8 ms·

HelloFlo Launches a Tampon Subscription Service

25 points by jeffepp 14y ago

mkoble11 14y ago
I'd bet that men would also purchase this for their girlfriends/wives, so they don't ever have to go to the store :) File this under ideas I wished I would have thought of....
- liddybird 14y ago
  you CAN buy this for your gf/wife if you use Juniper — Just go to http://www.getjuniper.com/gift http://www.getjuniper.com/gift !
GhotiFish 14y ago
This has a male equivalent as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI
- thomseddon 14y ago
  Best advert i've seen this year, literally laughed out loud
- ajtaylor 14y ago
  How has that not gone viral?! I had to stifle several laughs so my boss didn't look at me funny. Plus, how can you go wrong with a dollar a month? That won't even buy you a cup of coffee in Sydney.
petercooper 14y ago
My wife's mind boggles that so much money is spent on this stuff when you can buy a menstrual cup every year or two and face almost none of the cons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_cup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_cup .. I wonder if this is one of those "the industry doesn't want this to happen" dealies. (Disclaimer: I do not have a vagina so don't have direct experience, but she raves about it.)
- Swizec 14y ago
  My initial reaction as a person without a vagina is "Ew, isn't that a bit like installing a catheter so you don't have to go pee?" I mean, I prefer paper handkerchiefs so I can throw them away after use, rather than carrying around a piece of cloth that gets all messy.
  - petercooper 14y ago
    Though that first reaction would also be true of a tampon. You're inserting something that collects liquid in both cases: just one absorbs it and the other doesn't. Indeed, with the cup, the liquid is retained in the cup. With the tampon, it's absorbed and still touching organic matter (which is why they need to be changed more often).
- mediacrisis 14y ago
  They're cost effective and environmentally friendly, however dropping one on the floor of a public restroom is quite the faux pas.
  - obviouslygreen 14y ago
    This gave me a truly awful, slow-motion, Quentin Tarantino mental replay.
    - Zecc 14y ago
      Thank you for sharing...
      - obviouslygreen 14y ago
        Sharing is caring! <3
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  I am used to traditional disclaimers such as "I work for the company ..." But I don't have a vagina has to be the strangest and best disclaimer all year :-). Have some karma Ps Someday I shall have to write a book to go with a title that popped into my head over the weekend: "Men; turns out we are all crap, who knew?"
jbrooksuk 14y ago
Definitely need this in the UK. I can't understand why, but my partner HATES buying tampons in the supermarket, the amount of times I've had to pick them up on my way home is countless. It's a normal part of being a woman, there is no prejudice women. Any women here who don't mind sharing why this is so embarrassing for the alike?
- nicholassmith 14y ago
  I'd imagine it's why some guys get embarrassed buying condoms, the "oh no! Everyone now knows I have bodily functions!".
  - jbrooksuk 14y ago
    That's never bothered me, I see it as a token of mature thinking, not ready for kids, taking precaution. Now I don't bother though since they're cheaper to purchase online direct from Durex etc.
- joezydeco 14y ago
  Male here. Your partner just needs to grow up. I've been purchasing feminine hygiene products for my girlfriend-now-wife for the last 15 years and have been happy to help her, not embarrassed. If this is a problem for him now, childbirth is really going to be an experience. =)
  - calopetreep 14y ago
    Actually I think the parent poster is male- I certainly read it the same way you did at first!
    - joezydeco 14y ago
      Oh, on second read you're right. Sorry! =\
      - jbrooksuk 14y ago
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- untog 14y ago
  It happens every month, for half of the planet... yet it's taken this long for someone to make a subscription service for it. I couldn't speculate as to the reason why- I'd be interested to hear if anyone has tried to do something similar and come up against investors who don't "get it", or anything like that.
- jetti 14y ago
  Many women have regular cycles but not every woman does. For those women, it can be a surprise as to when and how long they are going to get their period. That said, this service wouldn't be for those who are surprised by their period, on the contrary, it is for women who know when, how long and how "bad" (for lack of a better word) their period is and it is regular. At first I was skeptical but I could definitely see a market for this. It is easy and cheaper to buy tampons at the store but it trades time for a little extra expense. If I was a woman I would probably do this as I value my time more than a few extra dollars a month and it is a set it once and forget it. On a random side note, this is one service that would be quite awkward to get if you lived in an apartment and then forgot to update your mailing address.
