Should You Start Your Own Hair Extension Company? Part One

Welcome to the world of hair extensions. You’ve probably started wearing extensions and now you’re thinking about selling them yourself.

Should you get into this lucrative, yet fleeting business of selling hair weave online?

Stick with me for a moment as I expose this dark side of the business....and you can make this decision for yourself.




Selling hair extensions doesn’t require a lot of overhead. If you want to do this, I suggest you take some business classes first, so that you can get acquainted with the terms and how business is done. Don’t get into something that you know very little about. You don’t want to open yourself up to lawsuits because you promised things you couldn’t deliver. If you know a bit about Contract and Tort Law, that helps too because you’ll enter in many buyers agreements, contracts, sales and other issues that will come up. If you don’t have a clue what any of that is, then turn your computer off and learn them.  Know the basics, please.

Know what it takes to do business in your state and learn about taxes. Are you going to have more employees? Then you’ll be paying taxes. Going to have more than ten employees? In some states, you will have to contribute to the Unemployment tax. If you don’t know the laws in your state, you just can’t claim ignorance of the law. This won’t work. You don’t want to pay your state heavy fines, and in some cases, even go to jail because you didn’t take the time to learn these things.

In order to sell hair, you will need a good vendor that you will develop a good relationship with. Depending on how profitable your business is, you will need this vendor to deliver a certain amount o f hair extensions a month to keep up with your demand.

In this game, word of mouth is your friend. Youtube “Gurus” are all the rave and can happily sell your product for you. Think about sending them free extensions in exchange for a review. This is also a contractual relationship, so make sure you know what you’re stipulating in writing. Also make sure that they are making this review contingent on the truth, rather them lying just to get free hair. There are those out there willing to say good things for free hair, but if you’re exposed that same word of mouth that put thousands in your pocket will now desert you so fast, your head will spin.

People will write negative stories about you and even do negative YouTube reviews saying that you’re not honest. You don’t want to be a fraud. Because it’s not right AND you could be breaking the law in your municipality or state.

So you’ve found the perfect vendor (s) and you’re ready to sell.

GREAT!

Now you need a website to sell. You need marketing vehicles and a gimmick to get more to buy from you. You will need the best extensions at a good price and the orders will come flying in like you wouldn’t believe.

DRAWBACKS. 

This is the truth.

Asians run this beauty market which is a billion dollar business. They have cornered the market and you will need to break through this to be able to sell. Those who own beauty supply stores know what I’m talking about. Many times, buyers have told stories of racism within the Asian community and how they mark up prices for those “outside their community”, while keeping the prices low for Asian buyers.

This is why you see so many Asian owned beauty supplies in black neighborhoods. Some of the Asian wholesalers have been accused of selling their products at a higher cost to those outside of their community. So, it’s hard for black people to sell these products to their own people. It’s not fair but that’s the game that you must play if you want to sell these products.

Since they own the market, you will simply have to be smart about what you’re doing. Im not saying that they are all racist. Not at all. I’m saying that there is already an uphill battle to fight with many of these vendors. These accusations have been flying between our communities for decades. Once you get past all that, your work isn’t done. You will continue to have to maintain good relationships with these vendors. They need a good working relationship with us also. Especially if they want to make money.

Of course they do. It’s symbiotic really.

Once you find these vendors, and your marketing plan together, now you’re ready to sit back and wait for the orders so that you can fill them.

The problem? The more demand for the product, the prices will go up. When the prices go up for you, you will then pass that adjustment onto your customer. This is where many people start to see them paying more for the same hair extensions. Make sure you price them accordingly. Be competitive but leave yourself room to make some profit. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself working for free.

Also, the more orders that come in, the vendors will have a harder time to fill them. Quality often GOES DOWN. You need to be able to stay on top of this, but remember, others are trying to find the perfect vendor of a lifetime too.

If your vendor runs out of hair and /or stops providing quality hair, your business is stuck now. You no longer have a vendor and you have orders piling up.
This is where your business education should come in to help you on your feet. Or know when you’re done.

Companies lie Lanik’s Hair had a good product, but they never had hair to stay in business. Just recently, HairAddictOnline is about to go out of business. It’s a tricky business and you may need to do a few things to stay on top, if you ever make it there.

There are some alternatives. If you’re not ready to do all this legwork yourself, you can just sell extensions for another company.

Mayvenn Hair extensions has “private contractors” so to speak and you purchase hair extensions from them, and resell them. This is sort of like being the “Avon Lady of Hair Weave.” This could be a great alternative if you’re willing to still sell hair but not willing to find vendors and all that.