For distributors and importers — landed cost, customs, multi-market registration, exclusivity, and portfolio breadth.
Cosmetics regulation is territorial. There is no global registration, so the same formula needs a different document set for each market — and that document set, not the formula, is what determines whether one supplier can serve your whole territory.
The unit price on a quotation is the factory gate. Everything that turns it into stock in your warehouse is added after, and most of it is invisible until the shipment clears.
Marketplaces commoditised the information layer — finding a factory and comparing a price. What they did not commoditise is regulatory liability, exclusivity and portfolio breadth.
