The wet-shaving market has evolved considerably in the last 4 years as has my understanding of it both domestically and in the US. It's not often I stop to pause and consider it (as i do) under the kinetic exchange model of markets. I like many of you I suspect am fortunate not to suffer under the school of formal study in economics, I will take my shame in other forms thank you very much. The position I am in has however given me a very good vantage point to observe, puzzle and head shake over the state of the wet-shaving market in Australia and how counter intuitively it has continued to grow and expand in sectors that are naive of social media and especially forums. The existence of 'internet forums' themselves have plummeted from their hay-day of the late 1990's through to around 2003/4 PHPbb years when the activity across an astounding range of interest areas was almost immeasurable, the centrist Facebook monolith (as broadly predicted) came to dominate decimate the once thriving social media landscape for the most part and now the forum as platform for community for the most part is non-existent. Now to contradict of that last sentence through a discrete lens, there are a number of special interest forums, albeit far fewer than in previous years that continue to exist and all things being equal grow. It may come as no surprise that the last two sentences are in effect, self referential.
If we then take the last paragraph with specific reference to markets and who constitutes them (who are the people buying this stuff and why is more and more selling) I can say in very general yet instructive terms, that the growth of wet-shaving in Australia in a statistically significant way is not in any way anchored, married to or connected to either the specialist wet-shaving forums, or the monolithic entity that is Face Book. Now it's a given that a percentage of market share is directly attributable to this specific forum which has been in existence for a number of years, and most certainly to the multitude of FaceBook wet-shaving groups including the maelstrom of content that is TAWSE and the 5000+ member shave the man, the latter case containing an overwhelming membership of state-siders but none the less an Australian group.
So if we take these factors into account (that X percentage is attributable to wet-shaving forums/FB) the problem, indeed the fatal flaw in this attribution is that from the data I have observed and have analysed an ever increasing percentage of artisan wet-shaving customers in Australia as a function of market share, have not either used or even heard of either P&C or any of the multitudinous FB groups. The data gets even more interesting however, as this market share keeps growing beyond the expectation of a kinetic model or even a consumer model, and the growth continues to trend to the aforementioned criteria. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that given my concern this is fantastic news, but that is so far from the point here - my point, or more rather the question I think it would be productive to constructively discuss is what exactly the fruit is going on with wet-shaving in Australia and where the sweet heck are all these people coming from, why are they coming and wouldn't it be nice if we could reach them and say hello, or not.
History is instructive, and undoubtedly in the field of observation chance only favors the prepared mind. Markets are cyclic, and arguably oscillatory but that is a digression that I don't think helpful at this point. Some 4 or 5 years ago now I went 'commercial' with a tiny concern, first through this forum and then through the opportunity and commercial acumen of Con at the Stray Whisker, Con if anyone does not know his full C.V could most suitably be described as Australia's wet-shaving retailer emeritus. From the private and personal mantle of his life, he has done more to promote and encourage the practice of wet-shaving both in Australia and throughout the world (his YouTube videos are recognized as among the best ever produced). He is a regular speaker at the thousands attended US events and has been for a number of years, both in a commercial capacity (a given) but equally as a man who is genuinely passionate about the necessity of promoting Australian wet-shaving products within the global marketplace. If this sounds too complicated and protracted, the TLDR is 'We need to bloody well export more in this country' and you get the picture.
It is no secret that Con made a commercial decision in relation to AP Reserve when he relocated, I would have not a moments hesitation in making the same decision in his circumstances. It is also highly unlikely that we will ever have a commercial relationship again, too many variables as to why and two very different market and brand intents - from my perspective we have both 'seated' in a deterministic sense commercially but this does not imply for a second (despite the FB horseshit knitting circle gossip I keep being told about) that I see him as anything other than an incredibly skilled educator who imparted more about the domestic and international wet-shaving market in the time we had a commercial relationship, than any other person then or since. I suspect would do the same for any other Australian artisan or indeed person that shares his passion and intelligence. The relevance of this is simple, Con on occasions asked me during our discussions about the very same concepts and 'problem' that I raised above, the data in the former case obviously coming from an entirely different commercial source. The question is still unanswered, most people here will probably not read this far down, but for those that have your perspectives, ideas and opines would be thoroughly welcome. Speculation is great, but modelling is better and the problem can be broken down into numbers, data sets and ultimately statistics from which we can derive meaning. I would settle for someone disclosing it's a cult buying it all at this point if it was demonstrable.
So I have detailed the problem, drawing on both the public face and presence of the Stray Whisker and Con and alternative commercial sources and have stated the problem: who are they, where do they come from and why do they keep doing so having no contact with FB wet-shaving forums or P&C.
