Thankyou founder opens up about the highs and lows of brand transformations

Over the past year, Thankyou has undergone a sizable transformation. After restructuring its entire business model, the purpose-driven personal care brand launched a number of new initiatives, including a home cleaning range, a pop-up store at Melbourne Emporium, and a series of t-shirts for its most devoted customers. This week, Thankyou relaunched its direct-to-consumer e-commerce store, where customers can now shop its entire range of products in one place. Thankyou’s co-founder Daniel Flynn told Inside FMCG that FY23 had been a transformative year, and that the brand had experienced the highs and lows of trying so many new things at once. “It’s been a long project, and it’s all culminated in the last few months in the market,” Flynn explained. “There’s a new sense of hope and momentum that’s been injected into the brand, and we’ve been really happy with the consumer uptake.”To Flynn, FY23 was a year of testing and learning new things, while strengthening the underlying Thankyou business. This year, he said, will be a matter of refinement and consolidation. Highs and lowsWhile Thankyou managed to deliver many of the concepts it wanted to bring to life in FY23, Flynn noted that not everything went to plan. For one: due to manufacturing mishaps, a few products released during the year didn’t meet Thankyou’s standards. These issues are being resolved, but Flynn expressed his disappointment. Additionally, while the business saw strong branding appeal from its physical pop-up, Flynn noted it was unlikely to do another one for some time – if at all.In saying that, much of what the business tried has been successful. After relaunching its e-commerce store, Thankyou enjoyed its biggest online day of sales ever – beating out the previous ‘best week’ sales figure in a single 24-hour period. “We’re getting these little wins where we’re seeing the growth and the upward trajectory [across the business], which is really exciting,” Flynn said. No exit planSustainably and ethically made products already tend to be priced higher than those that are not, and Flynn noted that Thankyou’s prices rose throughout the year due to the changes it made to its product range, as well as the supply chain and manufacturing issues that have hit the sector in recent years.Looking toward the rest of 2023, as well as 2024, Flynn said he is filled with optimism for the brand, as well as a healthy dose of reality that, right now, customers are keeping their wallets close to their chest.“We know it’s a tough market, and so we’re managing our expectations,” Flynn said about the upcoming holiday period. “From our lens, we’re trying to create products that are not just another stock, white-label product. It’s a reimagined product that is good for the planet, consumers, and is natural.“That’s really hard to do and hit a dirt cheap price point.”However, according to Flynn, the business is exists to make a difference in the world, and will do that for as long as it needs to.“There’s no exit plan. We don’t have equity in Thankyou, we get paid salaries, and we’re here for the long game. I believe we’ve made the right range for the future of consumerism, and we’ve got more work to do, and we’re doing it.”Part of that, Flynn teased, will involve entering new categories and countries in the coming years. And, part will involve consolidating and evolving the business into the future. Thankyou will return to a more ‘rhythmic’ product release schedule moving forward, and will refine the parts of the business that have been shown to work in the past year.Flynn’s hope is that, by doing this, Thankyou will be able to succeed for years to come.