Beekman 1802 is a multifaceted lifestyle brand founded in 2009 by Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Dr. Brent Ridge. With roots in agriculture, the brand has expanded from goat-milk-based skincare into a variety of ventures, including cookbooks, a retail store destination, and even a TV show.
As an omnichannel brand, Beekman 1802’s products can be purchased online through their direct-to-consumer (DTC) website powered by Shopify, in-person at their retail store, and at a variety of nationwide partners including Ulta and Target as well as independent retailers and regional chains. Their products have also been featured on QVC and HSN both domestically and internationally.
With their worldwide audience growing, Beekman 1802 began exploring ways to scale their international sales, but regulatory hurdles kept getting in their way. The team integrated Managed Markets to overcome the challenges they faced streamlining international sales and quickly saw results.
In a timeframe of nearly six months since moving to Managed Markets, Beekman 1802 has seen:
- 137% international sales growth, outpacing domestic growth by eightfold
- 2.5X increase in share of international sales
- 40% higher average order value (AOV) for international orders compared to domestic orders
- 23% increase in overall international conversion rate
- 43% increase in conversion rate in the UK market
The Challenge: Eliminate obstacles to international sales
With headquarters in upstate New York, Beekman 1802 was accustomed to their Canadian neighbors requesting to buy their products. But fulfilling these requests often required the team to manually navigate complicated cross-border logistics processes. As the brand’s international profile grew, so did product demand from shoppers in many other countries.
As the team worked to keep up with demand, it quickly became clear that they needed a better way to handle international orders. It was far too costly and time-consuming to continue getting involved every time an order was stuck in customs, and it seemed unreasonable that customers couldn’t make a purchase from the brand’s website and have it shipped to a loved one in another country without worrying about excessive fees or unexpected delays. Simply put, Beekman 1802 needed a solution that would enable them to efficiently scale their international growth as soon as possible.
After considering a number of global ecommerce solutions, the team decided that Managed Markets was the best fit for their needs, and they prepared to implement the solution without delay.
The Solution: Managed Markets quickly opens the door to global customers
During the evaluation process, some potential global ecommerce partners offered Beekman 1802 the ability to store their products in warehouses overseas and handle logistics for them. But that wasn’t appealing to the team because they wanted to maintain their direct relationship with their customers.
The more they weighed all their options, the more it made sense to simply expand their existing partnership with Shopify by integrating Managed Markets, which provided all the features they needed while allowing them to remain as close to their customers as possible.
“It takes a lot of integration to run a DTC business, and I think everybody should be designing to integrate with Shopify,” says David Baker, Chief Digital Officer at Beekman 1802. “Having Managed Markets already built into Shopify allowed us to be much more powerful quickly. We trust that the integrations aren’t going to break, and we aren’t going to have to constantly update this or that.”
In addition to their confidence in Shopify as a commerce platform and partner, Beekman 1802 was also attracted to Managed Markets for its simplicity, ease of integration, and the ability to scale internationally quickly. Whereas other solutions would be ready to go-live in six months, it took only a matter of weeks to launch with Managed Markets.
With support from Shopify, the team prepared for the launch by adjusting warehouse operations to ensure international orders would be handled properly and making tweaks to their product catalog to restrict certain items from shipping overseas. But once everything was set, turning on international sales was almost immediate.
“I was actually shocked when it came to launch day because it was literally five minutes,” says David. “We turned on Managed Markets, and we started seeing those orders come through.”
The Results: Spreading clean skincare and kindness around the world
The adoption of Managed Markets marked a turning point for Beekman 1802 as it enabled the brand to finally satisfy the demand of their international audience, which continues growing every day.
The brand quickly saw a boost in overall sales and an expansion of their global reach, and in the months following the Managed Markets launch their international sales grew by 137%, outpacing domestic sales growth by eightfold and demonstrating the eagerness and excitement of their global audience to finally have the chance to buy from their store.
The team was also pleased to discover after launching Managed Markets that their international orders tended to be larger than domestic orders, with AOV being 40% higher on international orders. The brand’s international conversion rate also improved by 23%.
On top of these results, David emphasized the value of Managed Markets for eliminating the back office overhead of going international and connecting brands with very clear international shipping partners.
“We’re able to get orders out the door much faster and get products in the hands of customers seamlessly because of Managed Markets. Using any other solution to start selling in another country would be much costlier. From hiring talent to forging relationships with retailers in those countries—you’re looking at a six to 24 month process. With Managed Markets, we’re available in over 150 countries without any of those challenges.”
With the hurdles they once faced for serving international customers behind them, Beekman 1802 is ready to continue growing their global community of customers and spreading their mission of sharing kindness with the world.
Every single day we sell into at least two dozen countries that without Managed Markets we would not be able to sell into.