- UK’s number one leading natural deodorant supplier is expanding rapidly throughout Europe after Sainsbury’s, Boots and Holland & Barrett all became stockists;
- Wild is the UK’s first plastic-free, refillable deodorant brand;
- It is the highest placed beauty brand on the Lightning 50 – a list of the UK’s top 25 fastest growing online retailers compiled by Brightpearl, the world leading retail operating system
Wild Cosmetics has seen sales soar by 322% to be named the UK’s fastest growing online health and beauty brand.
The UK’s number one leading natural deodorant supplier is expanding rapidly throughout Europe after Sainsbury’s, Boots and Holland & Barrett all became stockists.
Wild is the UK’s first plastic-free, refillable deodorant brand.
It is the highest placed beauty brand on the the Lightning 50 – a list of the UK’s top 25 fastest growing online retailers over the past year (compiled by Brightpearl).
The firm is expected to sell more than three million deodorants this year.
Co-founder Freddy Ward said: “The way I like to explain it is 80% of customers in the UK now use a reusable water bottle but less than 5% of people have a sustainable solution for their bathroom products.
“Our vision is that consumers are willing to make that change for water but with shampoo, shower gel and deodorant they are using and then getting rid of plastic on a pretty large scale every month.
“Wild wants to be the water bottle of the bathroom, making it really simple to switch to more sustainable solutions which are good for your body and good for the planet.”
Wild employs 50 people at its base in Vauxhall, central London, after starting in the middle of Covid in 2020. It has raised £7.5 million in capital.
Investors include venture capitalist Caspar Lee, 28, one of the world’s leading entrepreneurs with almost seven million YouTube subscribers, and Grace Beverley, 25,an influencer with one million followers on Instagram and founder of fitness brand Tala.
Ward said: “We got off to a pretty rapid start and going into Sainsburys has been incredibly successful.
“We are launching into European markets including Germany, France and Ireland and they have all been really big growth levers.
“The job of start-ups is to challenge the status quo and prove what the future might be and we have had 750,000 people try Wild and our 322% growth shows that there is a lot of demand for these products.
“Large companies want to do this. They believe in change. What takes us three months, takes them three years.
“You are probably talking three years before they start catching up with some of the more nimble start-ups in the space.”
Sainsbury’s has been a key driver in its growth.
Ward said: “Sainsbury’s approached us as part of their Future Brands scheme involving innovative start-ups addressing some of the needs of their customers.
“All supermarkets are looking to cut waste and reduce packaging and Wild fitted well into that memo.
“We launched in May last year in 300 stores and we are now rolling out in 700 stores. We have quadrupled distribution in 12 months and expanded our range. We are launching some new lines with them. It has been successful;they have backed us and we have seen some really exciting growth.
“Over 50% of Sainsbury’s customers have never tried a refillable deodorant before, so we are bringing in a new buyer for them. We are also increasing the amount people are prepared to pay for deodorant products given their sustainability credentials.”
Boots started stocking Wild at the start of this year in 500 stores and the brand is planning to triple its distribution with the chain in 2023. Wild is looking to be the third best selling deodorant in Boots in 2023 after Sure and Dove.
Wild brought in Brightpearl to run its multi-channel retail operation and help deliver on its plans for global expansion.
Ward explained: “There comes a time where Excel spreadsheets don’t do the trick for a fast expanding business such as ours.
“We are now making one million deodorants a month running through our supply chain and that is pretty complex and hard to track and manage.
“We use Brightpearl to professionalise our operations, including the way we look after our stock, the way we report our stock and the way we level that up into our financial numbers.
“It has really helped to improve efficiency in our whole supply chain.”
Wild was fifth in the Lightning 50 table of the UK’s fastest growing ecommerce brands.
To compile the Lightning 50, we asked brands to submit annual growth figures from 2020 to 2021, with each brand ranked solely on its net growth percentage during that time frame.
The full Lightning 50 list can be found here.
Brightpearl works with thousands of retailers introducing software that automates retail complexity and puts orders, inventory, financials, POS (point of sale) and CRM (customer relationship management) in one place so brands can grow fearlessly. Sign you for your free demo to see how Brightpearl can help you.