  - papsosouid 14y ago
    >It is easy and cheaper to buy tampons at the store but it trades time for a little extra expense. If I was a woman I would probably do this as I value my time more than a few extra dollars a month and it is a set it once and forget it. Do you not buy groceries? I don't see how the 30 seconds of time saved by not adding that one item to your shopping cart justifies the cost. Do you have a separate subscription service for every grocery item?
    - jetti 14y ago
      First off, this whole debate is theoretical since I am male. I don't buy groceries on a frequent basis (once every two to three weeks) so it isn't like I'm there a lot. I am also quite of a space case and don't focus on the present but am thinking about other things, which means I forget things while grocery shopping quite frequently. There are some times that it would be just walking over and adding it to the cart, but for me personally, I'm sure I would forget more often than not. (Of course, that is easy to say as a guy who doesn't have to deal with menstruation)
rvkennedy 14y ago
And a big HN welcome to the Pets.com of the second internet bubble!
- niggler 14y ago
  I can think of at least 10 other companies with many external investors that better deserve the dubious title of "Pets.com of the second internet bubble"
stinos 14y ago
I just showed this to my girlfriend and she was like "wtf would I need that for?". Seeing that in our basement we have like a pallet of tampons and pads I understand her. Buying this stuff in mass just seems cheaper and smarter.
- untog 14y ago
  You could say the same of any subscription service. Despite being a male, I can tell you that in NYC at least, having a pallet of tampons in the basement is not practical, given that no-one has a basement or any spare room for a pallet.
ecubed 14y ago
Why would you use this service instead of subscribing on Amazon?
rhplus 14y ago
I'm skeptical about the real usefulness of this service, simply because I just don't think it could match the timeliness or efficiency of the current distributions model. Right now you can buy these products in literally every convenience store, gas-station, drug store, supermarket and warehouse store in the country (ordered roughly by decreasing unit cost & decreasing convenience). With a 'tailored' delivery service, you're always going to end up with too many at the end a month - in which case you might as well have bought a big box from a supermarket or Costco/Amazon at a fraction of the unit cost, or you'll end up with too few - in which case you will have to urgently overpay at the convenience store or gas station anyway.
acgourley 14y ago
Small shout-out to my friends at Juniper [1] who run the same business and did not get techcrunched. As the article says, a little competition probably isn't bad in a large market like this. [1] http://www.getjuniper.com/ http://www.getjuniper.com/
- MBee 14y ago
  They were covered on Techcrunch in October. http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/07/juniper-monthly-subscription-tampons-video-interview http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/07/juniper-monthly-subscriptio...
jgrahamc 14y ago
The margin on this business must be very thin. I assume they are just buying the tampons wholesale and then reselling them on a subscription basis. At the same time the barrier to entry for this type of business seems very small which ultimately means that the margin gets squeezed even more. It would be interesting to know what value added services they can provide to increase their margin.
- jcampbell1 14y ago
  If it has a UPC, Amazon will beat you. Amazon is already in the business with "Subscribe and Save". The dollar shave club may be sustainable because they have managed to make no-name blades appealing through a viral video.
- liddybird 14y ago
  the barriers to entry are not as you may think. Yes, anyone can set up an etsy/ebay store, with some paypayl express check out thrown in. But if you'd notice, it's not often that women complain about the price of tampons (though they are getting more and more expensive), it's really the entire experience that is dreadful. To actually bring forth a useful subscription product that's delightful, and always delivered on time requires thoughtful design and implementation. Every woman is different, they require different numbers of tampons each cycle, of different absorbencies, and in their preferred brand. They don't want a backlog of products in their own bathroom that takes up room for months at a time, only to run out unexpectedly when they most need it. This may seem like a laughable or even trivial issue to tackle, but half of the population has periods and everyone complains about them, why not do something to improve that situation?
