You need to conduct thorough competitor research. Begin by exploring other skincare brands in the market – see what they're selling; analyze their visual identity; look at how they are marketing their products; note their pricing and customer reviews. This kind of research will help you understand the competitive landscape and how you could stand out with your brand.

Your research will help you pinpoint your ideal target market and understand which products to sell by looking at best selling items and current market trends. This approach ensures you select products that appeal to your audience and maximize your profit potential.

You'll often see the term “niche” in ecommerce resources, which is key to success. This is because the chances to be successful if you’re catering to a specific niche are much better. It gives you your own specific audience and, thus, less competition to worry about.

Here’s an example of a niche: Skincare products for chemistry students, where your designs consist of molecular patterns. You can put a chemistry formula cheat sheet or pun on the product packaging.

Some ways to go about your competitor research are:

Run a Google search — try using Google tools, like, Google Trends.
Use competitor spy tools like Similarweb, Niche Scrapper, Sell The Trend or others.
Browse social media.
Review product descriptions and product images on competitor sites to see how they present their best-selling items.

Step 2: Choose A Dropshipping Supplier

Selecting the right dropshipping supplier is a critical decision that can make or break your new venture. It is essential to partner with reliable dropshipping suppliers that not only offer a wide range of products but also maintain high product quality, as this ensures you can meet diverse customer needs and build trust in your brand. When searching and evaluating potential partners look for suppliers that offer a wide range of high quality, clean beauty skincare products, reliable shipping options, competitive pricing, and excellent customer service. Other factors to consider are product availability, fast order processing times, and available online store integrations.

Efficient inventory management, streamlined order fulfillment, and fast shipping are crucial for customer satisfaction and the long-term success of your dropshipping business. Some dropshipping suppliers also provide auto-ordering features, which can help automate the fulfilment process and reduce manual effort.

Selfnamed offers a wide range of sustainable, high quality products that you can customise with your brand. Selfnamed also provides customizable package options, allowing you to brand each package with your logo and design for a professional customer experience. We have put years into product research and ingredient sourcing to make sure the end product is not only effective, but also aligned with clean beauty principles - friendly to your skin and the environment.

The very essence of Selfnamed products lies in the active ingredients sourced from flowers and herbs from the Baltic meadows and forests. The unique natural environment of the Baltic region contributes to the potency of these ingredients.

Our products are Natural and Organic Certified according to the international COSMOS standard by ECOCERT Greenlife. All products comply with the necessary regulations, so you can legally sell them in the EU, UK, and the USA.

If you plan on starting your skincare dropshipping business with Selfnamed, know – you’re in the hands of industry professionals, who want to see your business reach new heights.

Step 3: Build Your Ecommerce Store

Next thing on your skincare dropshipping business to-do list is building your ecommerce store. This will be the home where you send traffic, showcase and sell products, and process payments. Selfnamed currently offers direct integrations with three of the biggest ecommerce store platforms in the world: Shopify, WooCommerce (Woo), and Squarespace.

These platforms make it easy to build and launch your ecommerce website, from finding a domain name to adding marketing and sales plug-ins. Between the three, there are an estimated 10 million-plus users who’ve earned billions of dollars, globally. They are complete commerce platforms that allow you to sell in multiple places (including online stores), sell in multiple currencies, and easily manage products and accept payments.

You don’t have to have design skills or be a developer to use any of these platforms. Once you sign up, you get access to a variety of themes and store templates (free and paid). Shopify, WooCommerce, and Squarespace also offer a streamlined process for managing multiple stores and automating key aspects of your dropshipping business operations, from product sourcing to order fulfillment.

If you need help deciding which platform to choose for your business, here's a brief comparison.

table showing difference between shopify and woocommerce

Step 4: Decide On a Business Structure

If you’re serious about starting a skincare business, you may want to set up a legitimate business entity. The dropshipping model is especially ideal for small businesses, as it often does not require order minimums or minimum order quantities, making it easier for entrepreneurs to start without upfront costs or holding inventory.

Unfortunately, we haven’t gone to law school, so we can’t offer legal advice. Please note, that business structures may differ from country to country. For example, in the USA, most small entrepreneurs (ecommerce sellers) tend to go with either a sole proprietorship or an LLC.

Furthermore, it’s important to check the tax requirements in your country – or in the case of the USA, in your specific state. For example, if Selfnamed products are sent to a business in another EU country, we don’t charge VAT if you have a valid EU VAT number, and you have been approved as a verified status in your Selfnamed profile. You can learn more about our billing and taxes policy here.

