Skincare makes up over 40 per cent of the total global cosmetics market and the product category continues to build its market share. One brand that is benefitting from this booming market is the Australian-owned and manufactured skincare business Cinch Skin, which is ready to scale globally after experiencing 500 per cent revenue growth in the past year, after being founded in 2016. The native-based, vegan and cruelty-free beauty brand caters to the growing demand for ‘clean’ beauty product
roducts amidst a broader shift of consumers shopping more sustainably. This year, the global revenue forecast for the natural cosmetics market is close to US$14 billion.
Cinch Skin founder Renee Moore initially built the business through traditional bricks-and-mortar stockists. Recently, however, she has exited the company’s partnership with major Australian pharmacy chain Priceline – which was Cinch Skin’s primary sales channel by a large margin – to pursue e-commerce growth. She refers to this as embracing a “launching backwards” approach.
Launching backwards
Moore said that she chose to part ways with Priceline after it was acquired by Australian retail conglomerate Wesfarmers in the post-pandemic climate of 2022, following an open conversation with the business.
“It was the scariest moment of my life,” Moore told Inside Retail.
Cinch’s partnership with Priceline lasted for six years. Moore said, “Priceline was 100 per cent supportive and incredible throughout our partnership and exit.”
The brand launched in 375 Priceline stores in 2016. It also sold products online and direct-to-consumer (DTC) via its own website. Priceline’s original wholesale order, “Well and truly covered what we had spent on product,” Moore said.
“Our minimum orders were around 10,000 units for us internally, which was really scary and big at the time.”
“Teaming up with a retailer, if you have the right margin, will help you hit that first milestone within your business of covering your costs, allowing you to keep on promoting and going.”
Letting the product speak for itself
The decision to exit Priceline was due to a difference between the strategies of the two businesses, Moore said, citing discounting as an example. At the time, Cinch Skin didn’t discount its products, but Moore noted that brands typically don’t have control over discounts their retail partners offer.
After analysing the data, Moore realised there was a trend of shoppers waiting to purchase Cinch at a discount through its retail partners, and buying DTC only between those sales.
“I had to stop and realise my brand value and look at why people were purchasing my product and that was because it served a need,” Moore said.
Since exiting Priceline over the past year, she has focused primarily on online retail partners, along with Cinch’s own e-commerce site.
Superior performance in business and self-care
Before founding Cinch Skin, Moore worked with big retailers in her roles at Coty, Sally Hansen and Rimmel for over 20 years, and she professes to have a heart and soul that beats for the retail industry.
While she was on maternity leave for her first child, Moore realised that her sometimes 10-step skincare routine was no longer a priority.
“I had that, I guess, ‘lightbulb moment’ [of realising] I want to make a multi-benefit skincare range for time-poor people specifically, not beauty experts,” she explained.
Moore met with manufacturers to pitch her first product, the 5-in-1 Spray + Glow, and in contrast to conventional wisdom, which would say to make more products with less functionality in the name of profit, Cinch has stuck to its ‘less is more’ ethos. It still only retails four skincare products, but one more is planned to launch in the next 12 months.
She says two aspects set apart the business. One is the investment in branding to ensure that the product looked different and stood out. The other is its unique selling proposition as a minimalist skincare range.
“We know a couple of other brands are doing [it], but we stay true to what that minimalist skincare range looks like – having only four products is true to that testament,” she said.
As for growth, Moore says the brand is now well-positioned to scale to meet the demand of the UK and European markets.
“We’ve just appointed a responsible person in the EU and UK, which means that all of our labels are now approved and we are ready to go into either bricks-and-mortars or e-tailers over there, and [we] have a 3PL in the UK and Ireland so that Ireland can dispatch into the EU,” she explained.
A PR campaign in the UK doubled the brand’s website traffic instantaneously.
Beyond this, discussions with retailers are under way in South Korea and Hong Kong, two regions that are now moving towards a ‘skincare diet’, in other words, reducing the number of skincare products they are using.