gadders 14y ago
I thought of doing something similar in the UK. I was also looking at the use of Jersey as they let you send (or used to) packages under £15 vat free. I think the only way you could make money would be to create your own brand, but I'm guessing (as a man) that this would be an area susceptible to brand loyalty, or at least to not using unknown brands.
dmor 14y ago
It can only be a matter of time until tons of these subscription services are consolidated in a single place. You can already subscribe to products on Amazon, although often the minimum quantity is still so high that a quarterly rather than monthly subscription makes sense. I'm kind of waiting for a subscription-box-as-a-service company to come along, tell you that you can create the custom subscription box of your choice and one you hit X number of subscribers they'll fulfill it for you and you'll get a cut. The other way I could see this going is towards a content play, where they start out with a tampons subscription but really it is a play to gain mindshare from women about feminine issues and create a media/brand company. Given the interview with the founder I don't think this is her vision right now, but it is definitely a direction she could go. I have a vagina, but as a West Coast woman surrounded by liberal-minded people and no period in over 5 years (tell your wives and girlfriends about Mirena) I might just be too disconnected from the "pain" of the customer in this case.
liddybird 14y ago
Lynn Tao, here, CEO of Juniper (www.getjuniper.com). I figure I’ll chime in and address some of the questions and comments here: 1. Yes, the majority of the women I’ve talked to have thought that we have a brilliant idea. 2. Why not just buy from Amazon subscribe and save? Of the women we talked to, many have little insight into how much they use. This is not because they’re dumb — if I were to ask you how many bottles of shampoo you use in any given month or year, you can probably estimate, but you may be off. That’s something you use on a daily basis. A box of tampons is something you use every 28 days — estimating how and when to tell Amazon to deliver that seems trivial, but in practice, one ends up with either a shortage or more likely, backlog. Inconvenient. 3. This leads me to my next point: why is this a tech culture vs a culture culture issue? Because tampons are needed by different women on different cycles. You can use paypal or shopify or maybe even an esty store to deliver this type of thing once a box. To actually get it to the set-it-and-forget-it state, and scale it up, you’d need to invest in infrastructure that’s a bit more involved than an internal wiki. Tampon delivery and Late should never be in the same sentence together. We comp all the Juniper boxes that are delivered even one day late. 4. Why not just buy a huge box? Like someone already said – there’s a space issue. Some women, my self included, like to switch between different products during the course of a period, which means they have to buy different bulky boxes that has to take up a lot of space. Again, inconvenient. Juniper eliminates that need. 5. While some women are embarrassed to buy it, that’s not the biggest pain point. My customers are not timid girls, they’re women. However, being busy women, it’s inconvenient to not have them when you need them the most, and convenient stores only carry a limited number of brands, Walgreens and big-box stores will carry more brands but consumer still have to go to them. In Manhattan, there’s a drug store on every corner, in other cities and towns it’s not the case. 6. re: Gourmet snacks and Tampons being a weird combination to ship: Our customers love that they get to savor high quality treats around the time of the month when it feels extra stressful. Our treats rotate every month to feature something new, so there’s a surprise element to it as well. A good surprise. 7. Washable tampons? Unlike pads, tampons go into a sensitive ph-balanced body cavity. Washing it and reinserting it may introduce bacteria into that cavity and cause infections and even TSS. Diva cups are wash-and-reuseable, and some women love them. However, other women are used to pads or tampons and simply do not prefer them, even if they like the concept. Bottom line: Yes, chuckle worthy subject. But this is far from trivial. Half of the population has to deal with a monthly period, and everyone complains about it. If we can have pizza and books delivered to us, why not tampons? I could go into a fem-empowerment rant on why we didn’t have this service earlier, but it’s 9am on the west coast and I have to go run a company now.

