In the years that ensued, outdoor enthusiasts became interested in the straw and its possibilities for hiking and camping trips, and customers and retailers started asking where they could buy the LifeStraw. By 2012, LifeStraw entered the consumer space, and business took off.
As a result of the product’s success, LifeStraw inverted their business model in order to allow their consumer division to help fund their impact work. “We started to reorient the company towards a retail model that could then help fund the humanitarian work, as opposed to a humanitarian model that then had a little side hustle as a retail business,” LifeStraw’s chief brand officer Tara Lundy says.
Today, ecommerce is the fastest growing side of the business—and the company is still evolving its product line with the debut of the ultra-slim travel Sip straw. Ahead, learn how LifeStraw continues its humanitarian efforts by expanding its ecommerce business.
Tailoring products to home and travel consumers
LifeStraw originally started making consumer products for adventurers and nature lovers who could use water filters if they were drinking from a stream or lake nearby. Developing products for those customers required engineering sophisticated filtration systems that could hold up outside, but weren’t too heavy or took up too much space. “Especially in the outdoor space, you're always trying to create something that's smaller and lighter and more packable,” Tara says.
Now, the company also makes products for home users who want to filter their tap water and travelers who want to be careful about the water they are drinking abroad.
Tara says LifeStraw wouldn’t have been able to enter these new categories without the data from their ecommerce sales channels. “I think it's just been really amazing to see who our customers are and how we've also been able to evolve them over time because we have transitioned to offering more lifestyle products,” she says.
Managing ecommerce channels
In LifeStraw’s initial foray into consumer products, the company worked with a distributor that managed shipping, logistics and retail relationships. But as that side of the business grew, LifeStraw began to manage some of distributor responsibilities themselves and launched its own Shopify website.
“Shopify has become our second biggest sales channel, which is unusual for a hard goods company like ours,” Tara says. She believes the dedicated customer base comes from the company’s history and commitment to impact, not just through its humanitarian work, but also through its B-Corp certification.
Optimizing checkout for donations
By managing their own ecommerce sales channel, LifeStraw gained the ability to customize its website and speak directly to customers. LifeStraw’s top performing product is a checkout cart add-on called “Give Safe Water,” which allows customers to add a monetary donation to safe water projects with their purchase. Plus, a Give Safe Water donation counts toward the minimum spend for free shipping.
LifeStraw received more than 50,000 contributions last year through this checkout add-on. “People see the work that we do, they see that we're an authentic brand, and they're willing to kind of contribute just a little bit of extra funding for us to do that impact work,” Tara says. The Give Safe Water donations have helped LifeStraw fund both its long-term projects in countries where safe drinking water is hard to come by and its short-term projects to help regions where natural disasters or war limit the water supply.
Building authenticity through transparency
Tara says this generation of consumers is savvy. They are quick to call out brands that are jumping on social trends or posting performatively. LifeStraw avoids this by staying focused on its mission to provide clean water, and transparently communicating about its work to customers.
For example, they segment the customers that make a Give Safe Water contributions and send them emails that provide updates on what the money was used for in recent months.
Whether or not your company started with a humanitarian purpose, Tara says there is always an opportunity to find a mission that matches the company’s values. The key is leaning into the company’s unique value proposition, and incorporating that into social impact efforts.
To learn more about LifeStraw and how it developed consumer products from its humanitarian work, listen to the full interview on Shopify Masters.
