Brandless

Brandless is an American e-commerce company that manufactures and sells consumer packaged goods under its own label, spanning food, beauty, personal care and housewares. Founded by Ido Leffler and Tina Sharkey, the company launched its website in July 2017 from San Francisco with roughly 200 household and food items, all priced at $3, plus a second distribution facility and, per Wikipedia, an operation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Packaging was deliberately minimal: a white label carrying the product name and two to five descriptors such as organic, kosher or gluten-free. Foods were marketed as GMO-free, health and beauty items as cruelty-free, and paper products as sourced under sustainable forestry practices.

The original company scaled with substantial venture backing, changed its uniform $3 pricing in January 2019 in favor of higher-priced products, and added an optional subscription service in 2019. It opened pop-up stores in Los Angeles (May 2018) and New York (October 2018). In February 2020 Brandless announced it would cease operations, citing intense competition and the unviability of its direct-to-consumer business model, laying off 70 staff, about 90% of the workforce at the time.

In June 2020 the assets were acquired by Onward Partners, LLC, a vehicle formed by Clarke Capital Partners and Ikonifi, and the brand relaunched in the summer of 2020 under Utah-based ownership. Under new management the company repositioned as a mission-driven, omnichannel e-commerce platform that acquires other digitally native brands and offers "influence-as-a-service" linking micro-influencers to its product portfolio. Wikipedia lists Tiffany Vail as CEO, Jeff Lind as COO and Matt Durham as President, and gives headquarters as Draper, Utah, with 100 employees as of 2021.

Founding story

Tina Sharkey and Ido Leffler met while living in Mill Valley, California. Sharkey had founded iVillage (acquired by NBC in 2006) and previously served as CEO of BabyCenter, bringing an online-community background; Leffler had founded consumer products companies including Yes To, Inc. and Yoobi. In mid-2016 Sharkey left her role as CEO of Sherpa Foundry to become CEO of Brandless, with Leffler as chairman. The pair built the company around the premise that "better shouldn't cost more," arguing that consumers pay a "brand tax" covering warehousing, distribution and retail space that a direct-to-consumer model could eliminate.

Business model

Brandless originally operated a direct-to-consumer model, selling only own-label products through brandless.com and shipping from its own distribution centers, with a flat $9 shipping fee (free above $72 in one account) and delivery in about two days. Initially every item was priced at $3; that pricing policy ended in January 2019 in favor of higher-priced items, and an optional subscription service was added in 2019. Under Clarke Capital ownership the model shifted to a mission-driven, omnichannel commerce platform that acquires other digitally native "better-for-you" brands to add to its portfolio and works with marketplace partners, while monetizing a community of micro-influencers through an "influence-as-a-service" offering.

Revenue derives from online sales of own-label consumer packaged goods, initially at a uniform $3 price point plus flat-rate shipping, later at varied price points with an optional subscription option; post-2020 the company also sells through marketplace partners in an omnichannel model.

Traction

At its July 2017 launch the site carried about 200 products. By the 2020 relaunch the assortment exceeded 300 products across organic, non-GMO and natural beauty, nutritional, personal care and household categories. In 2021 management cited millions of customers, hundreds of products and categories, thousands of new product requests and dozens of marketplace partners. Checkout displayed an "estimated brand tax savings" of about 40%. The company reported donating 250,000 meals to Feeding America.

Latest developments

In August 2021 Brandless announced $118 million in equity and debt financing led by Clarke Capital Partners with other strategic corporate and institutional investors, and a senior debt facility from Keystone National Group. The company described it as one of the largest rounds raised by a female CEO to date. Proceeds were earmarked for acquiring additional mission-driven, digitally native brands and for building out its influencer monetization platform.