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Dollar Shave Club
American grooming products by mail company From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Dollar Shave Club, Inc.[2] is an American company based in Venice, California, that delivers razors and other personal grooming products to customers by mail.[3] It delivers razor blades on a monthly basis and offers additional grooming products for home delivery.[4][5]
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History
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Dollar Shave Club was founded by Mark Levine and Michael Dubin. The pair met at a party and spoke of their frustrations with the cost of razor blades. With their own money and investments from start-up incubator Science Inc., they began operations in January 2011 and launched their website in April 2011.[6][7][8][9]
Dollar Shave Club (DSC) was backed by a variety of venture capitalists. In March 2012, seed investors provided $1 million in funding from groups that included Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Andreessen Horowitz, Shasta Ventures, and others.[10] The same group, joined by Venrock, provided $9.8 million in series A funding in October 2012.[11]
A year later, a $12 million series B round was raised led by Venrock, Comcast Ventures, New World Investors and Battery Ventures. Amidst the fundraising announcement, DSC announced it would be expanding its product line to include a dozen other men's products in 2014.[12]
On July 19, 2016, one year after securing $75 million in series D funding,[13] DSC was acquired by Unilever for a reported $1 billion in cash.[14] On October 26, 2023, Unilever announced that it had sold a majority stake in the company to Nexus Capital Management, LP,[15] while still retaining 35% of Dollar Shave Club.[16]
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Membership
Dollar Shave Club offers three membership plans, which can be upgraded or downgraded at any time.[17] The membership service first launched March 6, 2012, via a YouTube video that went viral.[18] The YouTube video attracted an unanticipated amount of traffic, which crashed the company's server in the first hour. Once Dubin got the server working, he enlisted a team of friends and contractors to help fulfill the 12,000 orders that arrived in the first 48 hours of launching the video. The orders were initially packed by hand in a warehouse in Gardena, California, before the company moved their warehouse and fulfillment to a third-party logistics center in Kentucky.[3]
As of 2016, the company has acquired 3.2 million subscribers.[19] Although the company primarily markets its products to men, approximately 20% of its customers are women.[20]
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Products
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Dollar Shave Club offers three plans: "The Humble Twin" (two blades per razor, five razors per month, $4 per month), "The 4X" (four blades, four razors, $7) and "The Executive" (six blades, four razors, $10).[21] Each subscription comes with a compatible handle.
Most of the razor handles and blades are not made by Dollar Shave Club, but rather are re-sold Dorco products.[22][23]
The company also sells related accessories, such as shave butter,[24] wet wipes,[8] and moisturizer.[25]
In late 2012, the company launched its program in Canada and Australia.[26][27]
In 2015, the company expanded its product line to include hair care products, called "Boogie's".[28] The line includes hair gel, hair cream, hair paste, hair clay and hair fiber.[29]
In May 2015, the company began hiring writers and editors for a new website, Mel Magazine (stylized as MEL[30]) which went online in late 2015. The website contains editorial content described by the company as "men's lifestyle topics".[30][31] While the site does not host sponsored content, its business model "relies upon being a branded publisher", according to Fast Company.[32]
In December 2015, Gillette brand owner Procter & Gamble filed a patent infringement lawsuit that claimed Dollar Shave Club used its patented formulas to manufacture copycat blades.[33][34]
In February 2018, the company launched in the United Kingdom.[35]
Promotion
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On March 6, 2012, the company uploaded a YouTube video entitled "Our Blades Are F***ing Great" featuring CEO Michael Dubin, delivering his speech in a nonchalant and sarcastic manner.[36] The video prompted 12,000 orders in a two-day span after it was released, and has received over 27 million views as of November 2020.[4][37]
The video won "Best Out-of-Nowhere Video Campaign" at the 2012 Ad Age Viral Video Awards.[38] Dollar Shave Club was awarded a 2013 Webby Award in the Fashion & Beauty category [39] and earned the People's Choice Webby Award in the Consumer Packaged Goods category.[40]
On June 4, 2013, Dollar Shave Club released a second video on YouTube called "Let's Talk About #2", which again starred its CEO and promoted One Wipe Charlies.[8] The video won the Shorty Award in 2014 for best use of Social Media.[41]
In 2014, Dollar Shave Club and its One Wipe Charlies teamed up with the Colon Cancer Alliance in an effort to help "wipe out" colon cancer.[42] The company reports that during National Colorectal Cancer Awareness month it reached 23 million people in spreading the message about the importance of getting screened. The company also donated $10,000 to the Colon Cancer Alliance, contributing a percentage of One Wipe Charlies' sales and putting a dollar value on social shares.[43] As part of the campaign, Michael Dubin had his own colonoscopy streamed live online.[44]
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References
External links
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