In 2009, while working as a USAID subcontractor, David Simnick spotted a global hygiene gap: 95 percent of homes had access to laundry soap but hand soap availability remained limited. This insight led him to launch Soapbox, aiming to increase hand soap access and prevent disease spread.
After experimenting with making shampoo in his D.C. apartment, Simnick partnered with professional producers and began selling at farmer’s markets.
“We had no idea about how to go to market. We had the worst packaging ever,” laughs Simnick, co-founder and CEO of Soapbox. “But the mission was always to get more consumers into the brand so that they can make a bigger difference and we can create products that people really love.”
In 2010, he and college friend Daniel Doll officially launched Soapbox, which has grown into a competitive natural personal care company with 22 employees based in a historic Georgetown building in Washington, D.C.
For every product purchased, Soapbox donates a bar of soap to local homeless shelters and food pantries, as well as to 65 communities around the world that lack access to hygiene products. The business is close to hitting 50 million donated bars of soap.
“The idea of building a soap business was almost secondary to building a mission business,” says Doll, Soapbox’s co-founder and COO. “Soap was the vehicle to provide good.”
Soapbox was successfully selling its products in a few Whole Foods stores and directly to consumers through its website. Then in 2014, Simnick and Doll wanted to expand their sales strategy through Amazon, partly to build trust in their products through reviews.
“We needed to be able to use the Amazon product detail pages, the Amazon reviews and testimonials from actual verified purchasers to get other people more comfortable with buying [our products], not only on Amazon but in other retail stores,” says Doll.
Soapbox expects close to $10 million in Amazon sales this year and has nearly doubled its Amazon sales every year for the past six years, which Simnick attributes to Amazon’s analytics and AI capabilities within the Seller Central dashboard.
One particularly effective tool has been Amazon’s A/B testing feature for product imagery. “If we want to know if an image on our Amazon page is the most effective in converting sales, Amazon’s AI gives us strong probability data about which images work best,” Simnick says.
Soapbox also taps into Amazon’s brand analytics dashboard, which provides insights on customer journeys, retention, product performance and more. The insights helped Soapbox launch new products and create variety packs on Amazon based on sales performance and customer feedback.
Tracking advertising impact is also critical for beauty brands, so Soapbox uses Amazon’s marketing optimization tools to track ad spend on clicks, target keywords, and analyze shopper behavior, providing visibility into ad impact and insights on future ad spend.
“There’s so many different ways that we utilize Amazon’s tools internally to make sure that we’re not spending in areas that are not productive and reinvesting in the areas that are most productive,” explains Doll.
Building credibility with shoppers, particularly when it comes to beauty products, is also critical. Soapbox uses Amazon’s Vine program, which provides product reviews from a community of trusted Amazon shoppers. “Every time we do an Amazon Vine program, we’re at 4.8 stars,” Simnick says. “It takes about 22 to 30 reviews to establish a base level of trust, and the Vine program has been fantastic for achieving that quickly.”
Soapbox sells its products in most major retailers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the U.K. The business maintains 95% of its supply chain in the U.S.—a decision informed by market trends and consumer preferences. “It’s more expensive, but our data shows that consumers value this,” Simnick emphasizes.
As Soapbox nears its 50 millionth bar of soap donated, the business is optimistic about continuing to grow sales and donations and launching new products.
“We’re so excited about the future of Soapbox—not only to grow our brand presence on Amazon, sell more products and donate more to people in need around the world, but also as a platform to launch new products,” says Doll. “We’re always looking for what the consumer is needing next so we’ve got a ton of new products coming out.”