Sales and Channel Management

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Hair Care Expert: The Initial Journey

Started as Soft Sheen Products in the year 1964 by Ed & Bettian Gardner as a company that sold black hair care products in Chicago. Though it savoured success only in 1970 with the successful launch Care Free Curl – which drove revenues from USD 50000 to a whopping USD 55 million by the year 1985.

This was later taken over and renamed as Namasté by Gary Gardner, who went on to become the President of the company, hailing from a family of entrepreneurs himself. Managed by several others including his siblings and wife Denise, they set out to explore new opportunities in developed markets by introducing hair care solutions with natural ingredients and herbal remedies.

Namasté: Overview of Market Penetration & Marketing Mix:

Adopted a research study conducted by an independent marketing agency that reported current trends and favourable conditions for sale of their seven-item line.

• Product Awareness: They took the research results to their advantage and went on to market their products in a detailed form through pamphlets and captured the attention of the target audience.
• Not just that, all of Namasté’s products were outsourced to a contract manufacturing firm who packaged all of the products.
• Product Differentiation: Tapping into new segments of the market and terming their products as ‘’natural’’ and ‘’therapeutic”
• Product Placement: It was priced slightly higher than the normal hair care products, at about USD 7 to 13 per item, thereby giving it an edge over the ethnic products in the market as a high performance product.        
• Promotion: Namasté made use of limited marketing sources and heavily relied on word-of-mouth promotion. They targeted “Early Adopters” which typically included women between ages of 18 and 34 who loved experimenting with new products and show off among their family members and group of friends. Along with this, they also took to generating an online buzz which included involved customer sharing their product experiences via blogs.
• Place: Initially sold at neighbourhood shops and stores. It went on to achieve highest form of sales in the retail market with a whopping 98% of sales coming from big box retailers such as Walmart, Target etc.  

They went on to become #1 in several product categories in the market and became the third largest company in the hair care industry (12.6% of the overall market share by revenue) with L’Oréal and Alberto at first and second position respectively. It recorded an annual sales of USD 80 million and achieved the status of the single largest independently owned company.[pic 3]

 International Sales Strategies & Expansion into New markets:

• Expansion into foreign markets was the next target in hand. They wanted to scale new heights and target higher revenues and this was only possible through expanding internationally into new markets.
• Currently overseas sales accounts for 20-25% of the total sales coming from outside US

• Sale of products through existing distributors was the strategy adopted as they believed investing in a manufacturing plant overseas as they were keen on retaining the reputation of a one-brand company
• Invested majorly on lucrative propositions such as South African and Nigerian markets which constituted a significant proportion of women consumers who were deemed as the standard of beauty. Nigeria, in particular was stated to be the “biggest market on the planet” with a population of 140 million black people, 3.5 times the size of the South African market.
• To achieve new targets, within home and overseas, Namaste saw great potential in the dot com world and revamped their website and posted ads on televisions. Not just that, they adopted the process of continuous feedback by launching customer surveys

To conclude with, listed below are the 4 key takeaways/critical skills to pick up from the article:

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