Betterware de Mexico is leveraging big data and its streamlined distribution center to become one of the most recognizable brands in Mexico and beyond.
Founded / 1928
Headquarters / El Arenal, Jalisco, Mexico
Top Executive / Luis Campos, Executive Chairman & Andres Campos, Chief Executive Officer
Products / Home Goods
NASDAQ: BWMX
In the suburbs of Guadalajara, a direct selling giant is taking shape.
Betterware was first launched in England in 1928. In 2001, Luis Campos purchased the Mexico and Latin America division from Betterware UK. He then transformed the business model and strategy and updated its name.
Betterware de Mexico, a household product innovation company, now operates from a sustainably built distribution center in Zapopan, Mexico, that was designed to ship more than 180,000 orders and pack more than 1.5 million products per day.
These state-of-art headquarters are part of Luis Campos’ grand vision to balance productivity, environmentally friendly design and systems that nurture the wellbeing of employees while growing on the national and international stage. On-site staff have access to a wide variety of amenities, like a gym, hair salon, laundry facilities, medical services, cafeteria and daycare. Outside are a soccer field and basketball and volleyball courts surrounded by a community nursery where the company invested in planting 55,000 plants and 4,000 trees.
“The vision for Betterware de Mexico was always to become a relevant company nationally and also internationally.
—Luis Campos / Executive Chairman
This sprawling campus is part of Luis’ plan to build a powerhouse brand in the Mexican market. In the second quarter of 2021, the impact of his vision was put into numbers when the company’s EBITDA reached $36.3 million, a 92 percent increase over the same period in 2020.
Triple-Digit Growth
Day-to-day operations for the company now fall to Andres Campos, Luis’ son, who was named Chief Executive Officer two years ago, while Luis continues to focus on business strategies and relevant corporate events that lead the company toward his founding priorities.
“The vision for Betterware de Mexico was always to become a relevant company nationally and also internationally,” Luis said.
This relevance in Mexico happened organically, but attaining significance on the international stage has proved to be a challenge. So, in 2020, the company took a major step toward its goal by becoming publicly listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
“We were already a very institutional company with first-class auditors and a very strong board of directors,” Luis said. “Nasdaq has given us and will continue to give us visibility and credibility not only in Mexico but in the U.S. and worldwide.”
The changes Luis instituted more than two decades ago have led the company to embrace its evolution and adapt to a changing market landscape. Now, with Andres´s influence, the company is once again entering a new phase of transformation.
“We are a hybrid between digital and personal contact,” Luis said. “This helped a lot during COVID because our sales force, our distributors and associates were able to work from home with digital tools that we have already been offering them for the past five to six years. That’s one of the reasons we grew so much last year.”
And grow, they did. In the third and fourth quarter of 2020, Betterware de Mexico saw triple-digit growth over the previous year. In the first quarter of 2021, net sales increased 205 percent year-over-year.
“This shows another competitive advantage we have, which is flexibility and elasticity,” Campos said. “We react quickly to extraordinary events that we have to face.”
Data-Driven Decisions
To accommodate this rapid growth and prepare for the next wave of success, the company is focusing on three pillars: business intelligence, technology and product innovation.
By observing and collecting data points within its operations, customer base and marketing selections, the company’s on-staff anthropologists, actuaries, geographers and other experts can obtain and analyze millions of pieces of data to determine the target demographic’s likes and dislikes, and identify the next direction the company should take. Studying the business from these often-overlooked angles helps the leadership make data-backed decisions as they introduce new products, services and marketing campaigns.
“We have a very strong business intelligence area in the company, manipulating millions of data points, and we base our decisions on big data and not only good wishes or intuition,” Luis said. “In terms of sales, we track the performance of distributors every day and every week, and have information regarding the share of wallet, and the way we could increase the share of wallet in the marketplace.”
Within the first six months of 2021, the company’s associates (which the company describes as “consistent consumers” who frequently turn to selling more than they consume) numbered 1.2 million and distributors totaled 64,000. Now, reaching 100 percent purchase satisfaction is the company’s latest self-imposed challenge.
“Consumers want to have a good experience buying,” he said. “Whether online, retail or direct-to-consumer, consumers want to have a very good experience, where a product is easy to buy and reliable.”
A Clear Roadmap to Success
This year, the company doubled down on strengthening its presence in the Mexico market and increased its efforts to become a household name brand through strong advertising campaigns on social media platforms, television and print advertising mediums.
Luis also continues to remain devoted to his founding vision of turning Betterware de Mexico into an internationally recognized brand, launching a pilot program in Guatemala, which, in the first 18 months of operations, has already created double-digit growth and became profitable. This organic growth, Luis said, will always be the company’s priority.
“It’s self-sufficient in terms of cash, and we plan to extend our Guatemala operations over the next two years into Costa Rica and Panama,” he said. “And over the next two to three years, on to Colombia and Peru. The size of these two markets together, Colombia and Peru, is 60 percent of the Mexican market.”
The Company’s strong infrastructure and cash flow also affords it the opportunity to pursue strategic acquisitions. This will also be an important, albeit smaller portion of the company’s future expansion.
“If we find a direct-to-consumer company where we can replicate our business model and accelerate the growth of the company, we would probably evaluate the possibility,” he said. “We have a clear roadmap to keep growing in the future, and we still have plenty of opportunity in terms of market penetration.”
The company is already a powerhouse in the Mexico market, launching more than 300 new products each year. Still, Luis said the leadership will continue to invest in technology that improves the sales experience for distributors and associates and drive growth that increases satisfaction for all parties involved.
“I have always believed in teamwork, and something I told our people 20 years ago was that our mission should be, and still is, to create more and more opportunities for those who and have the courage to seize the opportunity,” he said. “Betterware de Mexico is a dynamic organization with a strong team that is results driven. This has led to our consistent strong growth.” DSN
