Cosmetics and personal care

The trade

How this trade really works

From the factory to the customer, each person in the chain wants something different. Most of what goes wrong comes from the gaps between them.

The company

Makes the creams, lipsticks, kajal, shampoos, face washes and hair oils, fixes the prices and the schemes, and launches new shades and packs every season. It wants its newest range on every counter before the wedding and festival rush.

The distributor

Holds stock for a city or a cluster of towns, often for several cosmetic and personal care companies. He supplies cosmetic shops, chemists, general stores and salons on credit. He wants schemes, fast-moving items, and no cartons of colours nobody asks for.

The cosmetic shop and the general store

The shop in the market lane keeps a little of everything. The owner reorders what customers asked for this week. He wants new shades on display, testers that work, and a way to return damaged or unsold goods.

The beauty adviser

In bigger shops and stores, a girl in the company's uniform stands at the counter and helps women choose. She knows better than anyone which shades are asked for and which are missing. Her knowledge rarely reaches the company in time.

The salon

Buys the professional range in larger packs for its own use, and sometimes keeps a small shelf to sell. Its order follows the bridal bookings.

The customer

Has often seen the product on her phone before she walks in. She knows the shade she wants by name. If it is not there, she buys a near colour from another company, or she orders online.

A range is only as strong as its best shades

A lipstick range may have many shades, but a few of them make most of the sales. The deep reds before weddings. The nudes for office wear. The distributor reorders the range as a whole, by the scheme carton. So the slow shades pile up, and the shades customers want run out first. The shop owner says your lipstick is not selling. The truth is that the right colours were never there.

A product can go popular overnight

When a face serum or a kajal is talked about online, demand rises in days, not months. Young customers in the big cities ask first, then the smaller towns follow a few weeks later. The company hears about it from its own online store or from a shop owner calling for more. By the time the next lot is made and sent, the moment has often passed.

Weddings and festivals set the year

The wedding season and the run up to Diwali and Karwa Chauth bring the big buying. Bridal makeup, gift packs, glow creams, mehendi, body lotions for the winter. A gift pack that arrives late is worse than no pack, because nobody wants a festive box once the festival is gone. Summer brings sunscreens, talcum powder and face washes.

Testers and damaged goods are a quiet cost

Every counter needs testers, and testers are given free. Lipsticks melt in a hot shop in May. Caps crack in transit, cream jars leak, labels fade in the window. The shop sends these back to the distributor, the distributor collects them and asks the company for credit. Most companies cannot say which distributors send back far more than others, or why.

The distributor is protecting himself

He has seen new launches arrive with great noise and then sit. So he takes the scheme quantity of the shades that sell and as little as he can of the new ones. That is not disloyalty. He is paying for the stock and carrying the risk. If you want him to keep the full range, he needs to see that the new range moves.

Shelf life is shorter than it looks

Creams, lotions and colour cosmetics have a date too. A shop will not take stock that has been lying a long time in the distributor's godown. Goods that sat unsold through one wedding season are hard to sell in the next, because the shop owner checks the pack and asks for fresh stock.

Where the money quietly goes

What you cannot see today, and what it costs you

Which shades are really moving

Your sales report says the lipstick range went out well to a distributor. It does not say that a few shades went to shops and the rest are still in his cartons. So you make the whole range again in the same proportion, and the same slow shades pile up again.

Where a popular item has run dry

When something goes popular online, some distributors run out in days while others have not even noticed yet. You cannot see which ones are empty and which ones are sitting on stock they could pass on.

Whether your launch reached the shops

A new range is billed to distributors and the launch is counted as done. Whether it then went out to the cosmetic shops, or sat in the godown waiting for the next scheme, you find out months later, when the distributor asks to return it.

Which towns are ready for the premium range

Some towns buy your costlier serum and your plain cream side by side. Others buy only the small packs. Without seeing what each distributor sells by item and by town, the premium range is sent everywhere equally, and sits where it does not belong.

How long stock has been lying

A carton of gift packs that came in before Diwali and is still there after it is already a loss. A cream that has been sitting with a distributor since last winter will be refused by shops. You learn about both only when the distributor asks for credit.

A season, the way it usually goes

The story you already know

A personal care company in Ahmedabad sells face creams, lipsticks, kajal and a hair oil across Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. In late summer the owner plans the wedding and festival season. A new lipstick range in many shades and a festive gift box go out to every distributor with a strong scheme.

In Jaipur and Udaipur, the deep reds and maroons run out early in the wedding season. Shop owners call the distributor, who has none left and is waiting for the next scheme load. Brides buy a red from another company. Meanwhile, in Indore, the same red shades sit, because the shops there were asking for nudes, which the distributor had very few of. A short video of the company's kajal goes around online, and shops in Ahmedabad ask for it in bulk. The factory hears about it weeks later.

After Diwali, the gift boxes start coming back. So do the pale shades, the melted testers and a pile of creams that had been lying since the previous winter. The owner sits with his sales head and the returns list. They decide to make the full lipstick range again for next year, with the same shades in the same quantities, because that is what last year's dispatch shows. Nobody saw what actually sold.

