The Frustrated Esthetician: Pro Products Sold Online (part 1)

In this blog, I am going to talk about the frustration felt by Licensed Estheticians toward Professional skin care product manufacturers who sell their products online from their website. First of all, let me say that I too feel frustrated about that, but I do understand why some companies ultimately made that choice. Personally, I feel even more frustrated about Estheticians selling their products online to the public but I will get to that later. 

Just so you know where my knowledge on this topic comes from, I have been a Licensed Esthetician in California since 1999. I opened a day spa fresh out of Esthetician school (which I wouldn’t necessarily advise in today's esthetics.)  Back then, there weren’t a lot of great products available, most were “spa like” and smelled good but didn’t do even half of the magic we can do for our clients’ skin in today’s esthetics. But the great thing about being an Esthetician back then is that clients had no other choice but to come to us for professional skin care products because there was no internet...and the word “Amazon” referred to a Rainforest in South America.

As much as I’d like the world to stay exactly as it was when it was easiest for me, that’s just not the reality of life. So adjustments must be made and we keep going. We can’t let obstacles impede our financial success. We must work around them.

The impact of the internet in the world of esthetics was swift and surprising. Many professional skin care manufacturers (especially the large ones) jumped in quickly and began to sell their professional products online to the public. I am not going to say much about them other than they saw an opportunity to make money and went for it without regard as to what it did to their Esthetician clients...especially Solo Estheticians. 

I immediately dropped those lines and moved on to others who opted not to sell online. At that time, there were plenty of smaller manufacturers who did not make that leap and instead chose to support Estheticians. And some hung on for a good 20 years before finally deciding to sell online for various reasons. I had a front row seat to that era of esthetics, so I will share with you what I learned from a few of those manufacturers.

SOLO ESTHETICIANS: The typical budget of a Solo is small, as is their space to store retail products which means most cannot carry the manufacturer's entire line of products. And even if they could afford it and are able to store it, because of their smaller clientele there is the risk that products will expire before they are sold. And that’s money wasted. That means Solos are forced to order products as needed, and often. If you are with a company who ships within a couple of days, that helps. Even better if a company will drop ship, but few offer that service. However, if you are with a company that does not have a distributor in your area, it can take a week or longer for those products to arrive. 

On the other side of this equation, what I learned from manufacturers is that consumers (aka the public) who have heard about a manufacturer's products and want to purchase them will often call the manufacturer directly asking to buy those products. The company that I was carrying back then (and still do) would then respond to the consumer that they did not sell to the public, and instead would provide the caller with a list of Estheticians in their area who carried the product line. The consumer would call the Estheticians on the list and ask to purchase the product, but because Solos don’t usually carry the entire line (for reasons mentioned above), very often the caller could not purchase the product they wanted from the Esthetician.

This happened all the time. I know that because I was on the list in my area, and I got those phone calls when I was a Solo. If I didn't have the product in stock, I would offer to order the product for the caller. But typically they declined due to the delay caused by the number of steps involved (shipping to me, then shipping to the client.). Not getting this sale may not impact the Esthetician much, but imagine if you are the manufacturer of the product line and you are trying to do right by your Esthetician clients, but you are repeatedly losing opportunities to sell your products and build your brand.

INTERNATIONAL SALES: Some skin care brands are available in other countries (where there may not be many Estheticians), at a much higher price than those sold in the US. So of course, shoppers would prefer to purchase at US rates, and the best option for that is the company’s USA online storefront. 

ESTHETICIANS SELLING ON AMAZON: Estheticians selling online is even worse (in my opinion) for so many reasons. Let’s look at this from a manufacturer’s point of view who is trying NOT to sell online:

You may not know that there is no law to protect manufacturers from having their products sold online. This means that once an Esthetician uses his or her license to legally purchase wholesale professional skin care products from a manufacturer, the manufacturer has no legal recourse if that Esthetician sells online. Even if there is a clause in the manufacturer’s contract with the Esthetician that says they are not allowed to sell on Amazon, the manufacturer has no legal remedy if they do. The manufacturer can (and most will) close the Esthetician’s account, if they can figure out who it is. But so many times, the Esthetician sells under a different name or sells the wholesale products to a 3rd party who then turns around and sells on Amazon and is therefore undetectable. 

DIVERSION: And then there are those people who tamper with products, water them down, or sell expired products online. Sometimes Estheticians offload to 3rd parties products that are near expiration or expired. Imagine how disturbing this would be for a manufacturer to see their brand name tarnished?

The internet has changed esthetics just as it has changed the reality of our lives. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but we are definitely forced to pivot in many areas.

My point in explaining this is not to convince you to use and carry products that are sold online. I don’t do that, but I do carry a few products from companies who sell online because their products are just that good. 

At any given time, I carry products from about 4 different manufacturers, so my clients are never using products from one line exclusively. I change their home care products regularly, and they rely on me to guide them as to which products they should be using at home. If a client's home care products are a mix of different brands, they are less likely to purchase online from multiple companies because it's too much trouble. I have explained to my clients the hazards of Product Diversion, improper storage of products, and expired products that they may encounter when purchasing online. And my out of town clients know that when they purchase from me, there will be no shipping fees.

We can’t keep our clients on the same product line forever. For one thing, it gives clients even more of a reason to purchase online because they already know what to buy for the next 20 years. Products and science keep evolving and continue to get better, and a talented Esthetician knows when it’s time to change something. Maybe they found a fabulous new product at the trade show, maybe the client's skin has changed or maybe the season has changed. That’s the entire reason clients come to an Esthetician…for guidance, for monitoring of their skin, to care for their skin. They depend on us and they will follow a great Esthetician's guidance regarding purchase of products.

(I could go on and on about this but I am choosing to stop myself because this blog is too long already! However, I go into all of the above in much more detail in my book The Heart of Esthetics.)

In part 2 of this blog, I will explain how one manufacturer solved this problem.