São Paulo – Amazon Flowers, a hair care product line from Praia Grande, São Paulo-based company Brazil Cosmetics, started shipping to Yemen last February. Also since February, the company has had a dedicated local representative who joined a B2B event in Sanaa early this month, in a bid to increase sales in the Arab country.
Brazil Cosmetics CEO Paulo Amorim told ANBA over the phone that during the event, the distributor did more than just introduce the products: “Yemen is a hard country to build a business relationship in, but we were able to find a representative and we have a plan in place to step up sales. At the event, not only did we provide step-by-step instructions on how to use our products, we also taught a bit of entrepreneurship to local vendors, to help with the growth of beauty industry professionals in a conflict-ridden country. Brazilians are more advanced when it comes to entrepreneurship,” he said, adding that doing business is possible even in more closed-off countries or in atypical situations.
According to Amorim, the event (pictured above) led to good contacts, and it will possibly yield new partnershrips with beauty parlors and cosmetics stores in Yemen. “The business event was an in-person event. It was attended by companies shopping for product, women who own beauty parlors, cosmetics shops and markets. We introduced our line in a bid to make our product available in more and more places and to sell more product.”
Brazil Cosmetics’ Amazon Flowers brand is a full hair care cosmetics line including shampoo, conditioner, straightener and bleach, among other items. “Arab women are mostly interested in our straightener. They realy like it.”
Some 70% of Brazil Cosmetics’ exports go to Arab countries, the CEO said. “We are virtually in all of the Arab countries – primarily in Egypt and Morocco, but also in Yemen, Iraq, Mauritania, Algeria, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Libya, Palestine, etc.” He also said he’s working on making his product available in Syria, which is still at war.
He had plans to open an office in Dubai last June that had to be put on hold because of the pandemic.
Brazil Cosmetics also manufactures private label products for third-party companies looking to sell under their own brands.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
