Its Quiet Out There....Too Quiet?

Its not a secret that artisans use limited releases and seasonals to try to stay front of mind of the market . If they create a lineup, no matter how excellent and then just put it out there and wait, it will eventually get stale and sales will taper off. Its just marketing but if the market isn't growing then even sales of those LEs/ seasonals will slow down as the market becomes saturated. Thats probably why B&M took a break from Hallows.

based of forum pageviews, we always see a dip in traffic during summer and around Christmas time. that said, we're still over 300,000+ pageviews a month and just shy of 3.8M from January 1st - December 30th: 3,759,974

based of forum pageviews, we always see a dip in traffic during summer and around Christmas time.  that said, we're still over 300,000+ pageviews a month and just shy of 3.8M from January 1st - December 30th: 3,759,974

Pretty good indicator we are still growing.

My two cents... The music industry used to have gatekeepers that authorized what was played on air and what artists got promoted. Now with Sound Cloud, Spotify, etc anyone can bypass the bureaucracy and go straight to their fans. The result is the handful of superstars are being replaced by hundreds of smaller artists that are diversifying the field. Check out this timeline as an example of what I am talking about. https://music-timeline.appspot.com

What does this have to do with shaving? You will see more small-sales vendors that appeal to smaller circles of folks. It will probably look like no one is selling something that everyone wants. You will also see more people involved but they will be from all over the world and less will speak English (more folks currently speak Mandarin or Spanish than English). Tools like Google translate will help remove language barriers and continue to open up the world to commerce. I see growth but it will look disruptive.

Just a sincere question.. but what if someone refreshes the page, clicks the DFS in the top of the screen, or is in and out of the same pages, etc.. do those count as separate views? Because I will be honest, I do that quite a bit when I'm here lol.

Just a sincere question.. but what if someone refreshes the page, clicks the DFS in the top of the screen, or is in and out of the same pages, etc.. do those count as separate views? Because I will be honest, I do that quite a bit when I'm here lol.

Yes, of 2018's 3.8 million views you sir are responsible for 2.75 million.

I believe the boom that happened for the last 5 years is slowly tapering off. Personally I was purchasing so much, eventually it just became wasteful. A lot of us have come to that realization. I have enough soap to last a lifetime, I know im not alone. With the massive influx of wet shavers, so many of us were eager to try everything. It was all new to us, and the market was flooded with new products. I don't believe a market built on extreme excess is sustainable. Eventually it has to level off.
It seems every facet of wet shaving has slowed down.
As mentioned above about the bst page. It seems the only resale market out there is just for the unobtainable. There used to be so many youtubers. All getting thousands of views everyday. Most have quit, and views are down considerably. I would suggest youtube helped sell a lot of products. It seems some days on these forums there is hardly any activity going on.
It just seems a lot of the excitement has worn off. I know so many of us have slowed down on our purchases. Hopefully there has been more newcomers to make up for the loss sales. Wet shaving doesn't seem to be going mainstream anytime soon, at the same time it's not going anywhere. If I had to bet I would guess it's in a decline from the massive boom the market experienced.

Just a sincere question.. but what if someone refreshes the page, clicks the DFS in the top of the screen, or is in and out of the same pages, etc.. do those count as separate views? Because I will be honest, I do that quite a bit when I'm here lol.

 
Yes, of 2018's 3.8 million views you sir are responsible for 2.75 million.        

HAHAHAHA!

I believe the boom that happened for the last 5 years is slowly tapering off. Personally I was purchasing so much,  eventually it just became wasteful. A lot of us have come to that realization.  I have enough soap to last a lifetime, I know im not alone. With the massive influx of wet shavers, so many of us were eager to try everything. It was all new to us, and the market was flooded with new products.  I don't believe a market built on extreme excess is sustainable. Eventually it has to level off.
 It seems every facet of wet shaving has slowed down.
As mentioned above about the bst page. It seems the only resale market out there is just for the unobtainable. There used to be so many youtubers. All getting thousands of views everyday. Most have quit, and views are down considerably. I would suggest youtube helped sell a lot of products. It seems some days on these forums there is hardly any activity going on.
 It just seems a lot of the excitement has worn off. I know so many of us have slowed down on our purchases. Hopefully there has been more newcomers to make up for the loss sales. Wet shaving doesn't seem to be going mainstream anytime soon, at the same time it's not going anywhere. If I had to bet I would guess it's in a decline from the massive boom the market experienced.

