It’s the dream of every beauty brand owner to be in Sephora. But I’m not interested in getting Sabbatical Beauty into Sephora. Let me tell you why: as a small business, it’s terribly risky. You could “make it” and it could work out great — but it could also work out terribly.

The cost

Getting your brand into Sephora requires a tremendous amount of sunk costs. You need to pay to play. A modest footprint in Sephora is going to cost you $100,000 a year more or less, with that money going to store fixtures, design fees, products for associates, product testers, money for gifts to suck up to the associates so they’ll want to sell your product. And that’s just on the low end of the spectrum. So your $100,000 per year isn’t even going to be all that effective.

I would rather spend that money to pay myself or my people more, to go on a company retreat, or so many other things. I can spend it on my community, or on advertising. In short, I can use that money to create a better experience for everyone involved with Sabbatical Beauty.

The relationship

The second reason why I think this is a risky thing to do is because you aren’t building a direct relationship with your customer. Your customer is building their relationship with Sephora.

Also consider that when you sell to Sephora, they’re going to want you to sell at the wholesale level, eating up 50% —or even up to 70%! — of your profits. And if they don’t sell all your products, they’re going to want you to buy them back or else put your brand on a fire sale. You have very little control over this relationship as well.

A revolution

We have a real chance to change the beauty industry if we don’t want it to be dominated by big box techniques in the future. How? Through a spirit of cooperation, sharing, and openness. We’re going to do that with the Homebrew Beauty Revolution.

If you haven’t heard about the Homebrew Beauty Revolution, I’m going to start teaching you how to make Sabbatical Beauty products: where to buy the products, the science behind the formulations, everything. I want to empower you.

Join the Homebrew Beauty Revolution.