Hand and body care in retail: what a buyer checks

Hand and body care can look like a category with no traps: the product looks inexpensive and easy to reorder. Whether that holds for a given line is worth checking before ordering, not assumed from how the category looks.

Size

Ask the supplier what sizes exist in a line, and why. A size that sits between a travel size and a home size needs its own justification — who it is for, and what it replaces.

Ask the supplier what usage period a given size is built for, why that size was chosen, and how it is priced relative to it. For a non-standard size, ask for the reasoning directly — the buyer will be the one explaining it to a shopper on the shelf.

Texture: check it yourself, not from the description

Check texture with your hands on a sample rather than from the description. Ask the supplier whether stickiness after application has come up as a complaint from customers and how they track it — do not take the catalogue's word for it either way.

For body care, ask the supplier for the stated absorption time and test it yourself on a sample — how quickly a product allows getting dressed afterwards is something to check, not assume matters to any given buyer. Test a wash for how it rinses in your own water rather than assuming it behaves the same as it does in Korea.

Fragrance: ask whether it has been tested for your market

Smell fragrance on a sample rather than choosing it from a description. Ask the supplier whether the fragrance has been tested specifically for your market, and treat your own sample test as the deciding one.

Ask for samples of every fragrance in the line, not one. Ask separately for the minimum order per fragrance rather than assuming it is counted per line item — the answer decides how many cartons of a single scent a buyer ends up committing to.

Giftability and season

Gifting is worth asking about directly — ask the supplier what share of their own sales is gift sets. Ask whether the line has a shared visual code across items, and whether the supplier already sells any set above the sum of the individual items — check against the supplier's own sets rather than assume.

Ask the supplier for the real production and shipping time rather than a general answer of about a month, and use it to plan the order around any gifting peak relevant to your market.

What to ask a supplier in a single letter

Minimum order per fragrance and per colour. Production time from a confirmed specification. Shelf life and the remaining life at the moment of shipment. Whether marketplace photography exists. How the product looks sealed. Which tests were run on the finished product rather than on the ingredient.

At Korea's SLOW LOUNGE, for instance, the sizes are standard: forty-five millilitres for hands and two hundred for body, and the Stressfree and Waterdrop lines are separated by fragrance, woody against watery.