Australian social e-commerce company, Supernova, has built up its indie business from scratch and brought its health and beauty brands Sand & Sky, BodyBoss, Coco & Eve and Skinnymint to a global level with a lot of help from social media.

With its headquarters in Singapore and offices littered across Melbourne, UK, Vancouver the company now has plans to further expand in India and China.

Inside Retail spoke to Supernova CEO and co-founder, Emily Hamilton about infiltrating the Indian and Chinese markets.

“We’ve always had the desire to build a global brand. We’ve always seen the bigger picture didn’t want to be restricted to one market,” Hamilton said.

“Naturally, tackling the e-commerce world was a must. We also wanted to figure out a way to make e-commerce profitable and to build a formula, which successfully grows brands faster than anyone has done so before.”

Hamilton said the growing population in these countries coupled with the rise of the middle class provides a good opportunity for expansion, and there is already consumer interest in the type of products they carry in these countries.

The internet allows her business to infiltrate overseas markets more easily. Instagram is a valuable tool as it allows Supernova to directly market its products to global customers and reach new audiences everyday.

“There are like-minded consumers in all corners of the globe; it’s all about taking the leap to find them,” Hamilton said.

“Our target market (gen-now) are an engaged bunch, and we use that to our advantage. We like to include our customers in the entire product development process. We don’t believe in prototypes, instead our designers will mock up a concept and we’ll put it to the ‘panel’ through Instagram. If the responses are positive, we know we’ve hit the nail on the head, and will move forward, acknowledging and taking on all feedback,” shared Hamilton.

It’s not an easy feat to build a business from the ground up, especially when expanding internationally but Hamilton told Inside FMCG that the big challenge was compliance with the law. The products needed to adhere to laws in over 70 countries and it’s essential that the business stays on top of rules and regulations as they are constantly changing.

Launching global brands

Supernova has a passion for building indie beauty brands and has created a formula to fast track the brand’s building process. For the past two years, Hamilton said it has successfully launched global brands with high demand.

“We like to consider ourselves the ‘Shark Tank’ of the e-commerce world. We immerse ourselves in the whole process; from the early stages of market research, logistics, branding and investment, through to marketing, international shipping and customer service. When creating a brand, we search high and low for the right person to help lead it; sharing the same passion and drive as us is a must!”

While Hamilton’s indie brands aren’t the cookie cutter type built in a boardroom, they put an emphasis on collaborating with customers, something which she believes sets Supernova apart from its competitors.

Supernova will have a busy 2019 with major plans in the pipeline including the expansion of existing brands and launching new brands in the future.