How To Sell Hair Bundles Online (Beginner’s Guide)

Hair bundles refer to a piece or pack of virgin (unprocessed, undyed) human hair that gets collected from a single donor, sewn into a weft, and sold as either a clip in, sew in, or glue in hair extension.

These products are very in demand right now, and there’s definitely a potential to earn some extra money.

Here’s how to sell hair bundles online:

1. Decide which hair bundles you want to sell
2. Find a vendor to source your hair bundles from
3. Build an online store
4. Start selling your hair bundles

Read on to find out more about each step, plus how much you can expect to make and more!

1. Decide Which Hair Bundles You Want to Sell

Since there are so many different options available regarding hair extensions, you’ll want to figure out what exactly you want to sell. You’ll want to take into consideration the following:

• Texture
• Type
• Closure

Let’s take a closer look at each.

Texture

When talking about hair extensions, there are four main types of textures available:

• Silky Straight
• Body Wave
• Deep Wave
• Tight Curly

For most virgin hair bundles, the hair has been steamed to impress the texture deep within the hair’s cuticles. That’s what makes it able to be styled, washed, and dried, yet still ultimately return to its designated texture.

While it’s important to provide a variety of options to your customers, generally Silky Straight, Body Wave, and Deep Wave sell best.

Type

There’s no shortage of hair extensions available for you to sell, but some of the most common types are:

• Tape in
• Sew in
• Clip in
• Glue in/fusion
• Microbead

Tape in extensions are wefts (not individual strands) that are attached to either single-sided or double-sided tape. They’re great for thin hair, and easily lie flat against the head. They last up to two months if properly taken care of.

Sew in extensions, also known as weaves, are applied by tightly braiding the natural hair into cornrows, then sewing the extension into the braid. The application process can take hours, must be done by a professional, and is best for people with thicker hair due to the amount of strain put on the scalp.

There are two types of sew ins: wefts and wigs.

Both are applied in the same way, but wigs come in one piece as opposed to multiple pieces, like the wefts, which are the most permanent solution, because they literally don’t come off. Still, though, it’s recommended to remove them after no more than four months because it will affect your hair’s natural growth.

Clip ins are one of the most common. The hair is sewn into wefts onto clips that are easily put in and taken out of hair. They require the most work on the part of the wearer, as they only last a day at a time, but they are also the least damaging and require the least amount of commitment.

Glue in extensions, now more commonly known as fusion extensions, are bonded to your hair using either glue or some other type of adhesive, like keratin protein bonds.

This application is very damaging to natural hair, and this also must be done by a professional. This method also generally uses individual strands, as opposed to wefts or wigs.

And lastly, microbead extensions are also popular. They’re basically individual pieces of hair that attach to individual strands of your hair via tiny beads. The beads are then crimped down to hold them in place.

This method is less damaging than many of the other methods out there, but it requires a lot of upkeep. This should be done by a professional, however there are ways to do it yourself.

Closure

Closures are a bit confusing, especially to those unfamiliar with the details of hair extensions.

In essence, closures are what the hair is tied or secured to – generally lace or silk. That is then attached to your hair, and generally aids in covering up a sew in on a weave.

This only applies to weaves or wigs – not clip in or glue in extensions. So, if you aren’t going to be offering those, then you can just skip this part.

There are three main types of closures:

• Lace Closures
• Lace Frontals
• 360 Frontals

Within that, there are three types of lace closures:

• One part/middle part
• Three part
• Free part

On a lace closure, the three types correlate to how many ways you can part your hair with that closure. So, for the one part, you can only part your hair down the middle. This limits the amount of styles you can have.

The three part allows you to style your hair with the part down the middle or on specific spots on either side. Free part is generally the best option, because it allows you to style and part your hair however you want.

Lace frontals are closure that are much wider than lace closures, because they span across your whole hairline (whereas lace closures are generally only a 4” x 4” square). These types of closures offer a very natural look and are much more versatile when it comes to styling.

And lastly, 360 frontals are essentially a lace headband that the hair has been attached to. The idea is that it covers your entire hairline – front, sides, and underneath. This is ideal for people with a sew-in or weave that want to wear their hair in a ponytail, updo, or braid.

Which should you sell?

As you can see, there’s a lot of options available, and it wouldn’t be even close to logical to have every option in stock in a variety of colors and lengths.

Instead, you should pick a niche – a specific type to focus on.

So, for example, you could sell only closure bundles, or only clip ins.

It also depends a lot on your client base. If you’re going the route of selling directly to individual people (as opposed to hairdressers), you’re probably going to want to sell something they can do themselves.

