Trimmers
Whilst every red blooded man loves to swear that he doesn’t pay any attention to grooming the statistics suggest otherwise. Now maybe it is wives and girlfriends paying for manicures, cosmetics, fancy skin creams and hair gels and the ubiquitous hair/nose and ear trimmers but I suspect that a large proportion of this money is voluntarily leaving the wallets of 21st century men.
Regardless of who pays; male beauty products are a booming industry. The guys from “Queer eye” have coined the phrase “manscaping” for the product range that I am suggesting today meaning any trimming or shaping of excess male hair.
As with most trendy products there are expensive high end versions, and cheaper low end products. From a margin perspective I would suggest that you lean towards the more expensive products, which should give you scope for some creative marketing, and you will need to sell less units in order to break even.
In terms of marketing I would suggest the following: -
Ebay
Website
Publicised contests / record attempts
Barbers
Direct response
Ebay is competitive as usual with this product range, with over 3000 results on a search for “trimmer” and more than 200 each for “nose trimmer” and “ear trimmer”. A search on “mens grooming” only turned up 54 results however including some beard trimmers. Another approach on Ebay is to write a short guide and package it with your trimmers, or package all your trimmers together as a set, or maybe package the set with the guide. The key is to make your product stand out from the crowd, offer something different, or extra and you will make more sales than the competition.
“Mens Grooming” does not work so well on Google, with over 1.2million results. “nose trimmers” fares better at a mere half a million results and “ear trimmers” comes in between at about 700,000. This will not daunt you if you are into search engine optimisation, or if you are happy to promote your website offline. You certainly won’t find a more accessible platform on which to display your products, provide information and tips, and to garner customer feedback. Get the site built and then work on ways to drive the traffic, make sure you include a shopping cart so that you can take orders, and don’t forget to include shipping in your prices.
Publicity should be a must for this kind of product, if you want to draw attention to your new line then you need to do something worthy of attention. Whether it be a sponsored removal of all body hair, a record attempt at shaving the most heads, or a competition to see who can remove the most nasal hair you should make sure that you get the attention of the press before the event, at the event, and afterwards. This way if there is any untoward incident that stops the event taking place as planned you still get some of the publicity. Make sure that Journalists have access to your website, email and phone details and have permission to print them. These kinds of stunts could also get you on TV on a local interest spot. Be creative and keep pushing, you can, and probably will get all sorts of attention.
Barbers shops may be prepared to carry your products. Stop and have a chat with a few, this will be easier if you have long hair as you can gradually shorten it whilst visiting several barbers. If your head is currently bald I am sure that they will still chat to you over a complimentary coffee when they are not busy. Offer them the product range on consignment (they sell, they pay otherwise just return to you) and see whether you can assist at all with display stands etc.
Direct response is similar to Ebay in as much as your ads must catch people’s eye and your product needs to stand out from the crowd. Maybe you can offer a free DVD of your publicity exploits, or again try the free guide to manscaping idea. Use gadget type magazines that come with the weekend newspapers, as well as trying some ads in local newspapers and maybe male interest magazines such as Men’s Health if your budget will stretch to it. More specialist body building magazines may also be a good choice as competitors are usually bare of body hair when they compete.
www.alibaba.com has over 300 results for a search on hair trimmers. This should be enough for anyone. Make sure that there is a suitable power adaptor for your country or that the models you choose to sell are battery operated. Order at least one sample of each product you are interested in before you commit. Read the pages on finding suppliers by following the left hand margin of this page for more information.
If you decide to do the full body hair removal idea make sure that you don’t get arrested in the process!
This is a growing market and if you have a big personality you could make something of a name for yourself…remember Victor Kayam?