Have you thought about starting a private retail business? In recent years, opening your own small business seems to be the employment choice for the vast majority of young people.
Why? Because you can completely control your own direction, and at the same time, you may be able to turn your interests, your ideas into your wealth. Sounds wonderful. Provided you do it well enough.
So as the first step in starting your business, you should identify which market you want to enter? What product are you planning to sell? If you have no clue about this, the Gua Sha market is a direction worth trying.
Today, we’ll show you how to start your own Gua Sha retail business step by step.
Why Choose the Gua Sha Niche?
Whether a product is popular is determined by market demand. When there is no market demand, no matter how special or novel the product is, it is impossible to generate sales. Why choose the Gua Sha niche? Because it has a considerable degree of market demand.
Mature product features!
Although you may have only heard about Gua Sha in the recent past, Gua Sha has a very long history. The history of gua sha can be traced back thousands of years. If you are interested in the development of Gua Sha, how to use it, etc., you can check this article – again we won’t go into too much detail.
After thousands of years of historical tests, gua sha tool must have its unique and real existence in its efficacy. Therefore, although the guasha board is a product that has recently re-bloomed in front of people, it has mature functionality. And function is one of the key factors that determines whether a product can maintain sustainable development.
stable market trend
As we said, gua sha products are products that have re-entered people’s field of vision in recent years. We can clearly see its trend from Google Trends. Although the trend of gua sha stone has declined slightly in the past year, its search trend is still much higher than the level three years ago, and the recent trend has maintained a relatively stable level.
In terms of trends, the gua sha massage market is a relatively stable and huge market. It is also worth noting that guasha is not an independent market, it is a downward market attached to the beauty market. And the huge beauty market does not need us to talk too much, you should also know it.
So entering the gua sha niche market does not mean that you only focus on products such as gua sha, you can put your eyes on all beauty products, and match the products to complement each other. This is also the sales model adopted by many of our customers.
Here, we recommend you to choose a natural gua sha stones, such as crystal or jade guasha board. With the strengthening of environmental awareness, natural products are more suitable for the needs of the market, and are also the future trend.
huge consumer group
As we said, the Gua Sha market is for all groups in the beauty industry. Its audience base is huge. And since a large part of people do not know this product, there is still a lot of room for development. The user group is mainly women aged 18-45, and because of its affordable price, it can meet the budget requirements of almost all groups.
Establish Your Own Business Model
Define your own business model.
1. Offline sales
2. Online sales
Offline Sales
Offline Beauty Retail Store
It mainly sells beauty-related products. Contains a variety of products such as serums, massagers and beauty instruments.
The advantage is that it has a higher conversion rate than online sales. You can face consumers directly, solve their questions in a timely manner, and build trust with customers relatively quickly, thereby achieving a higher conversion rate. and high customer retention (if your product and service are good enough)
The disadvantage is that compared to online sales, it needs to pay more costs. Rent, inventory, personnel and other aspects require higher pay, so it also has higher risks.
Massage/Spa Shop
Similar to offline beauty product retail stores, it can better achieve the goal of customer conversion. And, because you can act directly on your customers. If the customer is satisfied with the product, the probability of its transaction will be greatly increased, which is the advantage that other channels do not have.
If you already own your own massage/spa shop and have a certain amount of loyal audience, you will get a faster payback period than other channels when you sell your products.
The disadvantage is that it requires higher technical support and qualification audit. You need to have skilled massage skills or staff with such skills, and you need to be qualified to provide this service, so as not to violate the requirements of local laws. So you have to pay more than the cost of offline retail stores.
Online Sales
1. Retail Platform
Open your own store under various retail service providers such as Amazon.
advantage:
- Lower start-up capital compared to offline retail stores. No rent required and no large staff required.
- Without geographical restrictions (larger customer groups), you can sell products to the whole country and even the whole world. (Higher income!)
- A lot of qualification audit and other requirements are omitted.
shortcoming:
- Greater competition. Selling offline, you may only have to face the challenge of a few competitors, but online, the number can increase to thousands or even tens of thousands!
