The brains behind ‘the most boring product ever’ has revealed the secrets to its runaway success.
The world’s first online toilet paper delivery service started out with a virtuous aim and a crowd-funding stunt nine years ago, and is now selling to almost 40 countries.
Who Gives a Crap founder and chief executive Simon Griffiths explained the Aussie company’s remarkable rise, which went ballistic as the pandemic took hold last year, revealing it began with a marathon stint in the smallest room in the house to raise seed capital.
“We realised we were crowd-funding probably the most boring product ever in the history of crowd-funding,” Mr Griffiths told NCA NewsWire.
“We had to do something different to get people’s attention. I agreed to sit on a toilet on a live webfeed until we sold the first $50,000 worth of product.
“That took 50 never ever to be repeated hours of my life but sent us viral.”
The company considered being 100 per cent not-for-profit, but realised that wouldn’t give it scope for global growth plans and staff incentives, so it went with 50 per cent.
Partnered with WaterAid, Who Gives a Crap has donated millions of dollars to funding sanitation projects around the world.
“At the time (2012), 2.4 billion people globally didn’t have access to adequate sanitation,” Mr Griffiths said.
“We saw that there was an opportunity to use a product that we all use every single day to engage people in a conversation about one of the most off-track development goals that we have in the world – and it is still – because it is something a bit icky and gross.”
The way to do it was making it fun and engaging, with humorous custom-designed packaging including a Where’s Wally style game dubbed “Where’s the Loo?”
That was in contrast to existing brands, which avoided addressing what the product was used for, and resonated with customers, proving a competitive advantage.
“Every other existing brand was talking about puppies, pillows, feathers, angels – things that are completely unrelated to toilet paper,” Mr Griffiths said.
Word-of-mouth spread, with customers sharing photos of the packaging on social media, giving rolls to colleagues – there was a big buzz around the brand.
“That led us to sell out what we thought was going to last three months in five days, and so we tripled down on our order volumes,” Mr Griffiths said.
“It took about 12 weeks to get back in stock and in that time we made our first donation to WaterAid in June 2013.”
The company has roughly doubled or tripled the size of the business each year for the past nine years, growing from a sole operator to a team of 135 staff spread across seven nations.
In early March last year as Covid-19 swept the world, sales doubled one day, jumped five-fold the next.
“Then 12 times the day after that … and the day after that it looked like we were going to do 30 to 40 times regular sales,” Mr Griffiths said.
“So we had to mark our store as sold out to hold on to the inventory for our subscribers and business customers.
“We turned on email sign-up so people would know when we were back in stock and we thought we’d get a few thousand people signing up for that. We ended up with more than half a million on that waitlist, which was a challenging business problem to solve.”
Staff went into overdrive, freelancers were roped in, 48-roll boxes were turned into smaller packs so more orders could be met and a “secret” invitation-only online club was formed, allowing just enough customers through to take warehouses and couriers to their limit.
“It was about eight weeks before we came back in stock in June 2020 and then at the end of the month, we were able to make a $5 million donation,” Mr Griffiths said.
To keep achieving its philanthropic goals, Who Gives a Crap needed to grow to “the scale of Kimberly Clark”, Mr Griffiths said, as the company planned new markets and new sales channels.
Even without the bizarre shopping frenzy around toilet paper that Covid-19 brought, the future looks bright for the business given the surge in online shopping appears to have stuck.
“Buying toilet paper from supermarkets actually isn’t that convenient because you’re often buying big packs that take up half your shopping trolley and if you’re not driving, you have to lug it home walking with it under your arm or fit it into your backpack if you’re on a bike,” Mr Griffiths said.
“So it’s a product that does make sense to have delivered.
“We thought about the moment when you think about purchasing toilet paper and it’s often the moment when you’ve run out.
“So if we sell in larger quantities that’s going to help but we also put three red emergency rolls into the bottom of every box … you get this reminder that it’s time to reorder.
“We set us a subscription service so we can work with your household to figure out what your unique usage looks like and ship you a box just before you’re due to run out so you never have to think about buying toilet paper again.”
Originally published as Australian company behind world’s first online toilet paper delivery service a global hit
For all the latest business News Click Here
