Here’s the ad from 2012 (over 23 million views on YouTube) that catapulted them into the national consciousness:

Questions for your students:

• What is Dollar Shave Club’s offer to consumers? Simple or difficult to understand?
• Why are they better than the competition?
• What do you see as the benefits of using their service?
• What do you think a typical razor (like Dollar Shave Club’s) cost in a retail store? Do some quick research to find out?
• What is the innovation that DSC brought to the shaving market? Product-related? Distribution? Marketing?

Review the following articles to learn more about the sale of Dollar Shave Club and what it may portend for the future of companies and retailers too:

• $1 Billion for Dollar Shave Club: Why Every Company Should Worry (NY Times):

The deal anecdotally shows that no company is safe from the creative destruction brought by technological change. The very nature of a company is fundamentally changing, becoming smaller and leaner with far fewer employees. Dollar Shave Club was a phenom in the men’s grooming industry. The online business was founded in 2011 by Mark Levine and Michael Dubin to combat the high cost of razors. The idea was rather simple. Instead of paying $10 or $20 a month at a store for disposable razors, a Dollar Shave Club subscriber could go online and set up a regular order to be shipped to his home monthly at a fraction of the retail cost.

• The Seismic Effects Of Unilever’s Dollar Shave Club Buy (PYMNTS)

“I think you will see implementations of the learnings from them in businesses we already have outside of the U.S.,” Polman said. “Then we will look at opportunities to introduce the model in other countries, where you need a certain penetration of online shopping.”

It should speak volumes that the head executive from Unilever, one of the world’s largest consumer goods manufacturers, is openly musing about his company’s efforts to possibly employ a direct-to-consumer sales model. Body soap and antiperspirants might not make an online retail empire overnight, but they do kick out another leg under the table holding up brick-and-mortar merchants’ lunch. After all, if shoppers can buy even the most basic consumer goods direct from manufacturers themselves with all the savings that entails, then in-store retailers will have another enemy to join their online rivals.

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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