Post Published on September 9, 2013.
Last Updated on April 29, 2016 by davemackey.
I’m not very good at remembering things – especially mundane things that need to be done on a regular basis. Eat food? Nope. Buy food? Nope. Toilet paper? Nope. Hand soap? Nope. Razor blades? Forget it.
This can be unfortunate when one finds oneself in a situation without one of these items, without time to get one of these items, and/or without the desire to do so. That is where DollarShaveClub comes in.
I signed up with DollarShaveClub a number of months ago – soon after the service began making its rounds on the web. I started out with “The Executive” plan on a monthly basis. This means I receive four cartridges each with six stainless-steel blades. The first month I also received a heavy-duty handle, every month thereafter I received four more cartridges.
I found for myself, I made it two months on four cartridges, so I moved to their every two month plan – which (duhh) means I get four cartridges every two months. This costs me $9 (and includes S&H) – or a total of $54/yr.
I don’t know that the razors are better than the ones I used to use from Gillette, but the price seems less, the handle is nicer, the to-your-door service is awesome…I don’t have any plans on switching anytime soon.
Now they do offer some other “essentials” besides the blades they started out with. They have Dr. Carver’s Easy Shave Butter and they sent me a trial packet, but I didn’t really get enough of a “trial run” to want to subscribe to it on a regular basis. If they want me to subscribe to it, they’ll need to send me a full bottle, so I can try it over a period of time and see whether it works better than my current shaving gel (Aveeno Active Naturals Therapeutic Shave Gel).1No, I didn’t find this one myself, Charity did. It comes in a fancy bottle and has “natural” in it…what do you think I am, metrosexual?(And that isn’t an insult to metrosexuals, I just grew up in the boonies and perhaps have some in-born fashion/style/etc. stupidity…) I’m also a bit of a fan of the gel, so maybe they can make some Dr. Carver’s Shave Gel? Anyways, to add this to your order will be an extra $8.
They also have “wipes” which apparently are like baby wipes, but for adults. You can add forty of them to your order for $4. Personally, I’m not interested – plain toilet paper is fancy enough for me.
Ohh, and one other nifty thing about DollarShaveClub – their humor and class. The cartridges come in a small package which usually includes a postcard-esque notice with something humorous or intelligent thereon and a little business card reminding you to swap out your blades regularly.
So what am I saying? Go get DollarShaveClub men. And make sure you use my link when you do so – I get $5 credit for each person that signs up…Maybe I can have free razors for the rest of my life.
That said, I’d also like to offer my thoughts to the folks over at DollarShaveClub on a few ways they can expand and improve upon their current business. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are planning on expanding in these areas – and are just taking their time to ensure they can grow while maintaining the current high level of quality product and customer service.
I’d love to see you offer a complete set of toiletries for men. In my mind this would include:
Floss Picks – No, not just floss string or just the sticky things, but floss picks. Check out what DenTek is doing – their product is pretty awesome.
Toothpaste – I don’t care what kind of toothpaste. My mom would be happier if it didn’t include fluoride – but I’m negotiable. Preferably it should (a) clean my teeth, (b) whiten my teeth, (c) prevent bad breath. I think that hits the basics.
Toothbrushes – I know toothbrushsubscriptions.com is already doing this, but I’d rather not have to have all of these little individual charges showing up on my credit card nor a billion little packages.
Deodorant – I think I use Old Spice, I don’t know and don’t really care…but Deodorant is a must and seems like another no-brainer for DollarShaveClub.
Body Wash – If you can make it a shampoo/conditioner as well, that is great. If you can’t do all three, drop the conditioner – I don’t have any hair on my head, just on my face, so I don’t really need the conditioner, since I’m constantly whacking that off with your great razors.
Shampoo – You could do a separate shampoo, but men like things simple – so why make us open two bottles to wash instead of one?
Hand soap – Can we make our hand soap part of our body wash too? Okay, I’m just kidding, but it would be cool to have a nice monthly or bi-monthly supply of hand soap.
Hair Trimmer – There are two types of hair trimmers – the type for shaving our heads and the type for maintaining all other bodily hair (e.g. those annoying ear and nose hairs). I’m not sure whether you can make one device that does both – if so, that is cool…if not, well, make two separate devices. I’d buy a hair trimmer for my head probably once every three years and one for everything else once a year.
To show the sort of class you folks usually do, consider including a few ear plugs (a box of forty is a few bucks, you could throw ten into each hair trimmer order) – they are very useful in maintaining my hearing and would be a nice gesture of thoughtfulness…unless you plan to get into the hearing aid business, then maybe you shouldn’t include them.
- On the improvement end, I love your humor…however, I’d love your humor more if it was safe for all ages…and it really could be, but for the unnecessary profanity. I know you aren’t really aiming for the young here (unless they are prematurely growing extra whiskers), but I think it would be thoughtful and appreciated by many families where profanity is not condoned.
All-in-all, DollarShaveClub, you guys are doing a great job…But beware, there are some mega-vendors that could snatch up your business, so you’ll need to work on offering us a full set of toiletries at reasonable prices, with great customer service, and your unique humor and finesse if you want to keep the corporations at bay (::cough:: Amazon ::cough::).