Welcome!
Welcome to this e-commerce business success story! In this profile, we interviewed one of the founders of 4Beauty Group, a multi-brand company that focuses on tanning and beauty products. Our hope is that you find this interview to be enlightening and inspiring as you seek to start and grow your very own online brand!
Interview with 4Beauty Group
Thank you for joining us for this e-commerce business success story! We’d like to start by getting an understanding of your backstory. How did you come to own your business?
4Beauty Group are brand owners of He-Shi Exceptional Tan and SKINICIAN skincare. We are based in Belfast and the company was founded by myself and my mother. I grew up around our family business from I was 10 years old. Mum ran her business from home, and I earned pocket money by helping with mailshots and typing up letters – my friends and I even spent weekends going door-to-door posting flyers through letterboxes. My mum then opened her own beauty salon and later began distributing products into other salons.
I completed a degree in Management and Information Systems and later a Masters in Business Development. It just happened in 2003 when I returned home after a year of travelling that my mum had developed He-Shi Tan and had grown the distribution business, so it was natural progression to join full time.
Since then we have pivoted the business to have a salon, retail, grocery and online presence. We also developed a second brand called SKINICIAN skincare in 2012.
Terrific! Now, this article is about profiling successful e-commerce businesses. So – can you share your top 3 keys to running a successful online brand?
My top 3 keys to running a successful online brand are:
1. Great products that perform. In order to create longevity in any online market, it’s important that sell products that will keep your customers coming back and increase customer lifetime value
2. Keep testing and learning – Invest more in what is working, carrying out continuous reviews and make sure you turn off the things that are not working to avoid wasting budget.
3. A passionate and dedicated team who can bring ideas to life and work with agility and speed and have customers at the forefront always and listen to their feedback
Excellent. Now, I’m sure it hasn’t always been that easy. Can you tell a story about one challenge, setback, or mistake that you’ve had to overcome on the road to success? How can others learn from your mistakes?
We used to think that winning over a buyer and getting our products on shelf was enough but it’s not – you must support and create demand for the product otherwise no one is going to buy it. We had to build our business from the ground up by getting onto the street, in the stores talking to people, demoing product etc, however that doesn’t happen when you land a large retailer or online store, and we didn’t realize on several occasions how much spend you would need to make something work. It’s very difficult for smaller, owner-led brands to be creative and stand out from others that have huge budgets! However, for me that’s what makes it exciting because we can make decisions quickly and have get rapport with our customers. My advice to avoid this same mistake is to always make sure your budget and resource is assigned for new opportunities or projects before you jump headfirst into them.
Thanks for that. Now – we want to know what’s next! What new initiatives are you rolling out at your business and what results are you hoping to see?
We are testing TikTok as a sales channel and are working with a Tiktok account manager, which is very exciting.
We are currently working with a freelance SEO specialist who is helping us build out our content in a meaningful way and we are very quickly seeing improvements in traffic which is promising
Being in the beauty world we are always launching new products and are working on an innovative launch for early 2023 in SKINICIAN.
Sounds exciting! Any final words of advice for our readers?
Something I’d tell my younger self…do not let fear overcome you. A decision made is better than overthinking, procrastinating, or worrying for extended periods of time. Be agile and adaptable always. Some things work and some things don’t – if it’s going to fail, pull the plug and keep moving, things don’t stay the same for long. Have the difficult conversations with suppliers or agencies – trust your gut!
Brilliant! We want to thank you for participating in today’s interview. Hopefully our readers agree that there is a lot to be learned from your brand’s story. What links can our readers use to follow along with your journey?
www.4beautygroup.com – company website
www.skinician.com – brand skincare website
www.he-shi.eu – brand tanning website
