Founder of the Edinburgh Natural Skincare Company Tommy Crooks and Wei Fu, director of Commerical Cross, tell Tom Pattinson how a chance encounter at an Edinburgh Christmas market led to success in China
With only enough money to heat one room of his house in East Lothian, a shivering Tommy Crooks gathered up his hand-made soaps from his kitchen table and headed towards the Edinburgh Christmas market. That cold day in December 2010 would be the first step on a journey that today sees him run a seven-figure beauty brand called the Edinburgh Natural Skincare Company.
Today, much of that revenue is derived from China thanks to a chance encounter with a customer, who is now Crooks’ distributor and partner in the Mainland.
“I’d learned some Chinese from a cousin of mine, and when Wei and her husband walked up, I said ‘nihao’,” Crooks explains. That led to a friendship, which eventually became a very profitable partnership.
Before Crooks and Wei Fu went into business, Crooks was travelling the length and breadth of the country, selling his natural and organic skincare products at craft fairs and Christmas markets. The products – made with no additives, preservatives or even water – were a hit, and by 2014, he had his own small factory unit. “It was an old wreck of a place with a table in the middle, but we slowly built it up, and we got to the position of having a good distribution network,” says Crooks.
A happy customer who had picked up some products from Crooks at a market during the Edinburgh Festival in 2019 returned to their home in Japan and reached out to offer to distribute Edinburgh Natural Skincare products in Japan. Fast forward a few years, and today, they have nationwide distribution in Japan and can be found in the luxury department store Isetan. Crooks will be heading over to celebrate the launch of his product in the highly reputable store Hankyu Men’s Tokyo. “They’ve got a great business over there,” he says. “They run it as their entity as the Edinburgh Natural Skincare Company Japan, and we work hand in hand.”
Crooks has since opened two physical stores in Edinburgh and has three small factory units. Following conversations with Wei, they decided to launch into the China market in October 2022.
“I had a 100% trust in Wei as I have known her for years and she is very smart. Part of being an entrepreneur is the fun of taking the risk. Entrepreneurs are people who jump off cliffs and then work out how to make a parachute,” he laughs.
The risk paid off. A year after launching, China made up 25% of the company’s total sales. And before their second year is even complete, sales have risen 400% on year one.
A selection of The Edinburgh Natural Skincare Company products
Wei Fu’s company, Commercial Cross, helps promote British brands in China, with a focus on selling via e-commerce channels like Tmall Global. “We do a full services for the brands,” says Wei. “They don’t need to hire anyone, just hire a service company like us for the whole China market.”
Commercial Cross has a team that operates brands’ online stores, markets them on social media platforms like Xiaohongshu, facilitates shipping from the UK via a bonded warehouse, and even manages a customer service team in China.
Covering sectors including food and drink, fashion, mother and baby and beauty, Wei’s team will first work out the most suitable strategy for a brand’s route to market and then ensure that all the steps are put into place.
Crooks, explains Wei, had initially tried with a traditional distributor but had limited success. So Wei took hold of the reins and launched on Tmall Global.
“I always try to make it easy for the brands I work with,” says Wei. “We need paperwork done, applications submitted, registrations processed – we do all of this. We send the brand a list of requirements needed for registration and trademarks and so on, and fill it in for them. Then we ship the product, get the team ready, do the design work for the listings, create videos and images for the site…” she goes on. But it’s not just Tmall. Wei’s team informed Crooks of the pros and cons of various sites. For example, it might be cheaper to start with a Xiaohongshu account, although this will grow much slower. For an e-commerce shop like Tmall, a whole team would be needed, and stock would be required.
“It’s a bigger investment, and we communicate with our clients that the first one or two years, an investment will be needed, and profit might not come until year three,” she says. However, the Edinburgh Natural Skincare Company wanted to break even from the start and so a structure was established that allowed Commercial Cross to take a commission on China sales, reducing the upfront cost for the Edinburgh Natural Skincare Company.
The Edinburgh Natural SKincare Company founder Tommy Crooks
Wei explained that whilst livestreaming is valuable, it can be expensive, and the return on investment (ROI) is not always obvious. Therefore, for the Edinburgh Natural Skincare Company, they focused on in-marketing promotion on Tmall and pay-per-click ads, which allows visible ROI to be monitored and adjusted accordingly. New products, says Wei, will have a lower ROI than established products and can take around two months before the market place has an awareness of the product and the break-even point is hit.
This strategy helped the Edinburgh Natural Skincare Company sell more than Molton Brown and Emma Hardie last year thanks, in part, to a real focus on customer service.
“We always ensure we have a response time of under 20 seconds, so we make sure we have enough team members who can answer quickly,” she says. Wei explains that a response time of under 30 seconds provides the company with a top 5-star rating on Tmall. And with a 30-day average response time of 12.19 seconds, they look likely to keep that rating.
Wei explains that she didn’t know if the brand would be popular in China or not. Without added artificial perfume and scents from natural essential oils, the unique fragrance was new to Chinese audiences. And with no added water, the hand cream is more like a bar of soap than a cream, which many customers weren’t used to.
“We did get some feedback from people who didn’t understand the product,” says Wei. “But we promoted the products to doctors and nurses who have to wash their hands a lot and explained it is totally natural and has no artificial properties.”
Wei and her team at Commercial Cross take care of the Chinese market, allowing Crooks and his team to focus on evolving the products. Whilst marketeers often discuss the fluctuations of interest in established international brands verses growing domestic brands among Chinese consumers, Wei says that ultimately, consumers are looking for quality and value. “For most people, made in the UK means good quality,” she says.
“A lot of brands are scared by a new market but Tommy was so certain of the Chinese market from the beginning,” says Wei. “If Tommy didn’t have the courage to do it, then there would be no story.”