We strongly recommend consulting with a lawyer before deciding on a business structure.

Step 5: Get Your Finances In Order

A common mistake entrepreneurs make is mixing their personal finances with business finances. This often causes confusion, makes accounting more difficult, can lead to personal assumption of business liabilities, and is a big red flag for tax audits.

To avoid unnecessary headache, we recommend keeping your business and personal finances separate as much as possible. The best way to do that is by opening up a new account in your business’s name. Another way is to keep all your business-related finances in your PayPal account and operate with that as much as possible. However, once your skincare business really takes off, a separate bank account would be a smart move.

How much money you earn with your skincare dropshipping business is totally up to you, as you are in charge of the profit margins. When setting your prices, remember to factor in shipping fees and consider offering discounted prices on bundle deals to increase your profit margin.

Tracking customer orders and ensuring timely processing is also essential to maintain a healthy cash flow. We recommend reading this article to understand how to earn money with Selfnamed, before launching your store.

Step 6: Market Your Dropshipping Store

Now that you have all the steps on how to start a skincare dropshipping business, it’s time to talk about marketing your new store and attracting your ideal customers. To stand out in the beauty industry, you may want to put extra effort into your marketing strategies and advertising efforts when building your business plan. Effective branding and product positioning can help you stand out when dropshipping beauty products.

Here are different ways to market your store:

Paid ads (Meta and Google). Facebook ads allow for scalable advertising campaigns that can effectively tap into impulse buying behaviors. You can also run Google Shopping Ads to target long-tail keywords, reaching shoppers who are often closer to making a purchase decision.
Influencer marketing. This can be an affordable way to reach your target audience because people tend to trust influencer recommendations more than traditional advertising. Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram are ideal for these collaborations.
Content Marketing. Perfect for building a long-term stream of organic traffic for your store. You can start a blog around your dropshipping niche, creating content that both entertains and educates your audience. If written format blogs aren’t your thing, explore YouTube or podcasts as options to spread the word about your brand.
Communities. Get involved with groups of people who are passionate about your niche. Start conversations with potential customers on Reddit, Facebook Groups, or other online forums. The aim here is to genuinely help and build relationships, fostering trust that can naturally lead to customers wanting to buy from your brand.
Email marketing. A powerful tool for dropshipping beauty stores, as it helps build long-lasting relationships with customers and encourages repeat purchases. By consistently sending targeted, personalised content, you can increase customer engagement and boost sales over time.
Leverage beauty dropshipping trends. Use social media to promote your beauty brand and your online store, highlight the skincare products that are on high demand, and showcase your own brand’s unique branding to attract beauty enthusiasts.

Step 7: Analyse And Improve Your Offering

Once your skincare brand is established, you have picked out the best cosmetics products, and you have launched your online store, start looking at the results of your hard work and check your store analytics. Ask yourself this:

What are my best-performing products?
Where should I put more ad funds for optimal return?
Who are my best customers?
Are people buying more on desktop or mobile? And what’s the conversion rate for each device?
Which skincare products and variants are the most profitable?
How are my sales and gross profits looking like month over month?
Am I staying profitable after covering all the store fees at the end of the month?
What other skincare products or features my customers have asked for?

As you analyze product performance, consider expanding your product line to include high-quality body care, hair care, and bath products to increase customer satisfaction. Creating new solutions based on customer feedback and market demand can help address specific needs and set your brand apart. You may also want to explore developing a dedicated line of skincare products that tackle specific concerns as part of your business growth strategy.

Also, don’t forget to check in on your competitors, especially those in the same niche as you. Are they raising or lowering their prices? How often are they adding new products? What can you do more, to drive even more traffic to your store?

Answers to all of these questions above will help you decide on how your business should develop further on. Don’t be scared to experiment by switching things up for products that don’t sell so well. Perhaps they need a more compelling description or title. Perhaps it’s possible to change the packaging design, or maybe your customers don’t have enough information about the product, so you might need to push more on influencer marketing.

Whatever your first results are, don’t give up – keep going! In most cases, it takes a bit of time for things to pick up and for customers to notice your store. But, by staying consistent, things are bound to improve. So, enough waiting around – start your skincare dropshipping business and work towards financial freedom!

Common Mistakes When Starting a Dropshipping Business

When you’re looking at how to start a dropshipping business, it’s valuable to be on top of common dropshipper’s pitfalls to be able to avoid them on your own journey. What was that old saying: failing to prepare is preparing to fail?

