Baresop set to expand with Go Vita partnership across 200 stores in Australia

Health and wellness brand Baresop has announced its expanded retail partnership with health and wellness food store chain Go Vita, with the brand’s premium health and wellness products now available in more than 200 Go Vita stores across Australia.

The waterless personal care brand, which was launched in 2018 by founder and CEO Prisca Ongonga-Daehn, is aiming to make its products even more accessible to consumers seeking holistic health solutions that are better for their health and the planet. 

Its products are made in Australia from natural ingredients including Australian native plants and bush foods.

Ongonga-Daehn said Baresop was thrilled to partner with Go Vita.

“We get to meet our consumers and key demographic where they are already shopping and make it easy for more Aussie homes to swap to a more sustainable personal care product solution,” she said.

Expanding offline

She was also excited by the prospect of scaling “our reach offline in the health and wellness space (we’ve been predominantly online), and do it with the best in the market and sprint to our mission of 1bn single-use plastic bottles eliminated from landfill by 2035.”

“It also allows us to be at the front facing with our customers and work closely with our retail partners to further leverage our purpose and bring more people along our journey to create change with every wash.”

The partnership will not only allow a much wider community to access Baresop’s products where they are already shopping but also work closely with one of the most popular offline health and wellness retail communities to collect the data they need on how best they can tailor new product solutions. 

“They’re talking to their customers every day and have built a long trusting relationship. We’re thrilled to have an opportunity to be involved in these conversations,” Ongonga-Daehn said.

“Secondly, the commercials from this partnership will triple our ARR revenue which is humbling in this turbulent market.”

Ongonga-Daehn said that based on how Baresop engages with its community and makes it easy for them to create change with every wash, it has seen 70% of its growth being organic and 30% based on active sales. 

The fastest-growing channel is Baresop’s subscription channel which has grown to 40% MOM. Baresop has been growing at over 35% MOM.

Ongonga-Daehn also touched on Baresop’s online partnership with BWX brands – Flora and Fauna and Nourished Life. 

“Nourished Life and Flora and Fauna were one of the very first health and wellness channels to come along our journey early in 2021. This made sense as they have a very loyal community that is seeking plant-based, vegan and natural ingredients products. We’ve been reaching out to the teams there and offering support where we can. l hope that things get sorted out quickly so they are back up and running soon,” she said.

Going global

Ongonga-Daehn said Baresop’s growth and strategy have always been how it removes friction at every touch point so its customers can have a meaningful experience and as a result increase retention. 

“Our insights have been that people are not going to swap to sustainability solutions for the sake of sustainability. The solution has to add value beyond that,” she said.

“How do we keep empathising with our customer’s lifestyles and experiences? Understanding and collecting data on our customer experience is a key focus that impacts our horizontal growth which in turn affects our vertical growth.

“This then ripples through our multiple channel acquisitions and retention. Our challenge is serving our customers in a way that increases the opportunity for them to come back and subscribe to our refill sachets. It’s been and will always continue to be about us making it even easier with every touch point for them to create change with every wash.

“The other piece is how do we work with other Australian brands that align with our values and collaborate to grow a strong community.”

Ongonga-Daehn said there was a bright future for Baresop.

“With a vision as bold as ours, we can only get there if we keep being obsessed with the problem, not the solution. We’re open to innovating the easiest zero-waste solution for the bathroom space which is part of Baresop’s three key pillars of create, impact and change,” she said.

“We’re getting demands for our products in international markets and are about to finalise a distributor that covers most of the Asia market including Singapore, Japan and Taiwan,” the founder revealed.