What you can now decide

Decisions you could not make before

Make the shades that sell, in the towns that buy them

When you can see which shades go out of each distributor, you stop making the whole range in the same proportion. You make more of what customers ask for and send it where they ask for it. The shades nobody wanted stop filling cartons.

Follow a popular item fast

When a product starts moving quickly at a few city distributors, you see it within days. You send more there first, and then to the smaller towns that usually follow. You catch the rush while it is still a rush.

Move gift packs before the festival ends

Festive boxes that are sitting with one distributor while another has run out can be shifted while the festival is still on. After the festival, the same box is only a return. Move it, do not make it.

Give the scheme to the right shades

Put your scheme on the shades and packs that are sitting, and keep it off those that already sell on their own. Your scheme then clears slow stock instead of giving away margin on what would have sold anyway.

Send the premium range only where it sells

Some towns buy your costlier serum steadily. Others never take it. Send it where it moves, and send small packs where small packs move. Less of it comes back.

Check returns against sales

When a distributor's returns of damaged and unsold goods are high, you can put them beside what he actually sold. You can then tell whether the problem is hot shops, rough handling, wrong shades, or stock that was pushed on him.

Judge a launch by what left the godown

A launch is not done when it is billed. It is done when it goes out to shops. You can see that within weeks and decide whether to push it, change it, or stop.

Where you get ahead

Where your competitor keeps losing

Your best shades are always on the counter

A customer who finds her shade comes back for it again and again. A company that keeps its fast shades stocked holds its counter space, while competitors lose it shade by shade.

You ride the online rush instead of chasing it

When your product is talked about, you see it in your distributors' sales within days and send stock while the talk is still on. Your competitor learns about his own rush from his empty shelves.

Distributors keep your full range

A distributor who knows you will help him move slow shades and late gift packs is not afraid to take your new launches. Your range stays wide on the shelf while others are cut down to their bestsellers.

The same season, with Vyavora

The story, told again

Same company, next year. Its distributors in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh now bill on their own Vyavora, which the company pays for. The company's price list goes into each of them automatically, and they order against it with online payment.

As the wedding season begins, the owner sees reds and maroons going out fast in Jaipur and Udaipur, and nudes in Indore. He sends reds to Rajasthan and nudes to Madhya Pradesh. When the kajal starts moving fast at the Ahmedabad and Surat distributors after a video goes around, he sees it that same week and sends stock there first, then to the towns that usually follow the big cities.

Before Diwali, he notices gift boxes lying with the Bhopal distributor while the Vadodara distributor has almost none left. His team arranges for the boxes to move before the festival, not after. When next year's production plan is made, it is made shade by shade, from what really sold. The returns still come, but the pile is smaller, and the owner knows which distributors and which shades it came from.

Why the others agree to it

Everyone in the chain is better off

For the distributor

He gets a complete Vyavora of his own: GST billing, stock, a billing counter, accounts, what each shop owes him, and WhatsApp messages to his shops. Usually the company pays for it. The company sees only its own products. It never sees his other companies, his purchase prices, his profit, his shop list or his bank balance.

For the cosmetic shop

When the shop bills on Vyavora, the owner can pick shade and size at the counter, see which colours sit and which sell, and keep billing even when the internet goes. He stops reordering the whole range when he needs only a few shades.

For the company's sales team

They stop asking distributors what is left. They see it, shade by shade, and spend their time on the towns and shops that need them.

What this does not do

Vyavora does not keep batch numbers or expiry dates. It shows how long each product has been lying with each distributor, which tells you long before the date that it will not sell in time. It sees only distributors who bill on Vyavora and has no way into their other software. It does not watch social media or tell you what will become popular. It shows you, within days, what has started selling. It does not manage beauty advisers, their attendance or their pay. It does not see which shop bought from the distributor, because his customer list is his.

Straight answers

Questions people in this trade ask

Can I see sales shade by shade, not just by range?

Yes, as long as each shade is a separate item in your price list. Each distributor's sales then show shade by shade, by day.

My distributor also carries other cosmetic brands. Will he share?

He shares only your products. You never see his other companies, his margins, his shops or his money. That is a fixed line, and it is why distributors agree to join.

Will Vyavora tell me what will go popular next?

No. It does not watch what people talk about online. It shows you, within days, when one of your products starts moving faster at your distributors, so you can follow it.

We lose a lot to testers and damaged goods. Does this help?

It lets you put each distributor's returns beside what he actually sold, so you can see where returns are out of line. It does not count testers on the counter for you.

What about the shop where our beauty adviser stands?

If that shop bills on Vyavora, you can see what went over its counter, shade by shade. That tells you whether the adviser's counter is selling the shades you expect.

We keep our old sales in Excel. Do we start from zero?

No. Vyavora reads the Excel and PDF files you already keep, so your past records come in without typing.

One shade sells out. The rest of the range waits on the shelf.