Hello! My name is Kigawa, and I work for Bi Natural and Milobina.

Today, I would like to talk about how a company called Bi Natural launched a brand called Milobina.

Last time here The beginning is aromatic life magic soap

As I mentioned last time, the current name ``Beautiful Natural'' was created in 2011.New name.

The previous company name was Aromatic Life Kigawa, founded in 2003.

The Rakuten Market store, which was opened at the same time as the company was established, was called Aromatic Life Magic Soap.

We started with my father as the chairman and myself as the president, and there were many twists and turns as we focused on products that were effective and 100% natural, but gradually customers started to follow us, and Aromatic Life Magic Soap became a signboard. The store was running very well, with its magic soap series consistently ranking first in the Rakuten rankings every week.

Come to think of it, the Rakuten ranking system at the time didn't have the daily rankings or real-time rankings that we have today, but only weekly rankings, so I remember looking forward to the announcement every Thursday.

In fact, at that time, soap did not have the same level of popularity as it does now, and facial cleansing foam was the mainstream. Few people wash their faces with soap, and to my surprise, Rakuten didn't even have a category for face wash soaps.

One day, I discovered a category of facial cleansing soaps in the Rakuten rankings!

When I asked the person in charge of Aromatic Life Magic Soap at the time, he told me that the magic soaps were selling so well that they created a new category of facial cleansing soap!

At that time, soaps irritated the skin, so it had to be a cleansing foam that was gentle on the skin! Wrong information was being openly shared, such as,

Soap originally leads to healthy skin,

In addition, it can be made without using synthetic surfactants that do not decompose and pollute water and have a negative impact on living organisms (please note that some soaps do use them), so they do not pollute the environment. It's extremely rare.

I will tell you that the wrong idea about soap is different,

We received a flood of impressed comments from people who used the Magic Soap series (most of them had been using facial cleansing foam up until that point), saying that their skin suddenly became brighter, and that what used to be rough became smooth and smooth. And it was selling at an accelerating rate.

Also, when we first opened, we wanted as many people as possible to know about our products, so we did a lot of sampling and held big sales from time to time, so that was one of the big reasons why our sales increased.

In fact, all of the Aromatic Life Magic Soaps at that time had free shipping. There were no other shops like this, but in order to do so, we needed to use inexpensive delivery methods such as mail delivery or non-standard postal delivery, which we could not find anywhere on Rakuten Market at the time. Incorporating the method of delivery,

We have introduced deferred payment so that even first-time users can use our service with peace of mind.

Around 2003, cash on delivery or prepayment was still the norm, and credit card payments were not very popular.However, I felt that the biggest bottleneck for online shops from customers was the shipping costs and payment methods, so I tried my best to make payments as much as possible. The idea was to reduce that burden.

At that time, we only sold soap, so the shipping costs we had to pay weren't that big, and we were family-run at the time, so we kept labor costs to a minimum, so we were able to do that (lol).

I now remember that at that time, stores were repeatedly warned to avoid using deferred payment as it was highly risky as there was a possibility of non-payment, and to only accept payment in advance. I did it!

For stores where I have never met the store staff and don't really understand the reality of virtual stores, I always ignore their calls because I think it's a bit rude or brazen to ask customers to pay in advance. , at the time, anywayDeferred payment & free shippingI was working hard!

However, shipping costs must be calculated carefully.

As cash flow became increasingly difficult, one day, at the suggestion of the chairman, we decided to charge 250 yen for shipping.

Instead, we reduced the prices of our products, so I don't think our business situation improved much in the end. At that time, I left that to my father, who was the chairman, so I don't remember it clearly.

I didn't know anything about accounting or management, and even though I was the company's president, I was only doing the job of a store manager.

My father also originally came from a sales and development field, so he was quite arrogant about how he spent money and wasn't really interested in new business development or capital investment. I felt satisfied with what I was doing and thought it would last forever.

Therefore, I ended up spending many years without being able to develop a new genre or introduce a new system for acquiring customers that I had envisioned. This is something I really regret, or rather still regret, but I can't help it!

However, since then, we have had the good fortune to come across many wonderful products other than soap, such as Getto Lotion, Sesame Series, and herbal supplements, and our product lineup and sales have expanded, making many happy customers. I was there.