25 points by jeffepp 14y ago

I'd bet that men would also purchase this for their girlfriends/wives, so they don't ever have to go to the store :) File this under ideas I wished I would have thought of....

liddybird 14y ago
you CAN buy this for your gf/wife if you use Juniper — Just go to http://www.getjuniper.com/gift http://www.getjuniper.com/gift !

GhotiFish 14y ago

This has a male equivalent as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI

thomseddon 14y ago
Best advert i've seen this year, literally laughed out loud
ajtaylor 14y ago
How has that not gone viral?! I had to stifle several laughs so my boss didn't look at me funny. Plus, how can you go wrong with a dollar a month? That won't even buy you a cup of coffee in Sydney.

petercooper 14y ago

My wife's mind boggles that so much money is spent on this stuff when you can buy a menstrual cup every year or two and face almost none of the cons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_cup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_cup .. I wonder if this is one of those "the industry doesn't want this to happen" dealies. (Disclaimer: I do not have a vagina so don't have direct experience, but she raves about it.)

Swizec 14y ago
My initial reaction as a person without a vagina is "Ew, isn't that a bit like installing a catheter so you don't have to go pee?" I mean, I prefer paper handkerchiefs so I can throw them away after use, rather than carrying around a piece of cloth that gets all messy.
- petercooper 14y ago
  Though that first reaction would also be true of a tampon. You're inserting something that collects liquid in both cases: just one absorbs it and the other doesn't. Indeed, with the cup, the liquid is retained in the cup. With the tampon, it's absorbed and still touching organic matter (which is why they need to be changed more often).
mediacrisis 14y ago
They're cost effective and environmentally friendly, however dropping one on the floor of a public restroom is quite the faux pas.
- obviouslygreen 14y ago
  This gave me a truly awful, slow-motion, Quentin Tarantino mental replay.
  - Zecc 14y ago
    Thank you for sharing...
    - obviouslygreen 14y ago
      Sharing is caring! <3
lifeisstillgood 14y ago
I am used to traditional disclaimers such as "I work for the company ..." But I don't have a vagina has to be the strangest and best disclaimer all year :-). Have some karma Ps Someday I shall have to write a book to go with a title that popped into my head over the weekend: "Men; turns out we are all crap, who knew?"

jbrooksuk 14y ago

Definitely need this in the UK. I can't understand why, but my partner HATES buying tampons in the supermarket, the amount of times I've had to pick them up on my way home is countless. It's a normal part of being a woman, there is no prejudice women. Any women here who don't mind sharing why this is so embarrassing for the alike?

nicholassmith 14y ago
I'd imagine it's why some guys get embarrassed buying condoms, the "oh no! Everyone now knows I have bodily functions!".
- jbrooksuk 14y ago
  That's never bothered me, I see it as a token of mature thinking, not ready for kids, taking precaution. Now I don't bother though since they're cheaper to purchase online direct from Durex etc.
joezydeco 14y ago
Male here. Your partner just needs to grow up. I've been purchasing feminine hygiene products for my girlfriend-now-wife for the last 15 years and have been happy to help her, not embarrassed. If this is a problem for him now, childbirth is really going to be an experience. =)
- calopetreep 14y ago
  Actually I think the parent poster is male- I certainly read it the same way you did at first!
  - joezydeco 14y ago
    Oh, on second read you're right. Sorry! =\
    - jbrooksuk 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

