CosmoBiz Magazine April 2016 | Page 32

People DAVID YOON (BEN’S BEAUTY CEO) BEN’S BEAUTY: An Upstanding Tradition in Service CEO of Ben’s Beauty Supply Inc., David Yoon chats with editor Hannah Ku The History of Ben’s Founded in Houston, Texas, in 1989 Ben’s Beauty has been one of the biggest names in beauty supply distribution since it started. The company pioneered the concept of a beauty supply in the Houston area after setting up its own small franchise of stores to show that selling everything else along with the wigs was a stellar business model. We caught up with CEO, David Yoon, to hear all about the amazing company and what they have in store for the next year. no IBC stores. A lot of Koreans were in the fashion industry or were running wig shops. Wig shops at the As a distributing company, Ben’s Beauty carries up time were about 300 to a maximum of 600 sq ft and to approximately 15,000 types of products and sundry they just specialized in customizing and then selling items that are then sold to beauty supply stores. These wigs at a higher price. We came in and recommended products are commonly referred to as “Over the Countcarrying beauty supplies, because it er,” or OTC, items thanks to their just makes sense for the wig shops history of being sold in pharmacies. “The service side is the and fashion stores to carry other Since that pattern has changed, Daitems. We had a lot of resistance key fact in how we mainvid Yoon offered up a new term, Independent Beauty Channel, or tain our relationship with because they thought the margin IBC. Yoon explained, “That’s the our customers; again we was too small.” In a conversation with a store owner when they were terminology other manufacturing try to work with them and starting out, 20 years ago, one lady companies use, and that’s what we use.” The company caters to this understand and meet told Yoon that she could buy a wig IBC categoryt, which is made up of their customer’s needs for $20 and sell it for $20. “‘So why would I want to buy beauty supplies anywhere from 6,000-8,000 stores, instead of dictating that for a dollar and sell them for a dollar approximately 75% of which are fifty?’ We had a lot of resistance at things have to be done believed to be owned by Korean the beginning! We decided the best Americans. our way.” thing to do was to open our own Ben’s Beauty started in wholesale stores to show the community that with a 2,000 sq ft shop that sold both this makes a perfect business model. We opened a semi retail and wholesale products. “At the time there were 32 COSMOBIZ SALON APRIL 2016