The 53-year-old female entrepreneur entered the red ocean market and sold more than 400 million yuan a year!

As a red ocean track in the cross-border e-commerce circle, many sellers choose "beauty and personal care" as their first choice to enter the overseas market. But in fact, this track is already crowded with big sellers and is not very friendly to novice sellers.

However, there is a beauty brand called Trinny London, founded by a 53-year-old female boss, which has successfully gained popularity in many countries around the world despite numerous obstacles. It achieved a revenue of more than 60 million US dollars last year, and its brand valuation is as high as 250 million US dollars. It is really admirable!

She started her own business at the age of 53 and established a well-known brand despite many doubts

According to information, Trinny London is a high-end beauty brand in the UK. It was founded in 2017. Its founder is Trinny Woodal, who is now 60 years old.

At the age of 53, she came up with the idea of ​​starting a business in the red ocean track of "beauty and personal care", and encountered a lot of doubts and denials during the process. In the early stage of starting a business, Trinny Woodall worked in the advertising industry, and later switched to become an editor of a fashion magazine. She also served as a host on the British BBC's "What Not to Wear" program.

When hosting fashion shows, Trinny Woodall won the love and recognition of countless viewers with her generous and insightful style, and accumulated a huge fan base. At the same time, she helped thousands of women improve their image, and she also gained a new understanding of the appearance of different women and the anxiety and confusion in choosing beauty and skin care products.

As Trinny Woodall interacted more and more with women, she gradually discovered that many people, especially women over 35 years old, found it difficult to find beauty products that were easy to use and suitable for their skin tone and needs.

Trinny Woodall has always believed that women use cosmetics not only for a glamorous appearance, but more importantly, to help people improve their self-confidence. When she learned that the cosmetics needs of middle-aged women were not met by the market, she came up with the idea of ​​creating her own brand.

Trinny London was officially launched in 2017. The brand's goal is to create products that can help women quickly complete their makeup and can be tailored to their personal needs.

However, Trinny Woodall was already 53 years old at the time, and due to his age, his path to financing was extremely difficult.

At investment meetings, voices such as "You are too old to start something new", "It's too late", and "The beauty market is too crowded" are often heard. Many industry experts are dismissive of Trinny Woodall and even question its brand positioning.

Because she did not attract the right financing party, after the initial funds ran out, she sold her designer clothes and raised 60,000 pounds to start her own business. She also converted the bathroom into a photo studio. Despite the many obstacles, Trinny Woodall was not defeated, but became more determined about the development direction of the brand.

Driven by the positioning of "showing women's beauty and confidence" and the concept of "simplifying makeup", Trinny London launched a number of products including BFF Cream (skin care cream) and Miracle Blur (lip balm) in 2017. Among them, BFF Cream focuses on "skin care and makeup two-in-one", suitable for all skin colors and skin, and is loved by a large number of female users; Miracle Blur has created a record of selling one bottle every 23 seconds.

The following year, it also developed a stackable makeup box called Stack, where different cosmetics such as base makeup, eye shadow, blush, etc. can be placed in separate small boxes and stacked together through a magnetic design. With its practicality, convenience and easy storage, the product has won the favor of a large number of female consumers as soon as it was launched.

Since its establishment, Trinny London has always conveyed the idea that "age is never a limit" to users, and has therefore gained a total of more than 1 million fans aged 35-55.

Trinny London's annual revenue reaches 450 million

It is worth mentioning that as early as 2019, Trinny London's sales achieved a year-on-year growth of 350%; from March 2020 to January 2021, its sales increased by 280%, and it achieved US$52.1 million (approximately RMB 380 million) in revenue in one year.

After seven years of development, Trinny London products are no longer limited to the UK and many European countries, but are also sold to many countries and regions around the world, including the United States, Australia, Canada, the Middle East, Asia, etc. Among them, the UK accounts for 55% of the market share, Australia accounts for 16%, and the United States accounts for 11%.

At the same time, its product line is also constantly expanding. It currently covers makeup products such as foundation, eye makeup, and lip makeup, skin care products such as essence, facial cleansers, as well as makeup boxes, storage boxes, etc., basically meeting the daily needs of female consumers.

In the product display pictures, Trinny London cooperates with models of different ages and skin colors to help female consumers find suitable products. In addition, in order to provide consumers with personalized makeup and skin care suggestions more intelligently and help them quickly choose the products that suit them, Trinny London has also launched Match2Me artificial intelligence technology. According to statistics, 75% of the brand's sales come from this system.

Thanks to its careful consideration of the needs of middle-aged and elderly women, Trinny London's sales have skyrocketed, with revenue reaching US$62 million (approximately RMB 450 million) in 2023 and a brand valuation of US$250 million.

The success of Trinny London lies on the one hand in its precise understanding of market demand, and on the other hand it is inseparable from its efforts on major social media platforms.

It is understood that when the company encountered continuous setbacks in financing, the founder Trinny Woodal quickly turned her attention to social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok, and posted videos to teach fans how to dress and put on makeup better. Her humorous style attracted a large number of loyal fans.

Its independent website has a total of about 400,000 visits per month, and each user browses about 6 pages. On TikTok, the @Trinny Woodal account has more than 100,000 followers and more than 510,000 likes. In Facebook community operations, the brand also performs very well, with more than 100,000 fans at present, and sales generated through this channel account for more than 40% of total sales.

Another point that must be mentioned is that in recent years, Trinny London has also been continuously developing offline channels. It is reported that it has opened pop-up stores and flagship stores in London, and plans to expand to Australia, Ireland and other places in the future. In addition, founder Trinny Woodal also pointed out that by the end of November this year, the brand's retail business will triple from 11 franchise stores and shops to 33, and its retail revenue has increased from 16% to 26%.

The success of Trinny London proves to all entrepreneurs that age should never be a label that categorizes or constrains people, and it should not be a stumbling block for cross-border sellers to start their own businesses. At the same time, the red ocean track is not completely without opportunities for novice sellers.

Statistics show that the global beauty market will exceed $300 billion this year and is expected to reach $404.7 billion by 2026. It is foreseeable that there will be continuous business opportunities in the beauty and personal care market in the future. Sellers who want to get a piece of the pie in this hot market may want to learn from Trinny London's successful experience.