untog 14y ago
It happens every month, for half of the planet... yet it's taken this long for someone to make a subscription service for it. I couldn't speculate as to the reason why- I'd be interested to hear if anyone has tried to do something similar and come up against investors who don't "get it", or anything like that.
jetti 14y ago
Many women have regular cycles but not every woman does. For those women, it can be a surprise as to when and how long they are going to get their period. That said, this service wouldn't be for those who are surprised by their period, on the contrary, it is for women who know when, how long and how "bad" (for lack of a better word) their period is and it is regular. At first I was skeptical but I could definitely see a market for this. It is easy and cheaper to buy tampons at the store but it trades time for a little extra expense. If I was a woman I would probably do this as I value my time more than a few extra dollars a month and it is a set it once and forget it. On a random side note, this is one service that would be quite awkward to get if you lived in an apartment and then forgot to update your mailing address.
- papsosouid 14y ago
  >It is easy and cheaper to buy tampons at the store but it trades time for a little extra expense. If I was a woman I would probably do this as I value my time more than a few extra dollars a month and it is a set it once and forget it. Do you not buy groceries? I don't see how the 30 seconds of time saved by not adding that one item to your shopping cart justifies the cost. Do you have a separate subscription service for every grocery item?
  - jetti 14y ago
    First off, this whole debate is theoretical since I am male. I don't buy groceries on a frequent basis (once every two to three weeks) so it isn't like I'm there a lot. I am also quite of a space case and don't focus on the present but am thinking about other things, which means I forget things while grocery shopping quite frequently. There are some times that it would be just walking over and adding it to the cart, but for me personally, I'm sure I would forget more often than not. (Of course, that is easy to say as a guy who doesn't have to deal with menstruation)

rvkennedy 14y ago

And a big HN welcome to the Pets.com of the second internet bubble!

niggler 14y ago
I can think of at least 10 other companies with many external investors that better deserve the dubious title of "Pets.com of the second internet bubble"

stinos 14y ago

I just showed this to my girlfriend and she was like "wtf would I need that for?". Seeing that in our basement we have like a pallet of tampons and pads I understand her. Buying this stuff in mass just seems cheaper and smarter.

untog 14y ago
You could say the same of any subscription service. Despite being a male, I can tell you that in NYC at least, having a pallet of tampons in the basement is not practical, given that no-one has a basement or any spare room for a pallet.

ecubed 14y ago

Why would you use this service instead of subscribing on Amazon?

rhplus 14y ago

I'm skeptical about the real usefulness of this service, simply because I just don't think it could match the timeliness or efficiency of the current distributions model. Right now you can buy these products in literally every convenience store, gas-station, drug store, supermarket and warehouse store in the country (ordered roughly by decreasing unit cost & decreasing convenience). With a 'tailored' delivery service, you're always going to end up with too many at the end a month - in which case you might as well have bought a big box from a supermarket or Costco/Amazon at a fraction of the unit cost, or you'll end up with too few - in which case you will have to urgently overpay at the convenience store or gas station anyway.

acgourley 14y ago

Small shout-out to my friends at Juniper [1] who run the same business and did not get techcrunched. As the article says, a little competition probably isn't bad in a large market like this. [1] http://www.getjuniper.com/ http://www.getjuniper.com/

MBee 14y ago
They were covered on Techcrunch in October. http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/07/juniper-monthly-subscription-tampons-video-interview http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/07/juniper-monthly-subscriptio...

jgrahamc 14y ago

The margin on this business must be very thin. I assume they are just buying the tampons wholesale and then reselling them on a subscription basis. At the same time the barrier to entry for this type of business seems very small which ultimately means that the margin gets squeezed even more. It would be interesting to know what value added services they can provide to increase their margin.

jcampbell1 14y ago
If it has a UPC, Amazon will beat you. Amazon is already in the business with "Subscribe and Save". The dollar shave club may be sustainable because they have managed to make no-name blades appealing through a viral video.
liddybird 14y ago
the barriers to entry are not as you may think. Yes, anyone can set up an etsy/ebay store, with some paypayl express check out thrown in. But if you'd notice, it's not often that women complain about the price of tampons (though they are getting more and more expensive), it's really the entire experience that is dreadful. To actually bring forth a useful subscription product that's delightful, and always delivered on time requires thoughtful design and implementation. Every woman is different, they require different numbers of tampons each cycle, of different absorbencies, and in their preferred brand. They don't want a backlog of products in their own bathroom that takes up room for months at a time, only to run out unexpectedly when they most need it. This may seem like a laughable or even trivial issue to tackle, but half of the population has periods and everyone complains about them, why not do something to improve that situation?

