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I launched a men’s skincare line about 3 months ago (https://www.mendskin.co https://www.mendskin.co) which isn’t “successful” yet, but it’s my first experience

I launched a men’s skincare line about 3 months ago (https://www.mendskin.co https://www.mendskin.co) which isn’t “successful” yet, but it’s my first experience selling physical goods and I think these things take time. It’s tough. There’s a reason a lot of companies spend $1MM from investors before launching a product, but I wanted to test the hypothesis that this need not be the case. “Beauty products” (for lack of a better term) definitely require heavy capital, and it’s becoming hard to do everything by myself. All the individual things that need to be done aren’t hard- it’s just that there’s so much to do in order to deliver successful physical products. But I enjoy it.

jklepatch 7y ago
Cool! I used to run an ecommerce website a few years ago, 50K usd/month revenue. We used to get our customers from seo only. If I had to do it now I will probably try Facebook ads + email list. How do you acquire your customers?
- treyfitty 7y ago
  That’s interesting. We too run ads on Instagram and Facebook and Google, but we’ve only found customers via Google Ads. I’ve tried campaigns for gathering email addresses, but that didn’t lead anywhere. Right now we’re testing affiliates
nickonline 7y ago
From the list of businesses in this thread this was the one that caught my eye. However, I am Australian and a lot of the time businesses don't ship here. Like you say, it's a physical business, you need to move physical products. I opened your website and immediately looked for shipping, 'countries you ship to' is nowhere to be found until checkout, where there is a dropdown with no options other than the USA.
- treyfitty 7y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, shipping outside of the US is pretty much all we can do at this point, I’m sorry to say.
- istjohn 7y ago
  Are there mail forwarding services that cater to people in your situation? Would you pay $10-$15 plus typical US-to-Australia shipping costs for this service? I guess I'm wondering if this is a business opportunity for someone to provide a US delivery address and then forward the mail abroad.
  - mkl 7y ago
    New Zealand Post runs a service like this: https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/youshop https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/youshop Doesn't cater to Australians though!
  - hnick 7y ago
    There are, Australia Post runs one which I've never used at https://shopmate.auspost.com.au/ https://shopmate.auspost.com.au/ International shipping is typically not that difficult or unreasonably expensive for most items (I help to send some physical goods from Australia, which is conveniently near nowhere else). The problem is usually customer expectations, we can submit their parcel the same day but any delays in customs, processing, or their local courier/postal service becomes our fault since the customer has no one else to contact, but we have no real ability to change the outcome for any individual parcel.
sshine 7y ago
Interesting. As a person in your target audience (except perhaps geography), here's what I'd like: I'm really dumb when it comes to skin care, but recently convinced myself that it's important. So I have zero clue where to start. Looking at your nicely stylized huge rectangles with jars, my eyes glaze over: They're all the same! Short jar, tall jar, short jar. Why not write some blog posts to increase SEO ranking on subjects that your audience might want to read: - What should my first skin care product be? - How making skin care a part of your daily routine in only X minutes a day. - How does one characterize skin (dryness, etc.), what's my skin type, and what product should I buy for it? - How to cut costs making your own skin care products, and how buying your products is not much more expensive, but a lot more effortless than that. - Something related to beards; like your front-page photo of a good looking muscular man with a nice looking beard, maybe interview-style for aspiration.
- treyfitty 7y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. SEO is definitely a work in progress. To that end, I've created this to-be-published page (https://www.mendskin.co/pages/mend-skin-guide https://www.mendskin.co/pages/mend-skin-guide) which is meant to be a "crash course" on skincare. The world of skincare is vast, and I intend on creating newsletters to better inform potential customers what they should be looking for. Very Soon.
- sjg007 7y ago
  Easy thing would be to go see a dermatologist if you have access to one. They can give you recommendations.

jklepatch 7y ago

Cool! I used to run an ecommerce website a few years ago, 50K usd/month revenue. We used to get our customers from seo only. If I had to do it now I will probably try Facebook ads + email list. How do you acquire your customers?

treyfitty 7y ago
That’s interesting. We too run ads on Instagram and Facebook and Google, but we’ve only found customers via Google Ads. I’ve tried campaigns for gathering email addresses, but that didn’t lead anywhere. Right now we’re testing affiliates

nickonline 7y ago

From the list of businesses in this thread this was the one that caught my eye. However, I am Australian and a lot of the time businesses don't ship here. Like you say, it's a physical business, you need to move physical products. I opened your website and immediately looked for shipping, 'countries you ship to' is nowhere to be found until checkout, where there is a dropdown with no options other than the USA.

treyfitty 7y ago
Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, shipping outside of the US is pretty much all we can do at this point, I’m sorry to say.
istjohn 7y ago
Are there mail forwarding services that cater to people in your situation? Would you pay $10-$15 plus typical US-to-Australia shipping costs for this service? I guess I'm wondering if this is a business opportunity for someone to provide a US delivery address and then forward the mail abroad.
- mkl 7y ago
  New Zealand Post runs a service like this: https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/youshop https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/youshop Doesn't cater to Australians though!
- hnick 7y ago
  There are, Australia Post runs one which I've never used at https://shopmate.auspost.com.au/ https://shopmate.auspost.com.au/ International shipping is typically not that difficult or unreasonably expensive for most items (I help to send some physical goods from Australia, which is conveniently near nowhere else). The problem is usually customer expectations, we can submit their parcel the same day but any delays in customs, processing, or their local courier/postal service becomes our fault since the customer has no one else to contact, but we have no real ability to change the outcome for any individual parcel.

sshine 7y ago

Interesting. As a person in your target audience (except perhaps geography), here's what I'd like: I'm really dumb when it comes to skin care, but recently convinced myself that it's important. So I have zero clue where to start. Looking at your nicely stylized huge rectangles with jars, my eyes glaze over: They're all the same! Short jar, tall jar, short jar. Why not write some blog posts to increase SEO ranking on subjects that your audience might want to read: - What should my first skin care product be? - How making skin care a part of your daily routine in only X minutes a day. - How does one characterize skin (dryness, etc.), what's my skin type, and what product should I buy for it? - How to cut costs making your own skin care products, and how buying your products is not much more expensive, but a lot more effortless than that. - Something related to beards; like your front-page photo of a good looking muscular man with a nice looking beard, maybe interview-style for aspiration.

treyfitty 7y ago
Thanks for the feedback. SEO is definitely a work in progress. To that end, I've created this to-be-published page (https://www.mendskin.co/pages/mend-skin-guide https://www.mendskin.co/pages/mend-skin-guide) which is meant to be a "crash course" on skincare. The world of skincare is vast, and I intend on creating newsletters to better inform potential customers what they should be looking for. Very Soon.
sjg007 7y ago
Easy thing would be to go see a dermatologist if you have access to one. They can give you recommendations.