If you decide to sell to businesses, then you can put a focus on things that need professional installation, like sew ins or glue ins.

2. Find a Vendor to Source Your Hair Bundles From

Once you’ve decided on the type of extensions you’ll want to sell, you need to find a quality vendor.

Here is where you’ll need to make an important decision: do you want to have inventory, or do you want to dropship?

Having an inventory is the traditional way to go: you purchase product from a wholesaler, keep it in a warehouse, shop, or spare room in your house, and when a customer orders it, you ship it to them.

You’re in control of all the aspects of the process, from start to finish, but it’s a lot more work.

Not to mention, there’s a higher startup cost associated with this method because you have to purchase your inventory up front.

Dropshipping is basically where you sell product on your store, but when someone buys it, a specific type of wholesaler ships it out to your customer.

This means less cost for you, because you don’t have to hold all the inventory. But you trade that in for less control over the shipping process and less profit (because drop shippers will generally charge you a little more).

Either way, this will affect you finding a vendor, since some won’t be an option if you choose the dropshipping model.

Something else you’ll want to consider is the packaging. Certain vendors will allow you to create your own packaging using premade templates for a small cost.

The most important thing you should consider when selecting a vendor is the quality of the hair.

Ultimately, good quality hair that can be offered at a competitive rate is what will keep your customers loyal and satisfied.

Sometimes, this might include going with a slightly more expensive wholesaler with a great reputation or ordering a sample yourself to ensure the quality is up to your standards.

3. Build an Online Store

After you’ve chosen the types of hair bundles you’ll want to sell and found a reputable vendor, then you can start thinking about where you’ll be selling them.

For this step, you’re going to want to first pick out your brand name.

It’s important to make sure that your brand name is professional and someone else doesn’t already have it. You can generally find that out with a quick Google search.

After that, you’ll want to set up shop online. There are a few different website builders you can use:

• Wix
• WordPress (using WooCommerce plugin)
• Shopify

This doesn’t have to be expensive, either. The main cost involved will be hiring a programmer (which isn’t necessary if you use one of the above site builders), web hosting and purchasing a domain name.

You’ll also want to incorporate some branding here, specifically with a unique logo that will easily be identifiable with your products.

You’ll also want to consider other business necessities, like business cards, hair tags and hair bags (packaging for your product), etc.

You’re also going to want to consider the price of your products, since you’ll be setting up your store with pricing before you launch your site.

It’s important to take into account the people you’re marketing towards, the average price of your product for that target market, and then price competitively.

4. Start Selling Your Hair Bundles

Once your online store is set up (and you’ve purchased the required inventory if you went with that business model), the next thing to do is sell!

But because there’s a lot of hair extension businesses out there, you’ll need some help standing out, which is where marketing comes in.

You’re going to want to advertise, whether it be for free on Facebook or other social media sites, or by spending a little bit of money on advertising (either on Facebook or on Google).

Either way, driving targeted traffic to your site is key to getting clients. And this is where a lot of people go wrong when it comes to selling products online. They source great products, setup a great looking store… and then nothing happens.

Which can be very disheartening. So you need to learn how to get traffic to your store. And, basically, there are two main ways you can go about it. You can either pay for it, or earn it.

Paying for traffic is instant and can be great, but it can also end up costing you a lot of money, without making many sales, if don’t know how to do it properly.

Free traffic takes time to “earn” because you need to create content through a blog or social media site like Youtube, Pinterest or Instagram for example.

Either approach can work, but I personally think free traffic is the better approach for beginners. Not only can free traffic be of a very high quality, but it can lead to higher profit margins.

Getting customers is one thing, keeping them is another.

So, once you have customers, make sure you’re providing them with high quality products for a great price to encourage repeat business and positive reviews. Both of which are key aspects of scaling your business and increasing profitability.

How Much Can You Earn?

How much money you can make selling hair extensions online will depend on how much you sell for. But to give you an idea, the average hair extension order is about $195.

So, if you made only one sale a week, you’d be earning over $10,000 a year, and if you made one sale a day, then you’d be earning $71,175 per year!

Not bad for selling hair, right?

Of course, that’s all easier said than done. To get one sale a day, you’d need to have built up a steady stream of customers, which would take time and some strong marketing.

Conclusion

In the end, selling hair bundles online can seem like a daunting task with so many options to choose from, but in the end it can definitely be a profitable venture.

Of course, hair extensions require a lot more work than selling other products, like homemade candles or bath bombs for example. So, if you’re discouraged by the amount of work selling hair takes, you can always check out some of those other options.