How To Sell Skincare Wholesale?

For skincare brands, moving into wholesale is a huge step. It’s not just about shipping larger boxes — you’re managing retailer expectations, protecting margins, handling compliance, and ensuring your products move off the shelf. Wholesale can open the door to steady, high-volume orders, but it comes with unique complexities like shelf life, regulatory standards, and retail training.

This guide is your step-by-step playbook to sell skincare wholesale on an ecommerce platform. From pricing and compliance to buyer outreach and Shopify setup, here’s everything you need to know.

Step 1: Get your Foundation in Place

Before approaching a single retailer, you need to establish a solid foundation. To achieve this, focus on these three building blocks:

1. Landed Cost: This is the most important figure. It’s the true, per-unit cost of a product ready to be sold, including all the expenses of the beauty industry, such as raw materials, packaging, manufacturing, compliance, inbound freight, storage, and handling.
   
2. Wholesale Price: This is the price you sell your products to a retailer for. It must be high enough to cover your landed cost and your own target margin, but low enough to leave room for the retailer to make a profit.
   
3. MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price): This is the price the retailer sells your product to the end customer for. It’s the price your brand positioning and the market can support. In skincare, retailers typically expect a 45–60% margin.

Example: If your serum costs $5.50 to produce (landed cost) and you want to sell it at $28 retail (MSRP), a wholesale price of ~$14 gives the retailer a 50% margin while leaving you with over 60%.

Step 2: Ensure Compliance and Documentation

When establishing a trustworthy brand through the right business entity, it’s essential to consider various aspects, including local regulations, compliance laws, and necessary documentation. Wholesale skincare buyers take these regulations very seriously. Make sure to have the following prepared:

• INCI ingredient lists (international standard format)
• Batch numbers & expiry dates clearly marked
• Safety Data Sheets (SDS) for shipping and handling
• Certifications (organic, cruelty-free, FDA/EU compliance, etc.)

Step 3: Set Your Wholesale Terms (MOQs and Discount Tiers)

Your wholesale policies define how you work with retailers:

• MOQs (Minimum Order Quantities): Encourage efficient orders without creating overstock. Example: 12–24 units per SKU.
  
• Tiered Discounts: Keep it simple — 2–3 tiers max, tied to logistical efficiency (e.g., full case orders)
  
• Payment Terms: Decide whether you’ll accept Net 30/60 or stick with upfront payments for new accounts.
  
• Returns & Expiry Policy: Spell out clearly who is responsible for expired stock.

Step 4: Build your Online Wholesale Store

Once you have addressed the landed costs, profit margins, retail discounts, legal and compliance documentation, and wholesale terms, it’s time to build an online wholesale store and list your products. This will allow you to invite B2B buyers to purchase your skincare products at wholesale prices.

You’ll need assets and systems to make selling wholesale smooth:

1. Line Sheet / Catalog (PDF): Includes SKUs, wholesale price, MSRP, MOQs, and ordering instructions.
   
2. Samples & Testers: Common policy = 1 free tester for every 12 units purchased.
   
3. Brand Education Packet: Ingredient benefits, usage instructions, marketing images — helps retailers sell better.
   
4. Wholesale Website or Portal: A gated area where approved buyers can view pricing and place bulk orders.

You can build a skincare wholesale store on Shopify with apps like:

• Wholesale Pricing Discount B2B – to offer custom pricing, MOQs, and tiers.
• Wholesale Lock Manager B2B – to hide pricing until login.
• WSH Order Form & ReOrder – to accept bulk orders, quick reorders on a single page.

Step 5: Find and Sell Skincare Wholesale to your B2B Buyer Audience

Once your skincare wholesale store is ready, you can start reaching out to your potential wholesale buyers for distribution. You can do this by leveraging your personal network connections, or exploring new ways, like:

• Boutiques & Salons: Reach out locally with samples and a line sheet.
• Spas & Aesthetic Clinics: Offer professional backbar sizes alongside retail SKUs.
• Trade Shows: BeautyCon, Cosmoprof, Indie Beauty Expo.
• B2B Marketplaces: Faire, Abound, Tundra, RangeMe, OrderChamp.
• Direct Outreach: LinkedIn, Instagram DM, or email to salon owners and spa managers.

And that’s it. This is how you start selling skincare wholesale on your e-commerce store.

