Secret Skin’s Anisha Oberoi On Shifting From B2C To B2B

When Anisha Oberoi launched Secret Skin in 2020 as “an impact-driven platform for sustainable beauty and skincare brands from around the world,” she ran the UAE-headquartered enterprise as a B2C online platform that connected mindful consumers in the GCC region (and beyond) with the choicest conscious beauty labels out there. But even as her business grew and prospered in the years since it was founded, Oberoi came to the realization that relying on digital sales wouldn’t be enough for the scale (and influence) she envisioned for the enterprise.

“Whilst we have seen digital penetration deepening in the Middle East in the last decade, especially in the post-COVID-19 era, traditional brick-and-mortar retail still reigns supreme,” Oberoi says. “This is true for most consumer categories. Building brands digitally requires significant investment in acquisition and marketing, and whilst that remains integral to understanding customer purchase behavior and patterns, the local customer needs the sensorial touch and feel to build confidence and loyalty towards conversion and adoption.”

A Secret Skin showcase at a Watsons outlet in the UAE. Courtesy of Secret Skin.

This, in effect, is what led Oberoi to embark on a B2B strategy for her enterprise in 2024 – an endeavor that contributed to Secret Skin making its first million dirhams as a business that year as well. “Our growth, since our launch in 2020, has been very much centered around the philosophy ‘build it, and they will come,’” Oberoi says. “We had replicated the classic Amazon model for B2C which worked well, but B2B was a new arena altogether. Indexing on the expanding demand of this category, we worked backwards from which brands had the potential for regional growth, which physical doors were a good match (across retail, spa, gyms, hotels, modern trade), and which retail partner would collaborate with us to grow the customer share of wallet for sustainable beauty and wellness in the region. The playbook from B2C to B2B shifted very rapidly in terms of process, complexity, and cash flow management. We had to hire talent adept at both verticals, with specialists in supply chain management and go-to-market. As the partner pipeline expanded (and each had its own internal process), we grew in experience, and we learnt how to scale faster with learnings.”

For startups, the path to scale is rarely linear. It’s a series of pivots, lessons, and bold bets – all shaped by market realities. And this is how Oberoi describes the shift her business took from a purely B2C approach to now include a B2B strategy as well. “Our shift to omnichannel distribution was intentional, because the demand for green/clean beauty was building, and the cadence of what vertical went live first was strategic to Secret Skin’s trajectory,” Oberoi explains. “We spent three years preparing for this inflection point, getting to know our audience, building community outreach, improving onsite customer experience, optimizing delivery key performance indicators, and, most importantly, carefully experimenting with brands – both local and international – on appeal and performance. The data-centricity of the company is our most valuable unique selling point (USP) as a proposition in a region where the beauty category is competitive, fragmented, and complex. Now that we work across key retail partners like Majid Al Futtaim, Watsons Al Futtaim, Nysaa, Faces, and Ounass in the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait, we can triangulate the data to shape our inventory forecasting, leading to better customer repeat rates as well as brand selection/assortment. Our B2C, by intention, grows organically, and it serves as a marketing tool for discovery, personalization, education, and advocacy, thus optimizing our social presence.”

RMS Beauty, one of the clean beauty
brands in Secret Skin’s portfolio. Courtesy of Secret Skin.

But it wasn’t just Secret Skin that was evolving as a business. “Personally, this has been a steep learning curve for me as a founder,” Oberoi admits. “My intellectual capacity (and my functional competence) was constantly challenged, and I had to upskill overnight to meet the demands of our growing business (financial, operational, etc.). However, I often see these scary junctures as ‘speeding fines.’ Handling unforeseen issues builds tolerance and stamina – it makes you faster and smarter, so that you can take on calculated risks as you level up.”

Indeed, the experience has also left Oberoi with insights that should be taken to heart by all business leaders out there. “The most important skill for a CEO is to have a high sense of customer obsession, and to build connections: whether with individual customers, or with retail partners,” she declares. “We must not forget that the former are ambassadors, and the latter are custodians.” And this is the ethos with which Oberoi plans to lead Secret Skin into the future as well. “Unlike a traditional retail distributor model, we are an agile, nimble, lean startup with a ‘day one’ mentality,” Oberoi says. “We take bold bets, and we use data to shape our decisions. We work hard to address the demands of our local customers, keeping our finger on the pulse of the next generation of consumers, and staying abreast of global beauty trends. We experiment constantly with a healthy approach to failure, and these learnings have been key to our growth.” Of course, it helps to have an overarching mission driving everything that Oberoi does at Secret Skin, which is, as its website clearly states, “to raise awareness about clean beauty, mindful consumption, and women’s health in the region.”

Secret Skin Ramadan campaign. Courtesy of Secret Skin.

“My vision was to build an ecosystem to raise awareness of women’s health and wellness, regardless of channel, tying it back to the Secret Skin ethos,” Oberoi declares. “Selling clean beauty products was just the vehicle; what we are trying to do is much bigger in its mission.”

Founder To Founder

Secret Skin founder Anisha Oberoi’s notes for her fellow entrepreneurs:

1. Start Small

“Build loyalty through community and authenticity, so that your audience starts to identify your brand with your company values.”

2. Choose Wisely

“Align commercial terms that are realistic with partners, without getting pressured into decisions your business can’t support.”

3. Find Financing Options

“Don’t depend solely on fundraising for working capital needs.”

4. Hire With Intention

“Assemble the best people with purpose, bind them together with culture, and commit to the mission as a collective.”

5. Be Ambitious

“Take calculated risks when scaling -- bravery often looks like fear!”

6. Lean In – Consistently

“Be open to learning from your teams what you don’t know.”

7. Prioritize Your Mental Health

“You need to do this so that you can also be the CEO of your own life.”

This article first appeared in the January/February issue of Inc. Arabia magazine. To read the full issue online, click here.