Britain's Most Successful Cosmetics Brand Reveals The Secrets Behind Its Incredible 322% YOY growth

In this episode, Wild Cosmetics CEO Freddy Ward shares some fascinating insight into how the brand achieved a whopping 322% growth during 2020/21 to be crowned as the fastest growing Health & Beauty brand in Britain on Brightpearl’s Lightning 50 UK. He also revealed the tech stack that’s powering the brand’s growth and how the business is living up to its sustainability promise... 

Transcript

Transcript highlights:

• “We launched the business in April 2020, the week the world went into Covid lockdown. It was a very lucky time to be launching an e-commerce business and it's been a really exciting growth journey ever since. We started as a direct to consumer business, but we now sell in Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Boots and now also internationally in Germany, France and the Netherlands.”
  
  
• “It’s great to be featured on the Lightning 50. There’s been a bit of luck on timing but I think a lot of it comes down to having a great team. They're really passionate about our mission, really focused on delivering a great product to our customers. A big part of our growth strategy is focus - so we've just tried to do one thing. You get an aluminum case and you get biodegradable refills, and that's all we sell.
  
  
• “We've constantly using customer feedback and insights to improve our product. We're on our seventh iteration and we’re constantly tweaking things to make sure we become the best we can be in deodorant before we move on to other products. That's definitely helped us grow so far. Plus, sustainability is a really big macro trend – people are looking for easy options where they don't have to compromise and hopefully Wild is fulfilling that need in the market.”
  
  
• “About 50% of our business is subscription-based which makes buying deodorant something people don’t have to think about. We deliver them in a large letter format that fits through your letterbox and you get three refills at a time. It means we can reduce the price and be competitive for a natural product compared to what people might be used to paying for deodorant.”
  
  
• “We’re operating in a market that's been crying out for innovation for a long time. A lot of the brands feel quite dated and gendered. Many are focussed on how long they can work for and I think people now don’t necessarily want to use the chemicals that stop you smelling for a week. If natural products can work on a par then people are willing to give it a try. That inquisitiveness has helped us and then it's been down to us to make the product good enough to keep our customers coming back.”
  
  
• “Growing any business at over 300% in a year is challenging and hard to predict. Our operations team has to work really hard to keep up with demand and our growth rate. It might seem like growth is linear but it’s actually more like a squiggly line. We have quite dramatic ups and downs – you’ve gotta hold your nerve a little bit when things aren't going well, and make sure you don’t get too carried away when things are.” 
  
  
• “We have a simple technology stack. We use Shopify and we use Recharge, which handles the subscription side of the business. We use Brightpearl for all of our inventory planning and software management. We use an analytics company called Conjura to kind of help us with our data insights.”
  
  
• “In the future we’ll focus on building on our existing tech and not over-complicating it. I think we'll try the US but it's a very scary market and there are a lot of challenges there, so I think we would go into it with our eyes wide open and be very patient. It would add a lot of complexity to our business but it's a huge market with lots of opportunity, so it would be silly not to find ways to navigate that.”
  
  
• “We're working towards B Corp accreditation. I really feel if you're gonna be a sustainable brand, then you've got to walk the walk. Like anything in business, it's about prioritizing the big things, the things that really matter, have the big impact, and then optimizing the small things once you've done that.”
  
  
• “Ranking in 5th place on the Lightning 50 is testament to our team’s hard work. They're really young, super ambitious, and you know, they should be really proud of it. But we’re also very grounded. We won't get too carried away – what we can do in the long term is more impressive than what we can do on a year to year basis.”

Top takeaways

• Wild Cosmetics ranked in 5th place on the Brightpearl Lightning 50 UK
• It was also crowned Fastest Growing Health & Beauty Brand in Britain 
• The achievements followed a 322% YOY revenue increase in 2020/21
• The tech that’s driven their growth includes: social media, Brightpearl and Shopify
• New market penetration - specifically into Europe – has also helped the brand scale, along with upselling and bundling tactics and a diversified mix of sales channels.