Your Niche is Too Broad

You’ve gone through all the steps above, but do you remember what was said in #1? Having a niche is the key to success!

Many new businesses get understandably confused, and think that they’ll sell to everyone, because more people means more profit, and all that. It may sound like it makes sense, but in reality, when you sell to everybody, you’re actually selling to nobody.

It means your niche is too broad and you don’t stand out, therefore your brand’s not attracting customers. All customers have specific needs and wants which you can address by narrowing your niche.

Being Afraid of Trial and Error

No matter if you choose dropshipping or any other model to build your business around, things do not always go according to plan.

A big mistake new dropshipping entrepreneurs make is giving up hope after the first problems. Perhaps your first supplier’s products didn’t match your quality expectations, or your customers complain of having too few payment options. Sure, it’s not great to hear either of those things, but the beauty of dropshipping is that you’re flexible. With minimal risk, you can always change your supplier, test more products, research possibilities of your ecommerce platform, and so on.

Skipping Competitor Research

Thanks to our little how to start a dropshipping business handbook (or rather this article), we know your brand to be different from others and stand out with something special. So far, so good.

No matter how different and unique your business is, you’ll always have competitors to some extent. You have to thoroughly research them to know things like the ball park of your pricing and if your brand fills an important gap in the market.

Skimping on Marketing

When you’ve successfully launched your store, it might feel like you’re on cloud nine. Deservedly so, because you’ve done a lot of work to get where you are! But just know it doesn’t stop there, actually, that’s just the beginning.

Even the best and most effective products in the world won’t sell without marketing. The good news is that nowadays you have a lot of options, especially in the online space, you just need to dip your toes into more than one channel or avenue, and be ready to always learn more about things like paid ads, search engine optimization, influencer marketing etc.

How To Start Your Own Skincare Line Using Selfnamed

Selfnamed is here to help create your own skincare line by making the process as simple and seamless as possible. Selfnamed enables you to launch your own private label skin care and hair care product line, allowing you to customize and expand your offerings to suit your brand and market needs. As soon as you decide on your ideal customer and product range, there are only a few simple steps to take:

Select product sample sets. You can choose from a variety of high quality, organic or natural certified skincare products made in Northern Europe.
Add your style. Selfnamed offers an easy-to-use design studio to create labels and packaging. You can work with pre-made print-ready templates or create designs from scratch. You can also choose our design service to help you showcase your unique brand and attract customers.
Start selling your products. There are no minimum order quantities, meaning you can easily adjust the volume to your needs.

Before making a custom order, we recommend looking at our sample set selection. These sets contain curated product lines for different skin types, letting you choose the best products for your brand. This way you can test the products — their consistencies, textures, fragrances, as well as packaging quality.

These are the basic steps on how to start your own private label skincare line from the comfort of your home. Best of luck with your new endeavour!

Frequently Asked Questions

In your quest of finding out how to start a dropshipping business, you should do the following: find your niche and research your customers, find an ecommerce platform, get your finances in order to launch a business, market your store, and analyze your product offering.
You don’t need money to start a dropshipping business, because you don’t hold any inventory on hand, and you only pay your supplier once your customer has paid you or made an order in your store.
The first and most critical step is doing your research. You need to analyze the competitive landscape by looking at other brands, their products, pricing, and marketing strategies. This research helps you find a profitable niche, define your target audience, and choose products with high demand, setting a strong foundation for your business.
The main benefit of the dropshipping model is that it allows you to start a beauty brand with minimal upfront costs and no need to hold inventory. You don't have to pay for products until a customer places an order, which significantly reduces financial risk and makes entrepreneurship accessible for new business owners. Your dropshipping supplier handles inventory, packaging, and shipping, freeing you to focus on marketing and brand building.
To successfully market your store, you should use a mix of strategies. Start with paid ads on platforms like Meta and Google to drive immediate traffic. Leverage influencer marketing to build trust and reach new audiences through recommendations. You can also create long-term traffic with content marketing, such as a blog or YouTube channel, and foster customer loyalty with email marketing and engaging in niche communities.
Skincare dropshipping business in 2026 can be highly profitable, but also it depends how you run your business, and how much you invest back in marketing.
Skincare is profitable to dropship because of the customers’ continuous use and need for your products, as well as its diverse niches to choose from.

How to Start a Dropshipping Business in 7 Easy Steps