- More complex situations. You need to consider multiple aspects, logistics, shipping costs, customer’s country area. Unlike offline sales, where you don’t need to worry about shipping, online sales require more consideration, as a change in delivery address can mean a significant increase in costs. How to reasonably set the shipping cost and shipping method is a difficult problem.
But overall, bigger challenges mean bigger opportunities.
2. Own Independent Mall
That is, through some service platforms, such as Shopify or an online store built by yourself, such as a store built by wordpress. How does it differ from platforms like Amazon? For example, Amazon is a house, and a store within Amazon is the furniture within the house. The independent mall is an independent house, not furniture, but the size of the house is much smaller than Amazon.
advantage:
- Compared to Amazon store, the competition is relatively small. Amazon acquires users on the Internet, and Amazon store owners compete with each other to acquire those users. So Amazon store owners go through two stages of competition, first on the Internet and then within Amazon. And independent malls often only need to experience the competition of the Internet. From this point of view, the competition faced by independent malls is smaller.
- More stable user groups. Less competition means you have a better chance of retaining users. If your product is good enough, you can get a steady stream of customers. Unlike retail platforms, because the number of merchants is very large, users will receive information from many merchants. Even if your products are good, it is difficult for you to retain customers for a long time. (In the face of great temptation, it is difficult to maintain absolute concentration.)
shortcoming:
- Similar to retail malls like Amazon, shipping is still an unavoidable issue.
- Compared to Amazon. The number of users may be much lower. Because Amazon has accumulated a considerable user base, Amazon sellers have access to a large number of users, despite the competitive pressure. And you can only get customers through search engines, social media, etc. Of course, you may also gain a considerable user base, if your promotion is good enough.
- Higher technical requirements compared to Amazon. Because you need to handle everything from building your site to operating it. Of course, you can also hand over the responsibility to outsourcers, but you need to pay an expensive fee.
Gua Sha Market Research
After confirming your own business model, move on to the market research section. Market research is extremely important, it provides important data support for your business.
You need to pay attention to the following data:
- Market trends
- Demographics. (Include factors such as age, gender, geography and even religion.)
- Competitors.
- Audience preferences. (price, material, function, etc.),
- Geographical location. (Only for offline sales.)
market trend:
As we mentioned earlier, the guasha market is still very hot at present, and there is still a lot of room for development in the future. So in terms of market trends, Gua Sha is still an item worth trying.
And we’ve noticed that we’ve been getting more and more inquiries recently about electric gua sha tools. Therefore, in the future, the electric guasha board will be one of the mainstream products in the guasha market.
Demographics
Gua Sha has a very wide audience. Beauty, fitness and even medical fields are involved. However, Gua Sha’s current main audience is women aged 18-45.
From a geographical point of view, the main audiences of gua sha boards include the United States, the United Kingdom and other European and American countries, as well as Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries.
The gua sha board has not been found to touch any religious issues. (Except the guasha board made of buffalo horn)
competitor
Researching competitors is very important. By researching potential competitors, you can learn from some of their strengths and avoid their weaknesses. Maybe you can find a different breakthrough among many competitors to help your business succeed.
There are many ways to research competitors, targeting offline sellers. You can pretend to be a customer to conduct field research. You need to pay attention to the following information:
- Density of potential competitors.
- The price of a potential competitor’s product.
- Competitors’ product categories.
- Competitors’ best-selling products
- Renovation in competitor stores.
- Competitors’ sales pitch, etc.
By investigating this information, you can get a general idea of the competitive pressures, crowd preferences and other information in your current area. You can learn and even improve by borrowing what you find useful.
For online sellers, you need to pay attention to the following information:
- Competitors’ product prices.
- Competitor’s hot product information.
- Competitors’ promotion channels.
- Competitor keywords.
- The title and description of competitor websites.
- The layout and style of competitor websites.
