NEWS
17 Aug 2019
1. What inspired you to create an organic accredited range of mother and baby skincare products?
Over the years my wife and I have attended dozens of baby shower parties, each and every time we faced the challenge of deciding what to buy for the baby and the new mum. We always found it difficult to find a gift which was useful, affordable and nice that could be used every day… Until one day when I was bathing my daughter I suddenly realized quality skincare products were the ideal gifts we had been look for. And as greenwashing has been ram-pant in recent years, my wife and I both believed that organic & natural accredited skincare would become a popular choice as gifts for mums and babies, inspiring us to launch a business to match this huge upcoming market demand.
2. What were the main challenges you faced in order to get it launched; and are you still facing these challenges today?
When we started approaching potential stockists to resell our products through emails and cold-calls, we were rejected at least 9 out of 10 times! Simply because our brand was unknown in the market. Then we changed our strategy to visit those stores in person. Magical things happened when the store owners managers saw the product packaging and tried the products on the spot. The turning point came when two to three stores started stock-ing our products which were actually sold to customers! This market acceptance regained our confidence and since then we traveled around the country to introduce our products with pride. We are happy that our products can now be found in stores in different regions in New Zealand like Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and Otago.
We are still facing the challenge of finding suitable stockists today, for sure! But we are now more focused on working with chain stores, which we believe will help raise our brand awareness to the next level. Inevitably this involves a lengthy negotiation process and more flexible trading terms.
3. What were the most memorable, defying moments during this time?
When we turned our information-only website into an online shop, it broadened the scope of our potential cus-tomers from New Zealand to basically any countries. Obviously customers did not turn up overnight. We have been putting tremendous efforts in social media channels like Facebook and Instagram to showcase our brand to the world. Honestly, the feedback was much slower than expected in the first few months. On a normal day in the mid of December, suddenly there were dozens of orders coming through not only from New Zealand, but also many different countries which we haven’t done any promotional efforts at all! Apart from the spreading power of the social media, we contributed this little success to the efforts we have made to promote our products as an ideal GIFT for mums and babies, as backed up by international certifications and premium packaging and design.
4. What helped you to see it through to the end?
As parents of two young kids, we understand the importance of safe and quality skincare to mums and babies. Not least because 60% of what we put on our skin enters our bloodstream, and our child’s skin is a third thinner than ours. Ironically, we are aware that the chemical load placed on our bodies in the modern world is rapidly increasing. We have no doubts that certified skincare for mums and babies would have a huge market potential, so the main questions for us have been finding ways to educate the public of this importance and explore our potential cus-tomers from new parents – the users, to anyone who wants to buy quality gifts to mothers and babies.
5. What are your plans for the next 5 years?
Currently we are working with our contract manufacturer to develop some new products for mums and babies to meet the increasing demand. In terms of sales channels, we are now negotiating with a couple of big chain stores to increase our market shares in New Zealand. Internationally, we will start looking for sole distributors in potential markets like Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Germany, UK and The United States. We plan to have our products being distributed in 5 other countries in the next 5 years. And we will continue our mission to #spreadlovearound, bringing the purest and most natural skincare to mothers and babies around the world, right here from New Zealand.
