Small-business owner Risa Barash noticed something was wrong. Unauthorized sellers were listing her company’s children’s products in the Amazon store at prices below what retailers were charging. The third-party listings included expired products, old packaging, and unverified claims about items designed for children’s sensitive skin and hair. Over time, the brand started to see the negative impacts from unauthorized third-party sales, including increasing customer complaints, slower brand growth, and a compromised omnichannel pricing structure.
“It was really detrimental because we are omnichannel,” said Barash, co-founder and CEO of Fairy Tales Hair Care and TBH Kids. “The retailers would comment on much lower pricing in the Amazon store, which threatened a shift to customer purchase behaviors risking lost sales.”
When Amazon launched its Transparency program in 2017, Barash jumped on it. The product serialization service ties each product unit to the verified brand owner, allowing Fairy Tales to link its ASINs directly to the business. This ensured that no unauthorized sellers could list the products. The impact was significant.
“Right away, the Transparency program provides ASIN ownership back to the rightful brand, but it also allowed us to really control the message to our customers, which is really important, especially when you’re selling products for kids,” Barash said. Today, 95% of the Fairy Tales catalog is enrolled in the program, and the company has been able to take full ownership of the ASINs, resulting in direct brand growth, Barash added.
Fairy Tales Hair Care, which started selling in the Amazon store in 2012 to reach moms looking for lice prevention solutions, now projects over $20 million in Amazon sales this year. The company ships over 3.5 million bottles annually from their 25,000-square-foot facility in Fairfield, New Jersey. About 1.6 million of those bottles are sold in Amazon’s store, representing about 50 percent of the company’s overall business. Barash employs 26 people, plus temporary workers during peak seasons, and the business is seeing double-digit percentage growth year over year on Amazon.
The journey started roughly 26 years ago when Barash was performing standup comedy on New York City stages. Her then-husband discovered a rosemary product at his cousin’s salon on Long Island that helped prevent head lice, and moms were rushing in to buy it. He suggested she turn it into a brand.
Barash expanded the single lice prevention shampoo into a full product line by researching ingredients at the New York Public Library before Google. She redesigned the packaging and sold it door-to-door to New York City salons. She would write orders in a notebook and sometimes let salons have the product on consignment.
“How hard can it be to grow a brand? Really. And that was probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever said,” Barash said, laughing. “And 26 years later, we have a really nice size company.”
Fairy Tales faced another challenging moment when COVID-19 upended the business. With children out of school, demand for Fairy Tales’ flagship Rosemary Repel lice-prevention line declined. The company shifted focus to its other collections, including Sun & Swim, a shampoo and conditioner that removes chlorine and sea salts. Demand surged as families built backyard pools during lockdowns. Amazon’s logistics infrastructure allowed the business to continue to ship all products to their customers during unknown times.
“We were able to pivot and really focus on our other products,” Barash said. “Amazon was so instrumental in keeping our business afloat.”
Fairy Tales ships their products from their 25,000-square-foot facility in Fairfield, New Jersey.
Fairy Tales uses several Amazon seller tools for its continued growth. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) handles 95% of the company’s orders, enabling Prime same-day and next-day delivery, which is critical when a parent is dealing with a lice outbreak at school.
“Same-day delivery is probably the greatest thing that ever happened to a parent,” Barash said.
The company also uses Subscribe and Save, which accounts for 8 percent of Amazon sales and provides steady recurring revenue by letting parents set up automatic deliveries for product discounts. The convenience factor is key: 65% of the company’s Amazon customers are new buyers, while 35% are returning customers.
Another big focus for the business is giving back. Fairy Tales partners with Feed the Children, a non-profit dedicated to ending global childhood hunger. Fairy Tales runs a buy-one-give-one promotion on its website, donating a bottle to Feed the Children for every bottle purchased.
“Giving back is a huge part of what we do,” Barash explained. “We like to get our customers involved too.”
A fourth-generation entrepreneur whose own children, daughter Ava, 21, and son Jack, 24, grew up attending trade shows and distributing Fairy Tales’ samples at school; Barash sees the road ahead as wide open. The company recently launched a new “Hairy Godmother” branding campaign and is in what she calls accelerated growth mode.
“There’s an inflection point, and I believe we’ve passed it,” Barash said. “So now we’re just going to grow and we’re going to have a lot of fun. I just want to see how far I can take it now.”