Useful Skincare-Specific Wholesale Strategies

• Samples & Testers: Budget for them in your COGS — they’re not freebies, they’re marketing.
• Shelf Life Management: Encourage smaller, frequent orders to avoid expired stock issues.
• Backbar vs Retail Sizes: Create distinct SKUs for professional use in spas.
• Holiday Bundles: Offer pre-packed gift sets with light discounts. The value comes from curation, not margin cuts.

The 4-Point Playbook for Setting Skincare Pricing

1. Nail Down Your True Landed Cost

Your landed cost is more than just ingredients and packaging. In beauty, there are several “gotchas” you must include to avoid losing money on every order. Calculate your per-unit cost by adding up every expense:

(a) Raw Materials: Your formula, active ingredients, and base ingredients.
(b) Packaging: The bottle, jar, label, pump, and outer carton.
(c) Manufacturing: The cost for filling, lot coding, quality control, and testing.
(d) Compliance: An amortized cost for things like your PIF (Product Information File) in the EU or safety data sheets (SDS)
(e) Inbound Freight & Duties: The cost to ship the goods from your manufacturer to your warehouse, including any import duties
(f) Logistics & Handling: Fees for 3PL receiving, storage, and the per-unit cost of picking and packing.
(g) Overhead: A small buffer for payment processing fees and other operational expenses.

Note: If you ship internationally using DDP (Delivered Duty Paid), your import duties and fees will rise, meaning you should have a separate landed cost for each region you ship to.

2. Anchor Your MSRP and Target Your Retailer’s Margin

Once you have your landed cost, you can set your pricing. A common strategy is to start with the MSRP that the market will support, and then work backward to find a wholesale price.

For example, if your landed cost is $5.50 and you decide your product should sell for $28.00 MSRP, your wholesale price would need to be around $14.00 to give the retailer a 50% margin. This also leaves you with a very strong 60.7% margin.

You can use a wholesale price calculator to derive accurate pricing numbers. 

3. Set MOQs and Tiers That Make Sense

Your Minimum Order Quantities (MOQs) and tiered discounts must be strategic. They should encourage bigger orders while also respecting the short shelf life of many skincare products.

(a) Core SKUs: Set a reasonable MOQ of 12-24 units.
(b) Active Ingredients: For products with a shorter shelf life, like serums or retinoids, a lower MOQ of 12 units is better to prevent overstocking.
(c) Launch Kits: Create a mixed-SKU launch pack with a higher MOQ that helps new retailers get a feel for your whole line.
(d) Keep it Simple: Use just two or three tiers as tiered discounts. More tiers can confuse buyers.
(e) Tie to Logistics: Your breaks should be tied to real logistical efficiencies, such as buying in full cases or in quantities that optimize a pallet.
(f) Cap the Top Tier: Keep your top discount at or below 10% unless there’s a significant logistical saving to pass on.

4. Implement Your Skincare Pricing on Shopify Platform

To apply your pricing rules so they work automatically, do the following:

(a) If you’re on Shopify Plus: Use B2B price lists to assign tiered pricing and MOQs directly to your wholesale company profiles. However, Shopify Plus can be an expensive option for a lot of stores.

(b) If you’re on a non-Plus Plan: Use a suite of b2b apps to build a full wholesale system.

i. Wholesale Pricing Discount B2B: To set customer-specific tiered pricing and MOQs.

ii. Wholesale Lock Manager B2B: To hide your wholesale catalog and pricing until a partner logs in.

iii. WSH Order Form & ReOrder: To give your partners a fast, grid-style ordering form for refills.

Final Takeaway

Selling skincare wholesale is about more than lowering your price. It’s about:

1. Knowing your costs and margins.
2. Meeting compliance and documentation standards.
3. Setting smart policies on MOQs, terms, and expiry.
4. Equipping retailers with tools, testers, and education.
5. Building systems on Shopify for smooth B2B ordering.
6. Actively pitching to salons, spas, and retailers — not waiting for them to come to you.

When done correctly, wholesale can be your most consistent growth channel, transforming your skincare brand from a small-batch indie to a trusted presence on salon shelves and retail counters.

The guide also concludes with a breakdown of how to implement this entire system on Shopify, using B2B tools for Plus users or a suite of dedicated apps for non-Plus merchants to create a professional and automated wholesale experience.

Frequently Asked Questions