Marketing Strategy and SWOT analysis of Dollar Shave Club

It is neither a secret nor a deniable fact that traffics takes much from our times. In that sense, online deliveries are a real solution for us. Founded in 2011 by Mark Levine and Michael Dubin, Dollar Shave Club is an American company offering razors and many other personal grooming products to customers by mail. The company delivers razor blades on a monthly basis and has already become one of the favorite businesses in this field. To understand the primary reasons behind their success, let’s discuss their marketing strategies and SWOT analysis.

Let’s start with analyzing the mission and vision statements of the company.

The company’s mission statement is as follows:

“Our goal is to make sure you always have everything you need to look, feel, and smell your best.”

Putting it in a nutshell, this means that the company wants to make everyone’s life better. It is because Dollar Shave Club delivers personal products by mail, which, of course, is a convenient way, as you would not spend additional hours to go and find the appropriate razor or other skincare product for you.

As the products are personalized for each type of skin, there is almost no risk of having health problems. Besides, the team of the company has worked extremely hard to launch new products that not only look and feel good but also smell, which is another advantage of the company’s offerings.

While Dollar Shave Club does not have a clear vision statement, the company’s activities mean that it seeks to become the leading company in this industry.

The next topic that needs to be discussed is the company’s positioning strategy.

For that purpose, let’s check out their Instagram account.

Having almost 240K followers on Instagram, Dollar Shave Club does not forget about humor and, one can see that most of the posts are a bit sarcastic, full of humor. The post we will be looking at is not an exception too.

The text on the post is generally about saving the shampoos or other skincare products when going to a hotel or other places. This seems to be surprising for the company because even if you’re at a hotel and need to have a shampoo (not the hotel ones), you can have it through the help of “Auto-restock.”

The customers can select “Auto-restock” when purchasing a product to have the company automatically send it to the customers with each subscription box.

So, basically, Dollar Shave Club creates an opportunity for the customers to buy skin products online and get them delivered on a schedule.

The company creates a chance for us to not always save our products, but use them, by getting them even cheaper.

All of the points that we have just mentioned earlier prove one point. The archetype that Dollar Shave Club belongs to is the Creator.

Now, let’s find some facts about this Brand Archetype.

The motto of this Brand Archetype states:

If it can be imagined, it can be created!

Desire:  create something of enduring value.

Aim: form a vision.

Strategy: develop artistic control and skill

The messaging levels of the archetype are as follows:

Level One: fantasies and daydreams, flashes of inspiration

Level Two: being creative in original ways.

Level Three: own forming vision.

Level Four: creating structures that are influential for the culture and society

The Creator Brand archetype provides a suitable identity for those brands:

• Whose product’s function motivates self-expression, provides its customer with choices and options, is artistic in design
• That is in a creative field. For example, marketing, public relations, arts, technological innovation, etc.
• Whose customers do have enough discretionary time for creativity to flourish
• That encourages the overall creation process.

Moving on, let’s now review the SWOT analysis of Dollar Shave Club.

Strengths:

• Founded in 2011, the company has a pretty extensive geographical reach, client base, which helps them to maintain a strong brand identity. The geographic presence in several countries and many regions determines the company’s reach to the target market, ensuring easy accessibility.
• The company believes that everything should be high quality for personal healthcare products. Due to qualified products, Dollar Shave Club could increase brand loyalty and gain more customers.
• The owners of the company collaborate with suppliers that provide raw materials at a pretty low cost, which helps the company benefit.
• Dollar Shave Club has a strong online presence on various social networking sites and effective social media management, which will help them boost the impact of positive e-WOM and help build strong customer connections.
  Besides this, the company has a well-developed IT infrastructure.

Weaknesses:

• The company does not have a strong project management practice, which can internally weaken the ability of the organization to successfully open new branches and expand the brand image.

• The workers of the company usually have high job stress, which makes their work less productive.

• The company does not consider the various environmental problems they are causing, which can draw criticism from the environmentalists.

• The company does not always keep in touch with its customers properly, which has become a major reason for losing customers.

