Analyzing The Wet Shaving Market in 2023

Let me analyze the thread analyzing the market.
Alot is guessing and conjecture. Only the true merchants can tell you how the market is. Spitballing shavesoap, ASL, balm, razor markets is kind of like day trading using week old newspapers to make your bets. And as a merchant, thats really all it is, using your money to bet that a customer somewhere might want to buy something you have. If you don't sell, you lost that bet.
Analyzing the market from a merchants perspective.
If you don't have piles of cash laying around to supply the customer with titanium tubs that their great grand children can reuse, if you don't have the cash to pay an artist to draw a nude nubile girl riding a dragon bareback through Krokus flowers, if you don't have the cash for water proof stickers that can be peeled from that titanium tub for reuse, if you don't have the fat stacks of cash to push your product up from your own website, on google searches, ebay searches, forum chatter, u-tube channels, you will not get a return on your shave soap investment. You have to have cash reserves for the collaborations of the leading scent makers to make one of a kind numbered shavesoap releases. And then, you might need to grab another stack of cash to buy a building, renovate it, then fill it, and hire up some employees to run it Because, if you can afford all of the above, and run a melt-and-pour operation, you will be highly successful and be asked to guest speak at your sponsored shave meet-up and men will impale themselves in battle defending your high-end melt-and-pour shavesoap.
I share dominicr ideology in only producing the staples of shaving. Promoting a new line of shavesoap just to kill it 12 mos later is a dick move. When designing and marketing my product I used the best ideas and practices employed by soapers like Dom and Rod with the singular idea that performance is what matters most in a shave. And that performance is what should push that soap to a person's bathroom sink. As a merchant, I severely underestimated the market in that regard. The fact that users of this forum didn't recall my product as an example of how the shavesoap market performs when doing their analysis is a prime example of how stacks of cash NOT invested in all of the above mentioned marketing in this industry can affect your memory recall of available quality products. To surmise if ebay/etsy/amazon doesn't have you in a top 10 is reflective of this advertising and marketing niche.
So I guess another way to "analyze the market" would be to just scan top 10 lists, social media, websites and user mentions from a maker as to how much cash they are shoveling into their advertising furnace to garner your attention because staying relevant in label design and lengthy ingredient list is about all that matters. Performance of a product in the market really seems to matter far less.

What’s your company?

Debating whether to stay out of "politics" on the forum, but this is laughable

The person trying to underpay employees and squeeze every drop out of them is finding... employees aren't giving quality work? Shocker!

You get what you pay for.

Maybe so, maybe not...

The manager asked me an absolute soft ball question last night during my interview about how to do something and I thought she was joking. Apparently she wasn't and there are people applying for senior roles that cannot answer the question she asked, which is like basic stuff....

The recruiter then followed up on this by telling me they had 2 people who applied for senior IT roles who could not answer some basic, fundamental IT questions.

In other words, there seems to be some people in the labor market overvaluing their talent for jobs they not suitable to be working in...



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So, did you get the gig!?

Not sure yet as I'll have another interview in the next week or two with the person's boss that I interviewed with. All indications seem to point towards them wanting to make me an offer once that hurdle is cleared.

I hate hate hate HATE changing jobs but at some point you have to!

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Maybe so, maybe not...

The manager asked me an absolute soft ball question last night during my interview about how to do something and I thought she was joking.  Apparently she wasn't and there are people applying for senior roles that cannot answer the question she asked, which is like basic stuff....

The recruiter then followed up on this by telling me they had 2 people who applied for senior IT roles who could not answer some basic, fundamental IT questions. 

In other words, there seems to be some people in the labor market overvaluing their talent for jobs they not suitable to be working in...



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So, did you get the gig!?

Hopefully, so we can get some raises around here. We're still only paid what we're worth.

Only if you'll answer all of the emails from new members that ask why they can't get inside the bst section and send PMs!



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So, did you get the gig!?

Hopefully, so we can get some raises around here. We're still only paid what we're worth.

Only if you'll answer all of the emails from new members that ask why they can't get inside the bst section and send PMs!



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As far as Backland razors go, I've been interested in a SE for a while but I've been waiting for some to show up on a Canadian vendor site - which hasn't happened for a long time.  That international shipping cost just makes it tough.

We no longer wholesale our products. They're only available directly through us going forward. International shipping to Canada is just $15 or free over $250. The new customer discount easily covers that cost.

I put my order in yesterday - the 15% discount was much appreciated.  Ti Vector.  I'm looking forward to taking it for a spin.  Thanks Shane.

The wet shaving market is beyond fickle. As a prime example the Britons are as "mad as March hares" (to quote Kaiser Wilhelm II) over some "dud" Mitchell's Wool Fat pucks. From all the "gnashing of teeth" you'd think someone tried to steal the Crown Jewels!! Has one person called the co. to see if they will replace the duds? Of course not!! It's better to sit around and bitch and whine about the purported death of an "institution" that has been around since 1893!!     

