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A comment on Dollar Shave Club and the Disruption of Everything.

Re:Dollar Shave Club and the Disruption of Everything by aleem on Wednesday July 20, 2016 @09:25AM (#12128808)
The razors-as-a-service model was the big win here. Microsoft moved office to subscriptions. Apple now sells iPhone via a hardware subscription. Amazon has product subscriptions and on-demand buttons you stick on your washing machine that you can press once for a refill.

Gillette doesn't do direct sales so it misses out on subs. It must rely on retailers to execute subs. If Gillette did subs for $10 they could greatly impact their "base" dynamics, essentially: low churn, consumer inertia, recurring and predictable revenues, direct channel to consumer for marketing and cross/up sells, streamlined billing, etc.

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Re:Dollar Shave Club and the Disruption of Everything by ececconi on Wednesday July 20, 2016 @09:54AM (#12129000)
Gillette actually does have a shave club although it is quite a bit more expensive. It's called Gillette Shave club...

https://www.gilletteshaveclub.com/

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Re:Dollar Shave Club and the Disruption of Everything by ceejayoz on Wednesday July 20, 2016 @10:35AM (#12129292)
That seems like a pretty blatant trademark violation.
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Re:Dollar Shave Club and the Disruption of Everything by nommm-nommm on Wednesday July 20, 2016 @10:45AM (#12129369)
Errr... No.

"Club" has been used to describe subscription products for as long as I can remember. Columbia House/BMG's mail order CD business were called record clubs, for example. There was (is?) also the Book of the Month Club and plenty of other "X of the month" clubs that probably existed way before the world wide web.

Perhaps "joining a club" sounds more positive/marketable than "subscribing to a mail order service."

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Re:Dollar Shave Club and the Disruption of Everything by Fej on Wednesday July 20, 2016 @12:36PM (#12130359)
I'm sure the lawyers looked over everything very carefully.
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Re:Dollar Shave Club and the Disruption of Everything by TheCowboy on Wednesday July 20, 2016 @11:31AM (#12129798)
Maybe something changed, but DSC was not yet profitable, so concluding that their service is a big win is premature. DSC was still burning cash which is important to consider in determining if they were sustainable.

The sale is a win for investors if they ended up with a good ROI. The article says the DSC brand cost $57m, but I've frequently seen numbers closer to $200m.

DSC alone may not have lasted, but if it has access to Unilever's product lines and resources, it can move beyond razors.

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