I don't think it has slowed at all. Forums are strong for the most part. Some older forums have slowed to a crawl, e.g., Shavemyface.com., but B&B is still going full tilt. DFS, although a fine forum, is not the only one. The unobtainable will always draw attention and demand just as does a Rembrandt or a Picasso. Nature of humans.

It has been said that the Average American male changes a hobby every four yrs. approx., or so I have read. I am way past that benchmark now and my interests in wet shaving merely shift a little between soaps & brushes. I went through BAD years ago when NOS were relatively cheap and ended up selling almost all as they simply weren't worth it on the whole IMO. I had RAD as well and "cured" it and made a profit in selling those. Nowadays I just fiddle fart around with a few artisan soaps, cheap aftershaves and the latest synthetic brush generation for the most part.

I hope I never lose that thrill of a DFS with the blade gliding effortlessly across my face, smelling good and with no ingrown hairs. That's what it's all about after all. I have never lost sight of my initial goal in all this. That's the secret.

I believe the boom that happened for the last 5 years is slowly tapering off. Personally I was purchasing so much,  eventually it just became wasteful. A lot of us have come to that realization.  I have enough soap to last a lifetime, I know im not alone. With the massive influx of wet shavers, so many of us were eager to try everything. It was all new to us, and the market was flooded with new products.  I don't believe a market built on extreme excess is sustainable. Eventually it has to level off.
 It seems every facet of wet shaving has slowed down.
As mentioned above about the bst page. It seems the only resale market out there is just for the unobtainable. There used to be so many youtubers. All getting thousands of views everyday. Most have quit, and views are down considerably. I would suggest youtube helped sell a lot of products. It seems some days on these forums there is hardly any activity going on.
 It just seems a lot of the excitement has worn off. I know so many of us have slowed down on our purchases. Hopefully there has been more newcomers to make up for the loss sales. Wet shaving doesn't seem to be going mainstream anytime soon, at the same time it's not going anywhere. If I had to bet I would guess it's in a decline from the massive boom the market experienced.

I don't think it has slowed at all. Forums are strong for the most part. Some older forums have slowed to a crawl, e.g., Shavemyface.com., but B&B is still going full tilt. DFS, although a fine forum, is not the only one. The unobtainable will always draw attention and demand just as does a Rembrandt or a Picasso. Nature of humans.

It has been said that the Average American male changes a hobby every four yrs. approx., or so I have read. I am way past that benchmark now and my interests in wet shaving merely shift a little between soaps & brushes. I went through BAD years ago when NOS were relatively cheap and ended up selling almost all as they simply weren't worth it on the whole IMO. I had RAD as well and "cured" it and made a profit in selling those. Nowadays I just fiddle fart around with a few artisan soaps, cheap aftershaves and the latest synthetic brush generation for the most part.

I hope I never lose that thrill of a DFS with the blade gliding effortlessly across my face, smelling good and with no ingrown hairs. That's what it's all about after all. I have never lost sight of my initial goal in all this. That's the secret.  

I hope im not trying to make it sound like the market and hobby are dying. I've just noticed a lot of guys have slowed down lately. The bst on b&b is a fraction of what it used to be . I posted something and it stayed on the first page for a week. It didn't move. I think there are a lot of guys like me, who bought so much then realized they had way too much. So many guys have just stopped buying stuff. It certainly has to effect the market.
Everyday it seems there are new products. Across the board soaps, razors and brushes have all become better. I think we are living in a great time for wet shaving. In my opinion the best time for this hobby. For me, even if I get out of the hobby, I will always wet shave. The results I got from shaving got me into the hobby.
Hopefully it hits mainstream one day. At the same time I think the enthusiasm was crazy high in 2015 and 2016. So many new people and new products. I just don't see that same energy like it used to be. I think people are being more conservative and not buying every new soap and aftershave set like they used to.