Big Changes Coming to Beardbrand in 2022

Damn, I can't believe it's already been 10 years working on Beardbrand (January 25th, 2012 marks the date that I purchased the domain Beardbrand.com).

The idea for Beardbrand came to me while I was driving home from the 2012 West Coast Beard & Mustache Championships (you can see my prancing below).

Back then, I wanted to provide the world with the things that I needed most—confidence in growing my beard. But more importantly, confidence in becoming myself.

Those early days of Beardbrand were about me sharing my knowledge. We posted on YouTube, Tumblr, and our blog as I learned new things.

After about a year, we started selling products on our online store.

Now, long time customers will remember all the interesting items we sold in the early days. Not all of them worked. Some of those failed items included wallets, bracelets, suspenders, olive oil, backpacks, solid cologne, sunglasses, and button-up shirts.

You see, I had envisioned that Beardbrand would be more of an all-around style company than a grooming company. But despite our best efforts, it was clear that grooming was where we should focus.

So, we streamlined and began building a full line of products for beard, hair, and body.

However, one thing has remained constant—I never shy away from trying new things.

And If those things don't work? Well, we stop doing it.

But truthfully, it's never that simple...

Sometimes, something can work well enough but simultaneously prevent you from achieving greatness. The best analogy I can think of is that a jack of all trades is a master of none. In other words, spreading yourself too thin prevents you from being amazing at any of the things you do.

An example of this is our fulfillment center in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It worked well enough, but in 2019, we made the hard decision to refocus on our primary markets. That meant closing that fulfillment in Ireland.

Since that decision to streamline, Beardbrand has continued to grow, and 2021 marks our biggest year ever.

You'll notice I said the biggest year ever and not the best year ever…

Carrying an extensive product offering—6 Silver and Gold Line fragrances, each available in up to 12 products—is one of those things that has worked well enough. It works, but it has proven to be operationally inefficient—even before the global supply chain challenges in 2020 and 2021.

So, you probably see where I'm going with this by now…

I believe that an efficient, well-run business can provide a greater value and make a more significant impact on the world than a slow, lumbering business.

With that in mind, we've made the difficult decision to streamline our product offering and end future production on the three fragrances below:

• Tea Tree
• Spiced Citrus
• Four Vices

It’s hard because we love all of our products.

We looked hard at sales performance, re-order rates and reviews. In the end, we decided that letting go of three fragrances was the best move to create a better overall customer experience in the long run.

And so, we'll be moving forward with a balanced fragrance offering of Old Money (rich & complex), Temple Smoke (sweet & smoky), and Tree Ranger (bright & outdoorsy).

I understand that if Tea Tree, Spiced Citrus, and Four Vices are your favorite fragrances, this may not be the news you want to receive. And it pains me to know that we might lose you as a customer.

That said, if you haven't smelled Temple Smoke, Old Money, or Tree Ranger, we'd love to get you a Fragrance Sample Set so you can find your next favorite.

WHEN WILL THIS CHANGE BEGIN?

I know that many of you love Tea Tree, Spiced Citrus, and Four Vices, which is why I wanted to give you advanced notice of this decision.

We won’t be removing any current stock of products in these fragrances. They will be available until they sell out. We anticipate having all of them available through the first quarter of 2022. And some products may be available throughout the entirety 2022.

As individual products in these fragrances go out of stock, we won’t replenish them.

If you’d like to be provided with advanced notice of when individual products in each fragrance will be going out of stock, you can sign up at the links below. At the beginning of each month, you’ll receive an email update on which products will be going out of stock that month.

Tea Tree Out of Stock Notifications
Spiced Citrus Out of Stock Notifications
Four Vices Out of Stock Notifications

THERE IS A SILVER LINING

I've always been more of a function-over-fashion guy.

I think that over the past 10 years, our expanding product offering created a compounding effect on the materials we were using. It became a bit excessive.

That is why as we celebrate a decade of helping men build the confidence to Keep on Growing, we’ll be focused on streamlining.

Having a streamlined product offering will allow us to become more operationally efficient. By improving our efficiency, we anticipate reducing costs and creating savings—savings which we would pass along to our customers as we roll out these improvements. This will allow us to better carry forward our mission to help as many men as we can love the person they see looking back at themselves in the mirror.

Throughout 2022, you'll see us continue to focus on operational improvements that will help us:

• Create products at an even higher quality
• Reduce our ecological footprint
• Bring more value to our customers

I'm excited to share these changes throughout the year as we continue to grow as a company and a brand.

Thank you so much for your support over the years, and I can't imagine a better group of people to spend a decade with. Here's to another great decade!

Eric Bandholz
Founder

TL;DR: We're streamlining our product offering and will be phasing out Four Vices, Tea Tree, and Spiced Citrus products over the course of the year. These changes won’t be immediate, but as products in those fragrances go out of stock, we won’t be replenishing them.

This streamlined product offering will allow us to produce Beardbrand products at an even higher quality while reducing waste and offering more value.