Bangladeshi skincare brand now selling on Amazon US
Local organic skincare product brand Skin Café has ventured into the foreign territory after it got the nod to list its products on the Amazon US site, a development that can be viewed as a trailblazing moment for a Bangladeshi company.
"We are proud as this is the first Bangladeshi beauty brand to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This is an extraordinary achievement by our team," Nazmul Sheik, chief executive officer of Skin Café, told The Daily Star yesterday.
Through Amazon, eight Skin Café products will be available in the US and Canada: coconut oil, castor oil, acne care mask, brightening mask, rosewater face and body mist, detox healing clay mask, hair fall treatment and anti-dandruff treatment.
The company has 21 products in total and is now working on getting the FDA certification needed to get them listed on the global e-commerce giant's marketplace.
However, securing the FDA approval was no easy task for the local start-up, which was established in 2017 with a single factory in the capital's Vatara area.
Finding good chemists was the key challenge in making international standard cosmetics, Sheik said, adding that most raw materials and formulas needed for their products are imported.
"That is why we emphasised on making high-end cosmetics fit for the international market," he added.
The partnership with Amazon marks the start of an exciting new journey that will help promote what Skin Café has to offer consumers worldwide, said Mohammad Abdullah Al Zahid, chief operating officer of Skin Café.
Bangladesh's cosmetics market witnessed tremendous growth in the last few years. But the majority of the beauty products made in Bangladesh are in the fast-moving consumer goods category.
The beauty product industry has an estimated value of $3.4 billion and will have a growth rate higher than that of the country's GDP for the next decade, Zahid said, adding that the company intends to use its newfound global recognition to further boost local demand.
Area71, Bangladesh's lone authorised Service Provider Network for Amazon, managed and supported Skin Café's journey from Bangladesh to the US.
"We are going to create a sustainable ecosystem for cross-border e-commerce in Bangladesh and Skin Café has the vision to go beyond borders with their product line," said Md Ahsan Habib, CEO of Area71.
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