Maverick and original etc. sounds cool right? However, proper learn from others can often lead to better results. So try to avoid overly hasty thoughts and decisions. Some ideas that you think are good may not be thought of by others, but they have already been tried and suffered, so they gave up. Therefore, it is a smart behavior to be good at using the information of competitors to avoid risks.
There are a few ways you can research your competitors. Such as Google search, competitor websites and some professional website analysis platforms.
Audience preferences:
After your previous competitor research, you basically have the audience preferences you need.
According to our experience, the user groups of gua sha boards have the following characteristics for your reference:
- I prefer natural materials, especially rose quartz materials are very popular in the market.
- Pay close attention to beauty content and often purchase beauty products. They usually use the gua sha board with other beauty products.
- At present, the mainstream of the market is still manual gua sha board, but the electric gua sha board market is gradually expanding, which is worthy of attention.
- The guasha board is not a luxury, the price is very close to the people, almost everyone can afford its price. But gua sha that cost less than $15 apiece are more popular.
Geographical location:
Try to choose a densely populated area to open your store to increase the audience base!
Build Your Gua Sha Retail Store (Online and Offline)
It’s time for your upfront market research to come into play!
Online, you need to prepare as follows:
- Domain Name Purchase! Try to choose a short domain name that matches your brand content. You can buy a domain name directly with the brand name. A concise domain name can make users remember your store address in a short time!
- Choose a platform! Shopify? Worderpress? According to your needs!
- Choose your store template.
- Formally build your online Gua Sha retail store. (If you think it is necessary, you can hire professional personnel to assist.)
Offline store:
- Prepare the corresponding qualification certificate.
- Select the appropriate store address.
- Leasing storefronts.
- Build a shop! It is best to hire a professional to be responsible.
The above is only the general process, there are still many details to be dealt with.
Officially Start Your Gua Sha Retail Business!
To start a business you need to go through the following process.
- Purchase products from suppliers.
- Store your product.
- Put your store in front of your customers. (paid promotion or SEO)
- Convert the traffic obtained.
- Delivery
- After-sale service
Sourcing Products From Suppliers
Through preliminary market research, you have a clear understanding of what kind of products you need. The next thing to do is to get the relatively best gua sha tools at the lowest cost. For how to find a suitable supplier, you can refer to this article-xxxx. Mainly in the following ways:
Search Engines Such as Google Search
Type “gua sha wholesale” or “gua sha factory” for long-tail keywords related to wholesale in the Google search bar. You can get search results like below. Please try to choose the top ranked merchants! Relatively more reliable.
Various wholesale platforms
Alibaba, Global Sources and Made in China. These three are the most famous wholesale platforms. You can get countless supplier information on it. More careful identification is required. Because relative to the ranking of search engines, the ranking of these wholesale and wholesale platforms is not high for reference.
Field trips
Go directly to China to find the right supplier. This is the safest way, but requires high requirements. If you are a seller of your first business and have a limited budget, this option is not recommended.
Small retail platform
Such as AliExpress, etc. The advantage is that the MOQ is extremely low, and it can even do drop shipping. The disadvantage is that the price is relatively high, and the logistics is relatively slow.
Through the above methods, you should be able to find your ideal supplier. To give you a suggestion, please try to choose the source factory, such as us. The source factory can provide you with the best price, the best product and the most stable supply. So if you want the best product at the lowest cost, this is the best choice!
Store Your Product
- Dropshipping
In this way, you don’t need to store the products you sell. Goods will be shipped directly to your customers by your suppliers. It’s the most cost-effective way and avoids many risks, and it’s a way worth trying for new sellers.
- The rest of the sales model.
Wheelless is sold online or offline, and generally speaking, you need some space to store the goods you get from suppliers. If you are purchasing a natural crystal gua sha board, there are not many requirements for storage space, and you only need to meet the following points:
- Avoid sunlight and high temperature. Sun exposure or high temperature can cause some crystal gua sha tools to fade or crack. So try to store it in a cool area.