When Williams, founded in 1840, "folded their tent" there was but a slight ripple over here about it. The US market is constantly changing and those who cannot adapt get washed away like tears in the rain. In the past ten years there has been some great soaps go away, e.g., CRSW, The Strop Shoppe, etc. New makers filled the void quickly. The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on. 

I guess I should post one of the places I get my forecast.  https://www.itreconomics.com/alan-beaulieu is an economist we have used for more than 15 years, it is not a pitch for him, the entire automation industry in NA uses him.   

I’ve heard a lot of talk about disposable income and paying people more.  Hire people in their 50’s and 60’s and supply them good health insurance and their family, yeah with our healthcare laws 25 year olds who are married are on their parents insurance costing the company providing their parents insurance because they all want their side hustle and no insurance.  Trust me, I know, I value stable employees with experience, we pay for it. But when your bill is 3K a month per employee for health insurance and you cover 70-90% of that and offer STD/LTD, life insurance, etc and then need serious cyber security, serious business insurance (not just some liability policy), to be compliant in multiple states for paying taxes (Nexus, and many of the small companies here will start to qualify in other states sooner or later, look up the Wayfair ruling), and you try to scale that while building inventory, getting better at customer service all while interest rates climb to say, 9-10% for a business loan, you will consider consolidation as a likely outcome. 

That is my perspective.  The last 3 years were a piece of cake for this market.  Many people sat at home, learned to shave, spent huge amounts of money on hobbies as things were closed.  The govt stimulus helped this industry probably disproportionately.  Now, with higher interest rates, less disposable income, people losing jobs, fixed incomes not going as far with inflation, you will separate the wheat from the chaff. 

It’s natural, I’ve seen it in many industries from 2001-2003 and 2008-2010.  Well, this one is different.  Rather than the V of those two recessions, this one will be longer and less dramatic, but longer means a bigger reset.  

Oh, and by the way, a company’s value from an EBITDA valuation have dropped 20-50% because of the cost of borrowing capital.  That is another topic that I won’t go into, but selling or merging your company now, it will be worth a lot less than it was a year ago, because it costs a potential buyer more to borrow money and the market for M&A has reset.

I think the thing we need to keep in mind is that despite shaving being a worldwide practice, the “artisanal” wet shaving market is a niche market. I think for that reason in a large part the artisanal market demand is relatively inelastic - so is the general shaving market because while market conditions may lead to a general cutback in spending it like won’t lead to an explosion in growing beards for economic reasons. I also think the niche market will grow particularly on the younger end of the demographic. There’s more young potential wet shavers every day while sadly, albeit naturally, my end of the demographic is shrinking. More old guys might discover or rediscover wet shaving every year but the reality is that more of us are falling off the branch every year as well. Make sure you make provision for the distribution of your wet shaving accoutrements, particularly if you’ve got items of significance or value or even if it’s just run of the mill stuff. It’s cool to have and use your dad’s or your grandad’s shaving stuff. Even if it’s beat up and gross, it can always be cleaned up and restored. 

I saw an item on the news that Amazon is now taking as much as 50% if its merchants' sales. I’m not clear if it was sales, profits, margins or what but my first thought was holy mackerel! Is what they’re doing for merchants really worth that? Why not get a shopify account and get at it? I know there’s fulfillment etc but there’s got to be a better way that allows more of the profit to stay with the person who created the product and risked their capital.

I posted earlier that I had finally taken the plunge and bought a Blackland Razors  razor - the Ti Vector.  I had been dancing around the issue of getting one for probably a couple of years (thanks DFS Vector thread) but I had been waiting to see if my favourite Canadian vendor would restock.  They had carried it once and were leaving it up showing as sold out so ...but as Shane pointed out Backland isn't wholesaling anymore so if I was going to get one it had to be through Backland directly.  The thing that tipped me over the edge as far as buying one now was, I must admit, Shane's post on Blackland's view of the market and also his views on business and employment practices.  I respect that, although I was still faced with the decision as to whether to buy what for me would be the single most expensive shaving item I've ever purchased.  But I decided to stick to my practice of (where possible) buy local from people with integrity and shared (my) values and I bit the bullet.  The new customer discount helped as well.  I haven't received it yet but it's on the way.  I did receive an email welcoming me to Blackbird and a second email with user information including a YouTube video link on care and use of the razor I purchased.  That is a first for me and really appreciated as this is the first SE razor with AC blades that I've ever bought.  Hopefully it will answer any questions or concerns that I might have although I have no problem coming onto DFS and asking questions - members are always ready to help.  I think sending a user information like that to new buyers is a great business practice which also likely cuts down on inquiries and even possible returns.  Makes sense.  Thanks again Shane.

You're gonna love it Marko I've never had the pleasure of using the Titanium but can only see it making the razor even better than it already was.