276°
Posted 20 hours ago

Simco Hair Fixer 500g

£9.9£99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

We are a new set up with a small customer base. Even today, hair fixer means Simco,” admits Avtar Singh Soni, who sold juicer-mixer-grinders at Old Delhi’s Bhagirath Place before he started manufacturing Prince hair fixer last year. In an era when there was no internet or TV and radio communication was still new, marketing Simco outside gurdwaras proved to be an efficient strategy. Gurdwaras often have small food stalls and utility shops that Sikh families visit after offering prayers. The Baggas would set up stalls to display Simco too. They would demonstrate its use and ask Sikh men to try it. The answers range from ‘traditional thread and net’ to foreign brands of strong hairstyling gels. But most end with the usual concession — no alternative works as well as Simco.

In Punjab, particularly in villages, Sikh men are shaving their beards. The trend is not so strong in Delhi,” says Maninder Pal Singh. Today, the firm boasts of a “customer base of 1 million” spread across India and 12 countries including the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. From its small production centre in Chandni Chowk, Simco shifted to a larger unit in the Naraina industrial belt and then to Baddi in Himachal and Bhiwadi in Rajasthan. “We are recession-proof because we are a part of our client’s everyday routine. A man does not stop brushing his teeth even if there is a recession. It’s the same with Simco. You have to use it every day after a bath to look neat and well-groomed,” says Kuldip. What helped in the times of double-digit inflation is Simco’s ability to sell cheap. “The cost of production was going up in Delhi. So we moved to Himachal Pradesh to avail tax benefits and set up two units in Baddi,” says Kanwardeep, Kuldeep Singh’s 35-year-old son and a Delhi University graduate. He, however, refuses to divulge the company’s annual turnover. “You can call ours a small and medium enterprise. Till date, no big company has ventured into this market. Par iss trade mein humain ek badi brand ki izzat miltee hai (But we get the respect of a big brand),” he says.

Create free account and unlock exciting features like

Simco simplified grooming for Sikh men. Moreover, the modest pricing made it a universal product. “My elder brother, Gajendra Singh Bagga, was the first one to launch Simco advertisements in Punjabi newspapers and magazines. We always had a very clear idea of our clientage, so we ran a very focussed campaign – targeted at Sikh men,” says Kuldip. Remaining low-key even though the brand kept getting bigger might be one of the reasons why Simco never faced much competition from other similar products made by other companies. Simco is an essential product. People don’t stop brushing their teeth because the economy is facing a downturn. Similarly, they don’t stop grooming their beards,” he says. In the 1950s, Simco was a new and innovative grooming product for Sikh men. Earlier, they would either keep their beards au naturel or wear a thantha (cloth) to keep it closely tied to their faces. To make his product reach a larger market, Pratap Bagga would set up simple stalls at community festivals and fairs to demonstrate the use of Simco to people. With time, Bagga moved to Shimla and set up his own business in 1948. Four years later, he chose to give up a comfortable life and moved to Delhi. “He felt the market here was penetrable,” son Kuldeep Singh Bagga, 62, recounts. We started with wall paintings and ads in Punjabi dailies. Today, we place ads in all national dailies and Punjabi channels,” says Kuldeep Singh, who took over the business after elder brother Gajendra Singh’s demise.

Community portals are littered with queries, such as, “What is a good way of setting a beard for a long time without using Simco?” When “vanishing cream” manufacturer Bagga Senior decided to sell beard fixers, he was not trying to create a market. Established brands like Marcos, Hillman and Welldone were already present. But once the Baggas stepped in, all of them had to shut shop,” recalls Maninder Pal Singh, an old business associate of Simco, crediting the Baggas with several marketing innovations. Our product caters to religious families. So long as these people follow tradition, the market will continue to grow. A community doesn’t disappear just like that,” Kuldeep Singh says. Having survived the downturn, Simco now faces a new challenge. With an increasing number of Sikh youth trimming their beard, sales could be dwindling soon.Sixty-seven years later, Simco, short for Shimla Chemicals, has not only penetrated the market but has become a virtual synonym for all beard fixers. Under his elder son Gajendra Singh Bagga, Simco became the first beard fixer brand to launch an advertisement campaign in Delhi and Punjab. Our customer base stayed intact during the downturn. In fact, our business has grown in the last two years — 47 per cent in 2008 and 25 per cent in the current year,” says Kuldeep Singh, who runs the company from West Delhi’s Naraina Industrial Area. That is less than eight per cent rise in price over two years. So even when people were slicing their monthly household budgets, Simco remained on the shopping list,” says Kuldeep Singh.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment