Only four years ago, Arvind Sokke, Ashwin Sokke, Manish Chowdhary, and Karan Chowdhary started by spending very little money with a vision of making it big in the skincare and lifestyle industry. Fast forward to 2019 and you’ve got them becoming Amazon ‘s global darlings; their Fit&Glow company is a $50 million (Rs 350 crore) business and its brand, Wow, is a national and global success.
The company managed to develop a business with a limited offline presence, solely through e-commerce. Head of Amazon India, Amit Agarwal has gone on record to state that Wow is a success among all its sellers. Just like all great success stories, too Wow’s started small along the way with lots of challenges. The journey had almost started with these friends going bankrupt. Thanks to unsold inventory and the emergence of deep discounts by e-commerce firms in 2012, their retail company in the laptops and electronics sector racked up a loss of $1 million. Yet when the founders turned their misfortune on their heads and wanted to embrace e-commerce the challenge became the way. As they say, the rest is history.
The friends had decided to build a new segment niche. And they have chosen to concentrate on the beauty and wellness market. They used their combined savings, concentrated on product quality, and kept their team incredibly lean. They also invested in a policy of consumer-first. “Over the past two years, our company has expanded by leaps and bounds. We’ve seen steady growth in our sales and product portfolio. It’s been rewarding to see our hard work bearing fruit. We’ve done two big things during this period,” says Manish, Fit&Glow’s co-founder.
The founders wanted the Wow brand to be synonymous with fresh, creative products and spent a great deal of time identifying customer desires, developing structures, and processes to collect data and take feedback from the insights produced by that data.
One of the reasons so much success the business has seen in India is that the goods are available at an affordable price point. Because of the nature-powered formulations, their products find broad acceptance in the US.
“In the West, there’s an increasing consciousness of using organic, nature-based products, and that’s what Wow Skin Science has delivered. The last quarter has been very good for us because we’ve achieved remarkable growth in our market. We have 100 + product variants with creative and successful formulations,” says Manish, adding that the brand has grown the company and uses no parabens, sulphates, color, mineral oil, and harmful chemicals in its formulations.
Apple cider vinegar shampoo from Wow is the best selling drug in India and the US on Amazon. Digital demand pushed sales of Wow to $1 million a month. In 2016 this changed the entire game for the group. Riding on the popularity of the apple cider vinegar shampoo, the company has also created an entire line of apple cider for skin and wellness.
Today they have a snack, face wash, and hair mask all based on vinegar made from apple cider. “We’ve also seen lots of success with WowSkin Science Onion Black Seed Oil – it’s the number one selling hair oil for us in all online marketplaces. Likewise, WowSkin Science Aloe Vera Gel has tremendous demand and acceptance among our customers
We are also enhancing the product usage experience by introducing innovative packaging like our face washes with built-in brushes,” says Manish.
