Paul Jauregui had a lot to have fun when he first appeared on this podcast in 2020. BK Beauty, the cosmetics firm he co-founded along with his spouse, Lisa, had reached $1 million in gross sales in its first yr. He returned in early 2022 with extra excellent news: The firm had launched a thriving affiliate internet marketing program and bypassed the Facebook advert meltdown from iOS 14.5.
He’s again, having surpassed a whopping $10 million in annual income, bolstered by early success on TikTook Shop. In this our third interview, he shares BK Beauty’s progress challenges, constructive TikTook vibes, and extra.
The total audio of that dialog is embedded under. The transcript is edited for readability and size.
Eric Bandholz: You’ve reached $10 million in annual gross sales in simply 4 years.
Paul Jauregui: Yes. Three years in the past, we had been celebrating crossing the $1 million mark. Last week, we simply crossed into eight figures. Managing that comes with challenges. We’ve realized so much. Our enterprise has three elements at any given time — provide, demand, and supply. Along the best way, we’ve had supply-related issues, forecasting glitches, and stock shortages.
On the demand aspect, paid buyer acquisition was a giant a part of our latest progress. Going from $5 to $10 million in annual gross sales throws the availability equation out of whack. We’re doing success in-house, so our capability to ship items and packages to our prospects and get them out the door is reaching a degree I by no means anticipated. Last month, we shipped over 20,000 packages. We have a day by day baseline however nonetheless expertise large spikes with varied occasions and launches.
Bandholz: You’re now promoting on TikTook.
Jauregui: We’ve been on TikTook Shop for a few month and a half. These are the pioneering instances. When we joined, it was earlier than Shopify rolled out its native integration. We discovered some preliminary success. We had been additionally onboarding into Amazon. We had been halfway by means of the method and dealing with Amazon’s rising manufacturers workforce. However, a number of days in the past I emailed Amazon to push that launch into 2024.
Instead, I must deal with an space of the enterprise that aligns extra with our DNA. We’ve at all times labored with content material creators on social platforms. TikTook Shop aligns effectively with that effort. We’re seeing a variety of success. It makes up about 15% of our complete income on any given day, and that’s rising.
However, TikTook is spending some huge cash extending reductions to patrons on the platform — roughly 20-40%. We don’t pay for that. It drops on to the underside line. TikTook additionally presents free transport, which fits into my pocket too. Both of these — reductions and free transport — are serving to with conversions.
There are many advantages to getting in now with TikTook Shop. We anticipate heavy promotions by TikTook through the vacation procuring interval in three key areas: retailers, shoppers, and content material creators.
We’ve been operating an associates program by way of ShareASale. That’s how we’ve compensated people on platforms like YouTube. However, it was not simple to have an affiliate hyperlink on TikTook. There’s no description field under the movies, and never everybody goes into the feedback. We would see a video on TikTook about us, and our YouTube natural visitors would surge as a result of people needed to Google us to be taught extra and purchase our merchandise.
All of that now takes place on TikTook. Folks watching the movies can examine us out proper there. Before TikTook Shop, dozens of distinguished creators on that platform talked about our merchandise. But, once more, there was no sort of clear path to purchase. I checked out it as top-of-the-funnel consciousness.
Now TikTook captures the precise transaction. The gross sales come from content material creators speaking about merchandise they love. TikTook has enabled them to monetize that extra successfully and share it with the shoppers with out leaving the platform.
One of our high movies on TikTook has about 1.7 million views. A content material creator put it out a number of weeks in the past. It’s generated low 5 figures in gross sales and a great deal of commissions for her.
Bandholz: Is that course of just like Meta’s outlets?
Jauregui: No. We’re on Facebook and Instagram outlets. We have advertisements operating on these platforms. But it’s not getting a lot of my consideration. Ecommerce is a precedence for TikTook. They have their very own native associates program, checkout, and talent to create demand and consciousness. There’s even a TikTook success. It’s all self-contained.
TikTook’s ecosystem is exclusive. Meta’s promoting platform is the world’s most effective buyer acquisition answer. TikTook has that, too, however it’s enabling creators to earn a fee, incentivizing them to supply extra content material. Meta creators don’t get commissions that I’m conscious of — no less than not in an easy means.
So our focus now could be educating creators on TikTook and getting them onto TikTook Shop. Many creators haven’t tried it. To assist, our workforce created a information. We’re contacting creators already speaking about us on TikTook. That’s the place we see probably the most success.
Bandholz: Where can people attain out to you?
Jauregui: Our web site is BKbeauty.com. I’m @pauljauregui on Twitter. I’m additionally on LinkedIn. Reach out, and I’ll ship you that information.
https://www.practicalecommerce.com/new-tiktok-shop-spurs-bk-beauty