- Keep dry. The accessories of some facial massage equipment contain metal components, and excessive humidity may cause the metal to rust.
- Avoid collision or friction. The surface of the natural crystal or jade guasha board is easy to scrape, so try to avoid friction between guasha boards or with other sharp objects. To prevent damage to the surface of the gua sha.
If you really don’t want to pay too much storage fees. You can negotiate with the supplier to temporarily store the goods in the supplier’s warehouse and deliver them to you when needed. Generally speaking, the supplier will meet your needs.
Promote your store
Offline:
There are many ways to promote offline:
- Flyer delivery. This is the most common way for offline stores. But there needs to be something attractive. Such as big discounts, unique and attractive styles, etc.
- Various social media. Offline stores do not completely limit your promotion channels to offline. Appropriate social media publicity will also receive good results.
- Google Ads. You can completely restrict your audience to a certain area. When users search for keywords such as “gua sha near me”, if you and the customer’s current location meet the conditions, the location of your store will be displayed in the eyes of customers.
- Offline activities, you can use various activities to attract customers.
- Promotional car. Increase visibility with a parade of promotional vans featuring your store poster and promotional voice.
- . . . . .
on-line:
- Google Ads. This is the most important and most common way of promotion. You can get considerable leads at this stage of your business start-up with this one outreach method. Focus on keywords, bids, and demographics.
- Social media advertising such as Facebook, Instagram and youtube. Compared with Google ads, these three ads will have a stronger user-oriented feature. So, if your ad hits the right audience, you’ll get higher conversions.
- SEO. This is not a job that will bring you high returns in the short term. This is a long-term “revolution”! SEO can hardly help you if you want to reap significant profits in a short period of time. But in the long run, it’s definitely worth the effort. If you do your job well enough, it can get you a steady stream of clients and it doesn’t cost you a cent!
SEO and paid advertising are not opposites. The best practice is to do SEO alongside paid promotion.
Convert traffic to revenue
When we obtain abundant traffic through various means, how to convert it into actual transactions is the most important part, which is directly related to whether all our previous work can be rewarded accordingly.
Whether online or offline, we only need to do one thing: what you see is what you get. The simple explanation is that the customer enters our store through what conditions, then we must provide him with products that meet this condition. E.g:
A customer entered our store through a Google ad with the tagline “15% off sitewide.” But when a customer browses our store and finds that the maximum discount is only 10%, do you think this customer will buy in our store? No!
Therefore, we need to consider how to connect our store with our promotional content. We recommend that you create different store pickup pages for different ads to maximize conversions by maximizing the content advertised in our ads. If the slogan is 15% off, then our page must include the 15% off product, and if we advertise free shipping, then the product on our takeover page shouldn’t have to pay extra for shipping.
The same is true for offline stores. We must be responsible for what we promote.
Ship
The issue of shipping on time probably won’t affect your first sale (if you’re not based on a retail platform like Amazon). It’s more about your customer repurchase. If you advertise in-store delivery within 7-10 days, the reality is that you only need 5-7 days to deliver the goods to your customers. Then congratulations, you will receive a large number of loyal repeat customers. But if it takes you 15 days or more to arrive, unfortunately, your store will be in trouble quickly.
How to ensure that our goods can be delivered in time? You need to consider the following factors:
- Make sure you have enough stock to meet the requirement to ship at any time.
- The choice of logistics company. There are many logistics channels. Appropriate logistics channels can protect the safety of your products during transportation, shorten the transportation time and reduce transportation costs.
- There are many restrictions in certain regions. So you need to have separate shipping regulations for these areas.
- Seasonal issues. Seasonal issues can also cause changes in transit times. So you should change your shipping regulations accordingly according to the season.
After-sales service
It is also directly related to your customer loyalty. If you can’t provide good after-sales service to your customers, even if your product is good, you will have a hard time keeping them. Therefore, you need to provide your customers with convenient, timely and appropriate after-sales service.
If you can do each of the above work, congratulations, you will get a steady stream of considerable income!
