Venture into any drugstore, department store, or beauty supply shop and you’ll find huge varieties of things like hair styling products and shaving cream. These aren’t new products or entirely innovative ones. For the most part, they all accomplish the same basic tasks.
For the companies selling them, coming up with a key factor that makes them stand out can be difficult. Such was the case for Blind Barber.
But the company, which has three barber shop locations and sells a small line of products in stores like Barney’s New York, has found a niche that works pretty well.
According to Jeff Laub, co-founder of Blind Barber, the company markets its products and services by offering a sense of community. He explained to Entrepreneur:
“When you’re putting the product in your hair or you’re shaving with our shave cream, you’re getting the results that you’re looking for, but you also get to check out the Instagram and see what’s going on in our shop. You get to come by the shop and kick it with the guys in here and tell stories about whatever you were doing last night. And you essentially become a part of our crew, of the community. And that is the secret ingredient to everything that we’ve been putting out there and I think stores realize that.”
The community angle is becoming a more viable option for businesses now thanks to social media. Brands can create that community feel around their products even if they don’t have a physical location, though having one can certainly help.
For Blind Barber, the community aspect helps sell products even when people don’t have to actually step foot into the barber shop to make a purchase. People can see the brand and its customers on social media and want to be a part of it.
The company’s product line currently consists of two pomades, a shave cream, and an after-shave.
And while, of course, the products need to work as intended, there are plenty of other companies out there providing those same types of products. And many of them probably work equally as well. So the community aspect of the business is really something to set it and its products apart from all of those others lining the shelves of stores. Laub stated:
“There’s a million and two different product lines to pull from out there, and these stores have to find a key differentiator so that they have something special to tell. Our goal is to help tell their story.”
Image: Blind Barber/Facebook
This article, "Barber Shop Sells Grooming Products with Community Atmosphere" was first published on Small Business Trends
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