However, we are very selective when selecting products for Aromatic Life Magic Soap.

Launching new products is that easy! I couldn't do it, and as a result, I felt like I was just repeating the same thing every day and year after year, and I was starting to feel anxious as I felt that the store was losing momentum little by little.

At the time, we were the only company with facial cleansing soap, but it was rapidly overtaken by our rivals, and before we knew it, we were no longer even in the top 50. Then, we ended up in a very bad situation where we had to hold sales at unreasonable deep discounts to somehow secure sales. I had fallen into it.

Then the current Australian vice president appeared. He has a wide range of experience and is quite knowledgeable about accounting and management. Also, as I wrote last time, I am well versed in IT matters.

When he looked at Aromatic Life Kigawa's financial and management situation, he said, ``Noriko, if you keep going like this, you'll go bankrupt in two years!''

That was around 2009.

I persuaded the chairman to transfer accounting to him and made significant improvements.

At that time, we employed several part-time workers, but we changed our employment structure. We have decided to recruit new employees and review their salaries, essentially increasing their hourly wages.

Then, we decided to move the shipping center.

At that time, I rented a house right in front of my parents' house, stopped all shipping operations that I was doing intermittently, and moved to Kasahata Station, which will be the closest station to the golf venue for the Tokyo Olympics (Kasumigaseki Country Club). We rented a room in the Hinata Building, which is right next to the building, and decided to store all of our products there and conduct shipping operations.

Since some staff members came by train, the vice president decided that it would be better for her to stay there, three minutes from the station.

Up until then, the rent for the house was almost free, so the chairman didn't want to move, but the building was also a concern in terms of its earthquake-resistant structure, and the floor was slanted, so I personally didn't want to move. I remember feeling relieved.

Concerned about this, the chairman retired from the shipping business he had been involved in and decided to focus solely on accounting and management. There was a moment when I thought that in the future, I would like young people to do the same.

From that point on, we broke away from the loose family business that we had been up until then, and I think it's safe to say that we gradually began to build up our company as a business, including employment conditions that had hardly been established up until that point. .

At the time, my sister and mother were also employees, but they worked full time and only had weekends off. Even if I have to work overtime when I'm busy, I want to ship quickly and provide the best service so my customers don't have to wait! It was burning.

As a result, my wrists started to hurt and my shoulders became abnormally stiff...My mother, who was in charge of shipping, was almost 70 years old.

However, that approach will not last long, so you should stop it immediately. This is because the vice president has a new idea.

At Bi-Natural, we strive to ship as quickly as possible, but this is the origin of our promise to ship within 2-3 business days rather than on the same day. is.

In other words, the idea of ``sustainability,'' which we had not given much thought to at our company up until then, was introduced.

Since then, we have implemented a series of reforms with sustainability in mind.

When they had progressed to a certain extent, they said,

“Aromatic Life Magic Soap and Aromatic Life Kigawa should change as well.”

was.

Indeed, since I was already divorced, there was no longer any need for me to use the name Kigawa, which was meant to be considerate of my ex-husband, and I didn't really like it because it was so long (lol). As for the store name, magic soap is no longer included in the rankings, and they have a good selection of products other than soap...

After that, I kept worrying about what to do with the new name no matter where I was, and finally came up with a name that is simple and embodies our company's thoughts and wishes.

"Beautiful natural"

The word. This is it! I thought.

As I recall, that word came to me while I was on the train, writing down various ideas in my notebook.

We finally decided on a name we were happy with, completed the Rakuten Market formalities, and it was August 8, 2011.

The page design has been renewed and the new page is open!

However···

In March 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred.

The timing was wrong for the grand opening of the store, as emails went out, products could not be delivered reliably, and most of all, the Japanese people's hearts were seriously hurt.

I am reflecting on this, thinking that this may have been the result of my being too pushy and not being able to wait.

And the result was so terrible that I didn't even want to reflect on it...

Although the big drop after the earthquake had diminished and the company was on a recovery trend, as soon as the company changed its name, sales dropped by more than half.

Many of our customers used to come to our store every day, but after that they stopped coming... Our cash flow suddenly deteriorated!

From then on, what had been an autumn era entered into a real winter era.

So,More to come next time!

Thank you for reading to the end today!

see you.