To learn more about 1minpretty, our winner for best ecommerce rookie at the Ecommerce Mx Awards, we interviewed Claudia Magdaleno, Founder and CEO at 1minpretty
Interview with Claudia Magdaleno, Founder and CEO at 1minpretty
First of all, I tell you that this is not my first project, I have been in the world of eCommerce for years and I set up my first store when there was no information or tools on how to sell online. Around 2009 I started another brand on a Facebook page, which was named a success story.
1minpretty started in the middle of the pandemic , when I needed to shave myself, but I didn't want to leave my house. I was looking for options on the internet and I couldn't identify with any of them, because I saw brands that sold lacera in bulk, with a terrible melter and packaging. So I said, I'm going to create what I can't find on the market and I'm going to create my own brand of hair removal wax, so that more than a product, it's a complete experience.
They are home hair removal kits. They are as easy to use as making popcorn. The kit comes with a little jar, which you put in the microwave or you can also heat it in a bain-marie for two minutes and you can shave. Our main motto is that you say bye to the rake, because with wax you forget about hair for two or three weeks, and even a month depending on the person's skin.
This is our initial proposal, but I wanted to change the approach to hair removal and for clients to Telegram Number Data have a great experience. I wanted when the clients received their box and did their unboxing to feel that it was a moment for them, to pamper themselves, to put on their favorite playlist, to have a snack and for it to really be a moment for them.
We manufacture our products ourselves, right here in Guadalajara. We are a 100% Mexican company.
How, being such a competitive sector and having such a specific market, have you managed to differentiate yourself from the competition and achieve success in your strategy? How do they reach the potential client?
I'm going to give you a very key example of our differentiating element. While other giant hair removal brands focus only on the benefits of the product, I focus on the experience. For example, when you receive your box, you have a brochure with a QR code that you scan and a pretty girly Spotify playlist comes out, so you can be inspired and take this moment to pamper yourself.
We take these types of details to our entire strategy, to the packaging, to all the communication about how to use it and I think that the small details are what make the difference between buying with us or buying the pharmacy kits, which cost much less. . Our wax is one of the most expensive on the market, but that cost is justified by the quality of our product, but above all by the experience and emotions you feel when receiving a box. The company started 100% eCommerce.
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Speaking of logistics, experience, our glass jars have reached Alaska, Korea, Spain. Cities and countries that were very far away and at first it was quite a challenge because we chose the wrong parcel company and they arrived broken. During your career you learn better packaging techniques, you choose better packaging companies that treat your box better and that is how we have managed to ship to the whole world.
We have two types of shipments: express shipping , which you order today and it arrives tomorrow; and standard shipping, which usually arrives in 3-4 days and is free. Our strategy is focused mainly on women. The branding, communication and packaging is very feminine, but many of our buyers are men.
The best-selling product is the intimate zone kit. There is a lot of taboo around this area, as well as a lot of need to find solutions for the bikini area and wax is very gentle on the skin.
We have noticed that there are many girls who are embarrassed to tell their mother or an older person that they want to shave their pelvic area and we have become a new and different solution. There is a lot of controversy around this kit, but taking the brand's organic information has given us many results.
The strategy was based heavily on TikTok and collaborations, which made us go viral. Something very curious that happened to us is that at the bottom of our TikTok profile it says “the magic wax of TikTok”, but it is not something that we have put ourselves, it was the people who put it. When the same users give your brand a name, you can say that you did something right and something super powerful.
Our TikTok strategy was to look for real people who would try our products , until they went viral. Obviously, behind everything there is a planning, an intention. From the beginning we wanted to be a brand of self-love, of taking care of yourself inside and out, and that idea is reinforced when you see all the publications and the way we talk to our users.
We found profiles of women who had a TikTok and that were already viral, but who had not done collaborations with brands. Their users trusted them, because they were not a profile where they promoted many products.
I think it was the glass issue. It may sound very superficial but believe me, it caused us a lot of headaches. Our brand focuses on Mexico, on biodegradability and not using plastic in packaging, because I believe that having a sustainable brand in the very near future is not optional. Today brands sell the fact of saying “support for the environment” as a plus, but tomorrow it will be the norm. Based on this, it has been a real challenge to ensure that the glass jars arrive in good condition to such distant countries.
Second, when you have a metric of what you expect to sell and that metric shoots up by 1000%, you have to adapt and look for solutions very quickly to meet demand . That happened to us, at one point we sold to all of Mexico, but overnight we had to think about how to sell in countries like Alaska and resolve permits and thousands of details.
Get to know 1minPretty, a very special company that, thanks to its strategy and rapid growth
I would have loved to have been told to obsess over metrics, because metrics help your company improve. A very simple example is that you ask many entrepreneurs “what are your business numbers like?” and they can tell you how much they sold or how many visits their website had. But very few know the average purchase ticket, the rate of repeat customers or the conversion percentage, which are numbers that you have to compare month to month and make a strategy for it to grow. If you don't know them, you get stuck.
My conversion rate is very good. It's around 3% , sometimes it's 2.7% sometimes it's 3.3%, but it's a conversion rate I'm very proud of.
When we entered the contest in August, we entered competing with 10 million pesos. I find it very inspiring, because my first day of sales was a kit for 500 and something pesos, and after a year it was normal to sell 200,000 pesos. And when you know how to do e-commerce and you are not just guessing what to post or what campaign to publish, but you follow a strategy it really pays off.