Blade runner

In a country of more than a billion people, only 3.8 billion shaving blades are sold every year. And of these, an overwhelming 97 per cent is double-edged blades. That doesn't leave much scope for twin-blades, does it? Gillette India doesn't seem to agree.

In October 2003, it introduced the Gillette Vector Plus in another effort to slice open the market for twin-blade shaving systems. The USP: the product claims to take care of the perennial issue of hair clogging between the blades.

Take a look at how the Indian market for twin-blades has shaped up. Since Gillette introduced the first twin-head shaving system, the 7 O'Clock PII, in the mid-1980s, the market has grown three-fold: from an estimated Rs 200 crore in 1986 to Rs 600 crore in 2002.

Twin blades, which were just 3 per cent of the value (Rs 6 crore) in 1986, have increased to nearly 28 per cent of the value (Rs 168 crore). And Gillette commands nearly 80 per cent of the twin-blade market. But that's still only 80 per cent of a minuscule 114 million units market.

The biggest and the most obvious reason for the preference for the archaic double-edged blades is cost. For the price of one low-end disposable twin blade, you can buy a pack of 10 double-edged blades.

Gillette did try to get around that problem earlier: in 1993 it introduced the Gillette Presto, a disposable twin blade, at price points as low as Rs 7.

However, as products like the Presto encouraged a large number of trials, they had limited usage. For instance, analysts point out that buyers in smaller towns used twin blades as rarely as Indian consumers use contact lenses "" only for special occasions.

There's another important "" but less considered "" reason for the lack of enthusiasm for twin-edged razors. That is the low frequency of shaving by Indian men. According to a survey conducted by the company, the average shaving frequency of Indians is 1.7 times a week.

In comparison, the average in countries like Germany is as high as 5.2 times a week. The preference for stubble affects sales of twin-edged razors for a surprising reason. First, Indians have a strong beard growth and shaving once every three to four days will mean that beard lengths are longer.

That results in hair clogging between the two blades of twin-blade systems. Gillette executives point out that clogging of hair leads to a poor quality of shaving. It also results in faster use-up rates of the blades as customers used various means to clean the blades. Consequently, two out of three users who had tried twin blades went back to the low-end double-edged blades.

Flat blades have no such problem: the shaving system ensures that the double-edged blade can be taken out and washed. "Double-edged consumers are not happy with their shaves. But hair clogging is the biggest barrier for consumers to upgrade to twins," points out Sachin Gopal, general sales director, Gillette India.

Gillette could have still taken care of the hair-clogging issue if running water were available throughout the country. However, research shows that only 25 per cent of shavers use running water, the rest shave using a mug as an accessory.

To tide over the problem, the product development team at Gillette's global product research centre in Boston came up with a push-clean mechanism that ensures that the blade can be cleaned even without running water by just dipping the blade in a mug of water "" when the push clean button is pressed, the twin blades open up to release the clogged hair.

But couldn't the company have solved the clogging issue by increasing the distance between the twin blades? Gillette executives point out that it's not as simple as that.

That's because hair retracts into the skin after contact with the blade (scientifically called hysterisis). So after the first blade comes in contact with the hair strand, the second blade has to follow soon, to deliver a closer shave.

Meanwhile, the competition has its own ways of dealing with the hair-clogging problem. Beginning December 2003, the Mumbai-based Vidyut Metallics has been test-marketing Supermax III, a triple-blade shaving system in which the blades are positioned such as to prevent hair-clogging. A senior executive from the company says that the Supermax III has already got repeat orders ranging from two to five times the test order.

At a price point of Rs 49, for a razor and a cartridge, the Gillette Vector Plus is far costlier than the Presto and others in its ilk. Cartridges of Vidyut's Supermax III will retail at Rs 10 a piece; in comparison, a pack of two Vector Plus cartridges cost Rs 35. But Gillette executives are confident that this product will find its own market with a retail presence in over 100,000 outlets across the country.

With a television commercial in Hindi and other regional languages where a young lady prefers to dance at a wedding with a man who has shaved with a twin blade, over somebody who uses double-edged blades, the company hopes to drive the point home. Will Vector be a plus point for Gillette India?