SEATTLE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / August 26, 2019 / Baby care is big business.
If you haven’t been paying attention, it’s time to sit up and take notice. Baby products are going up continuously year over year, with 2020 projected to break the $81 billion mark. Everyone from traditional giants like Johnson and Johnson to new, smaller players are scrambling to get a piece of the pie.
But when Mushie Feigenson started looking for baby products, she found that a lot of the choices rang hollow for her. So she and her husband Levi decided to make their own mark on the industry.
We recently sat down with Levi Feigenson, co-founder and CEO of Mushie, for this article. Together with his wife Mushie, they started the company that bears her namesake-and over the course of just a year, they were able to build it into a powerhouse.
How did they do it?
Finding an Underserved Niche
“I have my wife to thank for finding this niche,” said Feigenson.
“We’re co-founders, but the original idea came from something she unearthed while she was pregnant with our second child. She was tired of finding a bunch of products that had potentially harmful plastics or dyes-she wanted something more natural.”
Mushie Feigenson’s morning sickness and hyperemesis gravidarum was bad enough that she was mostly on bed rest, and she devoted the time to designing the perfect nursery. Scrolling through countless pages of baby products, Instagram influencers, Pinterest boards and mommy blogger posts.
As she progressed, she realized something: the cheap products weren’t good and the good products weren’t cheap. There was nothing appealing about the bulk of what she was seeing, but the higher-quality eco-friendly products were way too expensive. She decided to get resourceful.
Mushie worked on finding inexpensive, sustainably-produced, eco-friendly baby accessories overseas. “She went to no end of trouble,” says Levi, laughing. “She went all out. We were sourcing things internationally, having them show up at our house. We had to figure out how to get things that weren’t even distributed in the United States.”
And then they realized: if we’re going to all this trouble, surely other people are having the same issue. How big of a market could this be?
The answer wasn’t long in coming.
Harnessing the Power of Instagram
In July of 2018, the company launched.
Called Mushie, the new enterprise came out of the gate faster than even the Feigensons expected. “We did $27,800 in sales in the very first month,” said Levi. “It honestly surprised us. We figured we had something good, but we didn’t realize how good it was. And a lot of it has been through Instagram.”
The uniquely visual nature of Instagram made a lot of sense for the fledgling company, and Mushie jumped on the sponsor bandwagon early. From small micro-influencers to huge, well-known influencers, they sent samples to people that could become product evangelists immediately …
It worked.
From there, they continued to work with bigger and bigger influencers, as well as building a stock of well-curated posts of their own that showcased their product. Giveaways and word of mouth began to build even more impetus.
Using Amazon Effectively
Amazon’s massive distribution network was another key for Mushie.
According to a recent Feedvisor report, 66 percent of all product searches start on Amazon. That’s a huge chunk of the world’s e-commerce traffic, and using the site effectively was one of Levi and Mushie’s big concerns.
“We know how big Amazon is,” said Levi.
“We had to take advantage of Fulfillment by Amazon, especially because we didn’t want to hold a ton of inventory ourselves. Using their distribution network and getting the increased exposure killed two birds with one stone.”
With Instagram's influence raising the profile of the brand and Amazon helping with distribution, Mushie had their e-commerce strategy down. But what about brick and mortar?
Working With Wholesale
Traditional brick and mortar stores presented an opportunity, too.
“We feel like it’s still valuable for us to get our products on shelves even in a digital world,” says Levi. “Being able to see, feel and touch something that your child is going to be using all the time still matters. We sell to wholesalers so we can get the product into people’s hands. That helps us stand out.
Selling to wholesalers and reaching store shelves also feeds back into e-commerce sales. One TimeTrade study found that many customers still prefer the accessibility of brick and mortar, and a lot of potential customers will go into a store and then buy later online.
Through the variety of channels it’s used, Mushie’s managed to build itself an enviable position in the baby products world. And they’ve done it shockingly fast. They just passed $500,000 in monthly sales-not bad for a company just over a year old.
“To think it all started with a bout of morning sickness and hyperemesis gravidarum,” says Levi. “It’s been an interesting ride so far. I’m excited to see where we go from here.”
Company: Mushie
Contact: [email protected]
SOURCE: Mushie