Let me then speak in a plaintiff voice that this 'problem' or paradigm actually exists without being able to dump a bunch of numbers, the evidence opened it's doors not so long ago now in QLD by way of VSHOD a retailer who stock a select range of imported and very desirable soaps and products. I shop there myself, they saw an opening for top end artisan product and they filled it - gone are the days of 3 weeks and $130 for a tub of MdC or getting bled dry exchanging euros for a nice Italian soap, VSHOD stocks all of it and the capital outlay to do so (exchange rate + airfreight) would be astronomical yet they continue to expand their SKU's with more niche and luxury brands, diversifying readily in response to income streams growing and increasing. The aesthetic of their website is immaterial, my approach here is their entering the market, and doing so to fill a segment with products that are firstly expensive to buy and secondly incredibly expensive to import for reasons already stated. A flash in the pan it could be argued, but the timeline reads full on blazing fire given their timescale of trading, it evidences growth domestically with the least amount of assumptions by case in point: I know all of their product lines, and the most costly and the types and kinds they keep increasing their stocks of I rarely if ever see posted unless I am doing so myself so we return to the juncture and the original class of question, who is buying it and where are they coming from but now we have something tangible that it is growing and their viable and expanding business is evidence of it, even with the arguably 'organic' nature of their website design.
In conclusion then, and to remove a largely immaterial conflict of interest, but to respect a commercial in confidence arrangement AP Reserve is stocked at Beard and Blade, the blindingly obvious consequence of this is that I cannot reference or frame them in the context of this discussion or the nature of the questions and lines of inquiry but anyone else can though, the model if it has any validity needs to fit across the board; open a new tab and check out their recently added items though and expansion into new lines, and US artisans - draw your own conclusions on my Australian stockist and then if you so wish apply it to the model. There is nothing sinister occurring here, it's just an issue of professionalism and commerciality.
So these are my thoughts, framing this issue is something I have been thinking about for a while - can I and should I raise it, and if so how can I do so and effectively communicate the ideas at the core of the problem without the entire question itself being derailed by a lack of understanding as to my intentions - is he promoting AP Reserve, does he want the data, whose data does he have, why did X say Y to Z - all of which while no doubt entertaining if you like essentially old wives gossip, fail in any way to help constructively discuss the (I believe) very interesting question that is being asked as to markets, populations and the inexplicable growth of wet-shaving in Australia that is demonstrated through exponential sales growth of artisan products. I have never studied or had even a remote interest in economics, if you have please jump in with whatever it was that they teach you at a tertiary level and I absolutely promise I will not growl at you for nominal fallacy if you describe a fancy model that does not 'show your working' as to the problem and how you arrived at the solution - feel free to to laugh at my ideas, questions and we that share the bewilderment as to the problem itself.
E.&.OE
If we then take the last paragraph with specific reference to markets and who constitutes them (who are the people buying this stuff and why is more and more selling) I can say in very general yet instructive terms, that the growth of wet-shaving in Australia in a statistically significant way is not in any way anchored, married to or connected to either the specialist wet-shaving forums, or the monolithic entity that is Face Book. Now it's a given that a percentage of market share is directly attributable to this specific forum which has been in existence for a number of years, and most certainly to the multitude of FaceBook wet-shaving groups including the maelstrom of content that is TAWSE and the 5000+ member shave the man, the latter case containing an overwhelming membership of state-siders but none the less an Australian group.
So if we take these factors into account (that X percentage is attributable to wet-shaving forums/FB) the problem, indeed the fatal flaw in this attribution is that from the data I have observed and have analysed an ever increasing percentage of artisan wet-shaving customers in Australia as a function of market share, have not either used or even heard of either P&C or any of the multitudinous FB groups. The data gets even more interesting however, as this market share keeps growing beyond the expectation of a kinetic model or even a consumer model, and the growth continues to trend to the aforementioned criteria. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that given my concern this is fantastic news, but that is so far from the point here - my point, or more rather the question I think it would be productive to constructively discuss is what exactly the fruit is going on with wet-shaving in Australia and where the sweet heck are all these people coming from, why are they coming and wouldn't it be nice if we could reach them and say hello, or not.
History is instructive, and undoubtedly in the field of observation chance only favors the prepared mind. Markets are cyclic, and arguably oscillatory but that is a digression that I don't think helpful at this point. Some 4 or 5 years ago now I went 'commercial' with a tiny concern, first through this forum and then through the opportunity and commercial acumen of Con at the Stray Whisker, Con if anyone does not know his full C.V could most suitably be described as Australia's wet-shaving retailer emeritus. From the private and personal mantle of his life, he has done more to promote and encourage the practice of wet-shaving both in Australia and throughout the world (his YouTube videos are recognized as among the best ever produced). He is a regular speaker at the thousands attended US events and has been for a number of years, both in a commercial capacity (a given) but equally as a man who is genuinely passionate about the necessity of promoting Australian wet-shaving products within the global marketplace. If this sounds too complicated and protracted, the TLDR is 'We need to bloody well export more in this country' and you get the picture.
