TheCapTable
Subscribe

Stories

About Us

Home

Stories

Explore

Sign In

Stories

About Us

E-commerce

Wow Skin Science resorts to cost-cutting, layoffs as sales fall

thumbnail
July 31, 2023  |  9 Min Read
Wow Skin Science has fired around 50 employees across various functions in recent months after seeing sales decline. Once the poster child of India’s D2C beauty and personal care (BPC) boom, its plight indicates that the glory days of the online BPC space are over.

Key Takeaways

  • Wow Skin Science has let go of about 50 employees across various roles, including marketing, supply chain, and customer care
  • The layoffs are a result of Wow’s investors asking the company's senior leadership to cut costs
  • Following an exponential rise in revenue during the pandemic, the company is seeing falling sales despite frequent discounting
  • Wow’s predicament highlights the growing challenges that D2C beauty and personal care brands now face

March 2023 marked a seismic change for Wow Skin Science. According to multiple executives at the beauty and personal care (BPC) brand, their targets changed on a dime. “We started March aiming for 50% revenue growth. Just two weeks later, the strategy changed to maintaining revenue but improving profitability by 50%,” said a former employee who recently left the company.

The layoffs began shortly after. According to half a dozen industry executives, including multiple former Wow employees who left the company recently, the company laid off over 50 people across its marketing, supply chain, and customer care functions in the following months. “Restructuring began in April and went on well into May. It started with performance reviews,” said another former executive. 

Manish Chowdhary, the company’s cofounder, told The CapTable that nothing is amiss at the company. “It has been a business-as-usual year for us. Attrition is part and parcel of that. We are actively hiring for critical roles to support our business goals,” he said over WhatsApp. 

Former Wow employees say otherwise.

This is a premium article and available only to subscribers.

Already a subscriber? Sign In

What's your right fit?

Be the smartest person in the room. Choose the plan that works for you and join our exclusive subscriber community.

premium_articles

Premium Articles

4 articles every week

archives

Archives

>3 years of archives

archives

Org. Chart

1 every week

newsletter

Newsletter

4 every week

gifting_credits

Gifting Credits

5 premium articles every month

session

Session

3 screens concurrently

1,999 / Year

3,999

Subscribe Now

Have a coupon code?

Join our community of 100,000+ top executives, VCs, entrepreneurs, and brightest student minds

company1
company2
company3
company4
company5
company6
company7
company8
company9
SPJIMR Logo
company1
company2
company3
company4
company5
company6
company7
company8
company9
SPJIMR Logo
Trusted by the best
Headshot of Karthik Reddy from Blume Ventures
Karthik Reddy

Blume Ventures

quote

The CapTable brings a refreshing set of insights for us at the Blume team, highlighting stories that bring together the underlying business and founders with that of investors' journeys with these startups. It's an important perspective that very few bring to startup ecosystem enthusiasts.

subscribe_graffiti

Convinced that The Captable stories
and insights will give you the edge?

Subscribe Now

If you want to see more, Sign Up for access to our Crux newsletter and several free articles

Sign Up Now