Born in 2013, Wow Skin Science, currently is a bestselling brand on Amazon India and the USA and is available across over 3000 Walmart stores in the USA
Bengaluru: Wow, through its two brands ‘Wow Skin Science’ and ‘Wow Life Science’, is delivering nature-infused, research-backed products that give visible results and long-term benefits to customers. It is also one of the pioneering D2C businesses in India that leveraged e-commerce platforms to reach customers in every market tier across the country.
An exciting start
WOW was born in 2013 out of its founders’ passion and vision to develop and deliver the best beauty and wellness products. “Today, we have two brands ‘Wow Skin Science’ and ‘Wow Life Science’, focusing on the beauty and wellness segments respectively. The basis of these brands is that the products are inspired by the beauty and wellness traditions from both the East and the West that are backed by research and science. The brand motto is ‘nature powered’,” says co-founder Manish Chowdhary.
At Wow, it all starts in the product research and planning phase. All the product formulations are based on Ayurvedic preparations, Western herbal medicine practices and modern scientific research. Moreover, they are made with research-backed ingredients from the best sources, along with well-known natural actives.
All products are made without harsh chemicals, mineral oils, sulphates, parabens or silicones. The team at Wow has been working to transform the brand into a new-age beauty and wellness entity committed to delivering products based on modern science and age-old traditions.
Overall, the vision has been to bring customers a unique product experience—one that is both therapeutic and rejuvenating. “We wanted to deliver quality products with great ingredients at customer-friendly prices. Wow Skin Science and Wow Life Science are a culmination of that vision,” explains Chowdhary.
Along the way
Initially, the brand’s founders bootstrapped the business and ran lean operations. “Also, we hardly had any experience in the Indian beauty and wellness segment when we started. We just had a strong belief in our hero ingredient: apple cider vinegar. We started with this as a wellness drink in the market,” says Chowdhary. The drink became popular among customers, and so the brand further exploited the potential of apple
cider vinegar—this time as a hair care ingredient. And this is how WOW’s apple cider vinegar shampoo, which is its flagship product, was born, there by helping the brand take off.
There were many challenges along the way too. “The biggest challenge for us was to create brand awareness without spending a huge amount of money—we did not have extra funds initially to spend on marketing in a big way. We decided to leverage the digital medium and so used e-commerce platforms to make Wow products easily accessible to customers,” reveals Chowdhary.
Of course, since the customer is always the king, the brand also set up a strong customer support team to respond to any and every kind of query of customers. “We even offered easy product replacement if a customer was unhappy. This helped us gain the trust of customers and we saw repeat buyers,” adds Chowdhary. Unsurprisingly then, the brand’s growth has been driven by the fact that it is constantly delivering what its customers want. “We listen to their demands and try to pre-empt their needs regularly to ensure that they are happy with our products and are having a great brand experience,” says Chowdhary.
Looking to the future
For Chowdhary and his team, it is a matter of pride that their business has grown impressively over the last few years, and they hope that the growth continues. “We are working on new products and are looking at becoming a sustainable, clean and green brand. Efforts are also on to enhance the overall experience of our customers, from awareness to engagement to retail to repeat buying. We also want to focus on strengthening our product awareness, brand loyalty, presence and delivery,” conveys Chowdhary.
The brand’s growth story is a testament to the success it has belted so far it is a bestselling brand on Amazon India and the USA today and is available across over 3000 Walmart stores in the USA.
Brownie Points
- Wow Skin Science was one of the first beauty brands to use a D2C strategy for launching its products. It was a chance that the brand took at a time when many established brands were having their products sold mostly through the retail medium.
- The brand began by developing a product that no one else had in the market: its apple cider vinegar shampoo. It became a rage in the market, with customers
demanding different variants. The brand then extended the goodness of apple cider vinegar to other products such as toner, face wash, hair conditioner and even health supplements. - The brand always heroes one ingredient and creates complete skin, hair and wellness solutions around it. Its apple cider vinegar range was followed by the onion seed range, Himalayan rose range and vitamin C range. Now, it is focusing on making products using hemp oil and fermented rice water.
First appeared in The India D2C Yearbook 2022