It is no secret that Con made a commercial decision in relation to AP Reserve when he relocated, I would have not a moments hesitation in making the same decision in his circumstances. It is also highly unlikely that we will ever have a commercial relationship again, too many variables as to why and two very different market and brand intents - from my perspective we have both 'seated' in a deterministic sense commercially but this does not imply for a second (despite the FB horseshit knitting circle gossip I keep being told about) that I see him as anything other than an incredibly skilled educator who imparted more about the domestic and international wet-shaving market in the time we had a commercial relationship, than any other person then or since. I suspect would do the same for any other Australian artisan or indeed person that shares his passion and intelligence. The relevance of this is simple, Con on occasions asked me during our discussions about the very same concepts and 'problem' that I raised above, the data in the former case obviously coming from an entirely different commercial source. The question is still unanswered, most people here will probably not read this far down, but for those that have your perspectives, ideas and opines would be thoroughly welcome. Speculation is great, but modelling is better and the problem can be broken down into numbers, data sets and ultimately statistics from which we can derive meaning. I would settle for someone disclosing it's a cult buying it all at this point if it was demonstrable.
So I have detailed the problem, drawing on both the public face and presence of the Stray Whisker and Con and alternative commercial sources and have stated the problem: who are they, where do they come from and why do they keep doing so having no contact with FB wet-shaving forums or P&C.
Let me then speak in a plaintiff voice that this 'problem' or paradigm actually exists without being able to dump a bunch of numbers, the evidence opened it's doors not so long ago now in QLD by way of VSHOD a retailer who stock a select range of imported and very desirable soaps and products. I shop there myself, they saw an opening for top end artisan product and they filled it - gone are the days of 3 weeks and $130 for a tub of MdC or getting bled dry exchanging euros for a nice Italian soap, VSHOD stocks all of it and the capital outlay to do so (exchange rate + airfreight) would be astronomical yet they continue to expand their SKU's with more niche and luxury brands, diversifying readily in response to income streams growing and increasing. The aesthetic of their website is immaterial, my approach here is their entering the market, and doing so to fill a segment with products that are firstly expensive to buy and secondly incredibly expensive to import for reasons already stated. A flash in the pan it could be argued, but the timeline reads full on blazing fire given their timescale of trading, it evidences growth domestically with the least amount of assumptions by case in point: I know all of their product lines, and the most costly and the types and kinds they keep increasing their stocks of I rarely if ever see posted unless I am doing so myself so we return to the juncture and the original class of question, who is buying it and where are they coming from but now we have something tangible that it is growing and their viable and expanding business is evidence of it, even with the arguably 'organic' nature of their website design.
In conclusion then, and to remove a largely immaterial conflict of interest, but to respect a commercial in confidence arrangement AP Reserve is stocked at Beard and Blade, the blindingly obvious consequence of this is that I cannot reference or frame them in the context of this discussion or the nature of the questions and lines of inquiry but anyone else can though, the model if it has any validity needs to fit across the board; open a new tab and check out their recently added items though and expansion into new lines, and US artisans - draw your own conclusions on my Australian stockist and then if you so wish apply it to the model. There is nothing sinister occurring here, it's just an issue of professionalism and commerciality.
So these are my thoughts, framing this issue is something I have been thinking about for a while - can I and should I raise it, and if so how can I do so and effectively communicate the ideas at the core of the problem without the entire question itself being derailed by a lack of understanding as to my intentions - is he promoting AP Reserve, does he want the data, whose data does he have, why did X say Y to Z - all of which while no doubt entertaining if you like essentially old wives gossip, fail in any way to help constructively discuss the (I believe) very interesting question that is being asked as to markets, populations and the inexplicable growth of wet-shaving in Australia that is demonstrated through exponential sales growth of artisan products. I have never studied or had even a remote interest in economics, if you have please jump in with whatever it was that they teach you at a tertiary level and I absolutely promise I will not growl at you for nominal fallacy if you describe a fancy model that does not 'show your working' as to the problem and how you arrived at the solution - feel free to to laugh at my ideas, questions and we that share the bewilderment as to the problem itself.
E.&.OE
But I "think" I understand at least part of what Todras is discussing. The wet shaving market in Australia is a black box right now. He's seeing a number of things that are possibly counterintuitive - such as demand for certain products being met in an unexpected way, or an unexpected price point? 
