Skin and Makeup Organic Products

Meagan has built her eBay store around skin care and makeup categories. Through her contacts in the beauty industry, she has access to a range of premium brands. In addition, being entrepreneurial and a passionate advocate for organic ingredients, she has invested in her own brand of skin care products that are natural and botanical based, which is gaining traction with favourable reviews from blogs and reviews.

Meagan has approx. 1,500 SKUs and her eCommerce platform allows her to sell on eBay, Amazon and her own web site.

Majority of revenue comes from the premium skin care and makeup products. Meagan’s own brand is ramping up fast and her strategy is to build it up to reduce her reliance on the premium brands.

Competition for the premium products comes from all over the world – stockists and drop shippers. Rates for international shipping have come down. Distribution territories are difficult to enforce. Her own brand does not face the same intensity of direct competition, as there is no directly equivalent product – it is all about marketing.

Profit margin is low for the premium skin care products. It is also subject to exchange rate movements on a daily basis because of her international competitors selling in different currencies, plus seasonal or wholesaler discounts from time to time. Meagan enjoys high profit margins on products under her own brand even on a modest sales volume.

Meagan’s strategy is to maintain the high revenue, despite its low margin, from the premium products to provide scale for her business, as well as a large customer base. This is crucial to provide Meagan the platform to grow her own brand.

Meagan needs a solution that will protect her premium skin care sales while she focuses on marketing her own brand. That meant that she has to find and keep track of eBay competitors worldwide with minimal effort and round the clock to cater to the different time zones. She needs to be competitive and yet not make unnecessary margin losses from warehouses shipping from as far away as Asia.

StreetPricer allows Meagan to use various scan methods to find and track competition on eBay’s sites with a combination of scan methods. In the premium skin care space, the AI algorithm combined with ItemSpecifics criteria works quite well and she can set an 8 hour repricing schedule to address her worldwide competitors. And yes, Meagan needs it to handle the different currencies on all eBay sites too.

StreetPricer also allows Meagan to put a price loading factor during repricing calculations, based on the countries the competitor items are located and/or the lengthy delivery times of some sellers. She feels that buyers often are willing to pay more to get an item faster or has less trust on items coming from certain countries, especially for premium skin care.

Competitors Data download gives Meagan the information to go back to her suppliers to justify her discount levels.