1. A lot of competition = good for buyers but not so good for sellers
2. There are a lot of people selling fakes, which makes authentic products seem expensive for people who do not realise that they are probably buying fakes
3. eBay fees and Paypal fees
4. eBay letting big brands create eBay outlet stores – luckily that does not affect cosmetics and beauty items so much because most of the high end brands would not devalue their product by selling on eBay, but that’s not to say it might not happen in the future
5. eBay putting Google ads on their listing pages which potentially diverts people off eBay to another site – eBay don’t care as long as they get paid for the click

There are times when I am in the EvilBay camp and would encourage prospective sellers, especially newbies, to avoid it. There are other times I love eBay because as a seller I know I will always sell my product, whatever it is. Yep, you read that right. My eBay wholesale makeup listings ALWAYS sell. It just depends on the price!

As a beauty therapist who sells mainly to clients, I use eBay mostly to clear wholesale cosmetics stock which I have had for a while to make room for new items. It is important to be disciplined and always keep your stock moving.

But say you decide to try selling wholesale makeup and cosmetics on eBay anyway, then there are two ways of looking at it. You might not double your money, but any money you do make you would not have had otherwise. Worst case, say you only make 20% – 50% profit on something you sell, after fees etc. That may equate to only £1 or £2 on something that cost you £4 or £5. But if you are prepared to accept that level of return and go for high volume, so say you can sell 10-20 items a day, then you will start to see results.

The other way of looking at it is to give up before you start, on the basis that it is too much work for too little return. I am in the former camp – i.e. stick with it, because 90% of the competition will flake out, guaranteed, and before too long you will start making some progress.

My preferred alternative for anyone starting out in the cosmetics business, would be to advise you to sell to family and friends, through colleagues at work, and also to do a few cosmetics parties or fairs here and there. Build up your customer list with the goal of setting up your own website in the future. A Cheap Slap member wrote to me recently saying she is making £300 a week from cosmetics parties by using just one of the UK sellers listed on Cheap Slap. There are a few articles about direct selling here on on the Cheap Slap blog – the links are at the top of the left hand sidebar.

At the end of the day you don’t know until you give it a try. It is possible to start a cosmetics business with around £200 but at that level it will take time to start building your profits to invest in more stock. The articles on my blog also explain how you can take orders from customers before buying any stock. So as long as you can take enough advance orders to meet the suppliers minimum order level, you should never be out of pocket.

Cheap Slap may not be fancy but it does feature really good quality wholesale makeup sellers and it has helped a lot of people set up successful home businesses. If you do decide to join, I am happy to help and guide you, but ultimately the success of your business is up to one person only – that’s you kiddo!

You know it makes sense. All the information about joining is on the home page.

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