gadders 14y ago

I thought of doing something similar in the UK. I was also looking at the use of Jersey as they let you send (or used to) packages under £15 vat free. I think the only way you could make money would be to create your own brand, but I'm guessing (as a man) that this would be an area susceptible to brand loyalty, or at least to not using unknown brands.

dmor 14y ago

It can only be a matter of time until tons of these subscription services are consolidated in a single place. You can already subscribe to products on Amazon, although often the minimum quantity is still so high that a quarterly rather than monthly subscription makes sense. I'm kind of waiting for a subscription-box-as-a-service company to come along, tell you that you can create the custom subscription box of your choice and one you hit X number of subscribers they'll fulfill it for you and you'll get a cut. The other way I could see this going is towards a content play, where they start out with a tampons subscription but really it is a play to gain mindshare from women about feminine issues and create a media/brand company. Given the interview with the founder I don't think this is her vision right now, but it is definitely a direction she could go. I have a vagina, but as a West Coast woman surrounded by liberal-minded people and no period in over 5 years (tell your wives and girlfriends about Mirena) I might just be too disconnected from the "pain" of the customer in this case.

liddybird 14y ago

Lynn Tao, here, CEO of Juniper (www.getjuniper.com). I figure I’ll chime in and address some of the questions and comments here: 1. Yes, the majority of the women I’ve talked to have thought that we have a brilliant idea. 2. Why not just buy from Amazon subscribe and save? Of the women we talked to, many have little insight into how much they use. This is not because they’re dumb — if I were to ask you how many bottles of shampoo you use in any given month or year, you can probably estimate, but you may be off. That’s something you use on a daily basis. A box of tampons is something you use every 28 days — estimating how and when to tell Amazon to deliver that seems trivial, but in practice, one ends up with either a shortage or more likely, backlog. Inconvenient. 3. This leads me to my next point: why is this a tech culture vs a culture culture issue? Because tampons are needed by different women on different cycles. You can use paypal or shopify or maybe even an esty store to deliver this type of thing once a box. To actually get it to the set-it-and-forget-it state, and scale it up, you’d need to invest in infrastructure that’s a bit more involved than an internal wiki. Tampon delivery and Late should never be in the same sentence together. We comp all the Juniper boxes that are delivered even one day late. 4. Why not just buy a huge box? Like someone already said – there’s a space issue. Some women, my self included, like to switch between different products during the course of a period, which means they have to buy different bulky boxes that has to take up a lot of space. Again, inconvenient. Juniper eliminates that need. 5. While some women are embarrassed to buy it, that’s not the biggest pain point. My customers are not timid girls, they’re women. However, being busy women, it’s inconvenient to not have them when you need them the most, and convenient stores only carry a limited number of brands, Walgreens and big-box stores will carry more brands but consumer still have to go to them. In Manhattan, there’s a drug store on every corner, in other cities and towns it’s not the case. 6. re: Gourmet snacks and Tampons being a weird combination to ship: Our customers love that they get to savor high quality treats around the time of the month when it feels extra stressful. Our treats rotate every month to feature something new, so there’s a surprise element to it as well. A good surprise. 7. Washable tampons? Unlike pads, tampons go into a sensitive ph-balanced body cavity. Washing it and reinserting it may introduce bacteria into that cavity and cause infections and even TSS. Diva cups are wash-and-reuseable, and some women love them. However, other women are used to pads or tampons and simply do not prefer them, even if they like the concept. Bottom line: Yes, chuckle worthy subject. But this is far from trivial. Half of the population has to deal with a monthly period, and everyone complains about it. If we can have pizza and books delivered to us, why not tampons? I could go into a fem-empowerment rant on why we didn’t have this service earlier, but it’s 9am on the west coast and I have to go run a company now.