Opportunities:

• New designs, new shampoos with different smells, and other creative products or services might help the company expand its target segment as more people would be interested in their offerings.

• The company has its services only in few countries, including U.S, Canada, Australia, and the UK. If Dollar Shave Club starts launching its services in other countries, it will help the business gain fame and more users.

• For having a stronger brand image, the company should also pay for advertisements. For that reason, Dollar Shave Club can collaborate with various artists, have more organized social pages, etc.

Threats

• Dollar Shave Club’s top competitors include Edgewell Personal Care, John Masters Organics, Amway Thailand, and Friction Free Shaving. If the company does not keep up with trends, has high-qualified products, and creates strong communication with its users. Its competitors would get many chances to become the leading business in that industry.

• Nowadays, there is a noticeable rise in inflation which can increase the cost of production and affect the company’s profitability.

• Lack of organizational and marketing skills only takes customers away from the company. To not lose them, the company should give proper attention to these skills and find the best professionals ready to solve those problems.

This was all for the company’s SWOT analysis. Each part of SWOT is a fundamental factor leading to the success of the company. Dollar Shave Club should pay close attention to everything discussed earlier, work on its weaknesses, keep its strengths, use the chances and stay away from the threats. 

Last, but not least, let’s check the segment which Dollar Shave Club decided to target.

For that reason, let’s watch this short commercial.

So, the commercial features a young couple in the market looking for a new body wash. The girl seems to be one of those girls who love to stay at home and are very caring. It is important to note that while the girl is thin, the boy does not have an athletic appearance and is pretty fat.

This couple gives massive importance to clarity and self-care. During the commercial, the girl suggests her husband take the body wash “Massive Hero” as it has a fully jacked amino-proteins delivery system and is “manly.” 

While the boy did not even manage to think of his wife’s suggestion, a very athletic man interrupts them, takes the body wash, and shows that the reason for using that body was because he has strong muscles.

The couple regrets their decision and prefers to not buy it. The gentle voice of a man encourages us to “try shower product that’s more for you.”

By this step, the company wants to emphasize that they have shower products for every type of person: fat, thin, athletic, etc. This would help each person to get the product that suits them the best and is healthy for them.

The caring attitude of the girl and their overall communication between each other, their home-loving attitude leads us to one conclusion. The segment Dollar Shave Club has chosen to target Floaters.

Let’s get deeper and learn some interesting facts about this target group.

Lifestyle and Values:

• To begin, as you have already noticed, Floaters are an extremely family-oriented segment. Women representing this target group like to stay at home and spend most of their time cooking delicious dishes for their families and taking care of the house generally.

• There is always a friendly and warm atmosphere at their homes as it is the absolute center for them.

• These people do not really care about the way they look. Comfort is always in a higher position for them rather than style, trends. The people belonging to this target segment believe that appearance is not important, and others have to accept them as they are.

• When it comes to career, these people mainly work to get money. Floaters are usually not leaders, and they prefer to be told what to do.

• Floaters are one of the traditional target groups. These people prefer relationships that would end up being a family.

• The representatives of Floaters are mostly close to nature and are fond of daily walks, but not in crowded places.

• Floaters are not fond of the Internet. These people like to watch TV and get information from there, which is another thing that highlights their traditional views.

• They prefer quiet evenings with family, rather than going out and having fun with others. In that sense, these people believe that doing their duties/works is more important than any other enjoyment.

• This target group is not into sports and is not interested in social events. In other words, they prefer to spend peaceful life which is concentrated mostly on their family and home.

• When it comes to shopping, they like to be smart by taking discounts and special offers into consideration. This segment prefers quantity over quality. They would rather buy more products with lower prices than one from a famous brand, or the one that has a higher quality.

To sum up, this post was about the Market Strategy and SWOT analysis of Dollar Shave Club. We tried to give insights into the company’s target segment, strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities. We also discussed the company’s positioning strategy that helped us understand which is the proper brand archetype for it. We hope we could help you have a better understanding of this American self-care company.

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