“We’ve known for a while now based on research that the consumers in the Canadian market are looking for clean, natural beauty products,” said Mary McMahan, VP of Marketing and Operations for withSimplicity. “Selling our products to this market is for sure a step in the right direction for our brand as we grow.”
The Harrisonburg-based business formed a number of partnerships to help them prep their product for consumers in Canada. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership and an international business class at James Madison University helped them make the expansion a reality.
The business initially worked with JMU students on customs regulations, French language requirements, taxes and other matters.
“We are so thankful that we were able to work with a JMU business class in 2022 on this plan,” said Irina Dovganetskiy, owner of withSimplicity. “They did a lot of the preliminary research and laid out the steps we need to start selling to customers in Canada.
“We then partnered with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, and we’ve been working with them for over a year now. They’ve helped connect us with the resources we need to make this project a reality.”
Work on the project began one year ago with market research and package redesign.
“Because French is the primary language in the province of Quebec, we had to re-do all of our product packaging to be half English, half French, and our website will have to be the same,” said McMahan.
They are still working to ensure all shipping procedures are in place before the launch. withSimplicity will begin exporting their products to Canada in mid-February
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Crystal Graham
