$300K in 7 Days: Building a Million Dollar Beauty Subscription Business

As the owner of a nail and lash salon and training academy called Glam House Los Angeles, Mai Dinh was one of the many entrepreneurs forced to pivot when the pandemic hit. When her premises temporarily closed, Dinh began to brainstorm additional ways to generate income. Encouraged by an overwhelming response to a small release of nail kits on social media, Dinh turned to Wix eCommerce and built the House of Suppliez online store in just 2 days. One week later she was hitting six-figure sales.

“On my first 7 days selling on Wix, I did over $300.000.”

In 2020, House of Suppliez, now a thriving Los Angeles-based beauty supply company, earned over $1 million dollars in revenue.

Like many business owners before her, Dinh identified a market need—with the pandemic, people wanted to do their own nail artistry at home, plus they had additional free time to take on a new skill or hobby—and has seen rapid success as a result.

Read Also: How to start a business

But Dinh remains humble even in the face of runaway growth. And she stresses that her business is ultimately to serve other young entrepreneurs like herself as they build their own small businesses.

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We spoke to the glamorous founder, creator and nail artist about her incredible growth, personal motivation, and ambitions for the future.

Want to know how to start a subscription box business? Read on for Dinh’s inspirational advice and key learnings on growing a million-dollar eCommerce business.

What is House of Suppliez and how did it start?

House of Suppliez is an online beauty supply and monthly subscription-based company. We sell quality products, curated in Los Angeles by myself and my team. Everything has a ‘pretty girl gang’ vibe.

I created my Wix eCommerce website 6 days after the pandemic happened in LA. Everything shut down, including my salon which I’ve had for 5 years. I sat at home and stared at the ceiling and said: “Well, these bills are still coming in and I have to pay them, so what can I do?” I didn’t want to lose my business and all of the things that I’d worked so hard for.

I thought, people are at home—they might want to learn another trade or might want to do their nails. I was like, why not create really cool kits that people can buy and learn to do home manicures and pedicures? We had about 25 nail kits left in our warehouse from our training academy, so I went on Instagram and I said: “We’ve got these really cool nail kits for sale. If you live in LA I can drop one off to you or I can do no-contact pickup.” Within an hour, all 25 kits were sold and I knew I was onto something.

I already used Wix for my salon and academy, so I worked really closely with our web designer, Celia, to get the website live in 2 days. I really enjoyed the fact that Wix had a cool and easy platform for me to create my website. Wix is a platform for creators. It’s the way to go.

At first we only had three items to sell. A nail kit, a pedicure kit and a lash kit. I told my best friend: ‘’If I sell $1,000 a week in nail kits, I’ll be able to sustain my bills and be happy to just get through this pandemic.” Never did I expect this. People were going crazy for them. I literally woke up one day and my Wix account had over $250,000 worth of transactions. With these three items, we made over half a million dollars, selling to people all over the world. Demand was so high. For two weeks straight we were trying to fulfill those orders.

I'm so happy and humble and beyond grateful for this growth spurt and support from everyone, especially people who have rolled with us from day one.

Tell us about your bestselling beauty subscription boxes.

We handpick the hottest, cutest, trendiest supplies and deliver them to your door every month. All you have to do is pay to subscribe. You’ll get a nice surprise every month.

It’s convenient for nail and lash artists all over the world. When you begin your career as a nail or lash artist you’re sometimes unsure of how to start. Our subscription supplies you with weeks—or days—worth of supplies and all you have to do is focus on growing your clients. We also have subscriptions for girls and gentlemen who are into beauty. Our Vanity Box is so good. You get $30 - $40 worth of products every month for only $12.99.

A lot of our growth has to do with our subscriptions. We have 7,000 subscribers and every month people, all across the world, are getting our products. Our customers are the best—over 70% are returning customers.

What do you think contributed to your success?

I’m a really hard worker but our growth has been surprising—even to myself. People all across the world are raving about our products and I’m humbled by their support because I pour my heart into the website and I am very passionate about what I’m selling.

Our products are designed for young entrepreneurs who are trying to get their foot into the industry. They can test out all of these different products and grow their business.

“Being industry professionals we understand what this generation of people needs and we’re serving that community. We offer value and make sure that our product quality is up to par.”

We handpick and curate every single product. Everything we pick we have personally used in our salon and we always ensure that our products are professional grade.

A lot of our success comes from the clients that we have in the salon. A lot of social media influencers wear our products on their nails and they also come and get their lashes done. They use our products and they love it.

One of our really good clients is Bhad Bhabie; she has literally been there every step of the way. She’s a nail fanatic and the fact she supports literally everything we do helps a lot. I truly appreciate her for not only being a fan of our products but for helping to handpick our products too. She’s always bringing ideas. We have a lot of fun and it never feels like work.

If you’re passionate about what you do, you will be successful because you will more than likely not give up. I didn’t give up and that’s why I was able to build a successful business.

Tip: Looking to start your own beauty business? Try this beauty name generator tool to help find inspiration for a business name.

How do you use social media to attract more customers?

We are creators and artists so our work is very visual. Being able to show our creativity and passion is important to us.

“Being from a city that is filled with fashion, designs, art—it motivates me every day, from the second I wake up, to create, create, create.”

We have a lot of fun on Instagram. We post content and let our audience know which products we’ve used. I think we have more fun creating content than our viewers and it gives us a lot of exposure. We’re at 125K followers on Instagram and 131K on TikTok. My team is very driven. We’ve done some really cool stuff in our content department and some of our videos have gone viral, reaching over a million views.

Facebook is also important for those of us who are more into reading a social post and having a closer kind of relationship with a brand. Our clients create content on YouTube and I think there's a future for us there as well. At present we upload exclusive video content to our website through Wix Videos and our subscribers really enjoy them.

Most people find us through social media or word of mouth. Being able to link our website to these social media platforms just makes our job easier and it makes the shopping experience for our customers much simpler.

How have you and your business changed in the past year?

Before the pandemic, I'd never, ever sold anything online. I think the pandemic opened up a lot of avenues for entrepreneurs like myself across the world. We knew that we couldn’t just depend on a 9-to-5. Using a platform like Wix, getting a brand, building a product or developing a product, and becoming a creator was literally something that we needed to do for survival.

“We’ve grown over $1.4million in online sales in the last year."

Now, I have about 30 employees. I work in all aspects of the business: checking products, inventory, shooting content, working with salon VIPs. That's basically what a normal day consists of, and then I go home, I'll make dinner and then I get online and I do my inventory and my restock. I do inventory and restock every single day except Saturdays. We have in-store sales and we have online sales so there needs to be a consistent flow of new products and inventories and drops every single week and every single month.

The amazing part about having an online business is that you can make money while you sleep.

Our customer base changed during the pandemic because it went from not just your average person who was always online. People had no choice but to use online services and to use no-contact services. It opened up an avenue to everyone.

How do you communicate with your customers?

With the Wix Owner mobile app I can communicate with my customers anywhere, anytime.

It’s really easy to use. I have it on every device. My Wix is blowing up as I’m doing this interview!

We have a members’ area where clients can send private messages and that’s really easy as it goes right into the app. The other thing that’s great is the automated emails that are triggered and sent to clients once an order is placed.

We integrated with Shippo to handle all of our shipping. It sends the tracking number to our clients once the packages are on their way and it literally follows the package step by step, from the day it leaves our facility to the time it delivers to their doorstep. Being able to integrate our website directly with Shippo saves us a lot of time so we don’t have to send emails and manually add tracking.

How do you keep coming up with fresh business ideas?

Coming up with fresh business ideas is the most important thing—and the hardest thing. You have to stay up to date. I go out into the world. Even my mall experiences have become business experiences. Every time I go out and see something that's innovative it motivates me to become more innovative. It’s really important that I take on experiences that go beyond sitting behind a desk and working. I take on experiences that require me to explore, be adventurous and get out of my comfort zone. This is what drives me to create and continuously come up with new ideas.

Where do you see House of Suppliez growing?

I feel like right now we're at a little model of a growth spurt. We’re going to keep creating super dope content, continue to find and develop the best products, continue to come up with tips and tricks to make our job easier, and we’re going to keep creating some of the most beautiful artistry that you’ll see in this world.

My main goal for House of Suppliez is to be able to give every single one of my employees—who have been with me through the whole journey—a share of the business. I think we can develop a product that's unique to their specific skills and creativity, and that specific line is for them to get a share of stock.

I don’t advertise on social media, yet, but it’s definitely something we’ll do when we have the supply and are ready for the demand. At the moment we are literally selling out in the first week we launch our products.

What are your future business goals?

We’ll continue to provide top-tier products for the most affordable prices to artists all around the world. It’s also my goal to work really hard and to make a change in the world and inspire women, especially young girls. They have a special place in my heart.

My parents were immigrants and they came to the United States with nothing. My business plan is to inspire girls and young entrepreneurs across the world to understand that no matter what, you should always take the risk and pursue your dream.

Sometimes it’s really easy to say: ‘hey, I don’t want to do this anymore, it’s really hard, it’s really draining and it’s emotionally frustrating.’ But if you are passionate about what you are doing, you won’t give up. You will climb the ladder and reach every single goal you want to reach. People see how hard you work and they will support you.

Tell us about your book

It’s called The Glam House Blueprint and comes in eBook and hardcover. I've poured a lot of time and energy into writing this book. It’s my blueprint on how to become a successful entrepreneur. A step-by-step guide on how to start your journey and how to manifest everything you want in life. It features everything that I use and everything that I do each day. It’s literally the book that's going to help manifest what career choice you want to pursue. It allows you to write in the book, it shows how to build a website, how to open up a salon, and it also talks about a lot of things you’ll stumble over and how to shake them off. I’ve written everything I've learned along the way.

I came from a family that so believed in going to college, getting a 9-to-5 job, and getting insurance so that you can have a family and live a regular life. But I took a risk. I didn’t go to business school. Now I’ve retired my mom and dad.

Being an open-minded person and accepting that you can learn from people is important as an entrepreneur. You need to be able to listen and allow yourself to grow. I’m continuously growing and open to learning every single day.

You should pursue your dreams. No matter what. If I can do it, so can you.

Wix eCommerce is an integrated online store platform for merchants, those learning how to become entrepreneurs, and retailers. Launch your online store today.

Geraldine Feehily

Marketing Writer, Wix eCommerce

Geraldine is a marketing writer for Wix eCommerce. She uses her broad experience in journalism, publishing, public relations and marketing to create compelling content and loves hearing user success stories.