Estimated reading time: 7 Min

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Rosario Hoppenstedt and Priscilla Soler teamed up to bring women in Mexico, and hopefully very soon the rest of the world, a healthy, natural product with one clear purpose: helping them live fuller and happier lives. That product is HoliHerb.

HoliHerb is a supplement created specifically to help women achieve hormonal balance without having to rely on synthetic hormones, which are so often prescribed through birth control pills.

The results? Beyond healthier and happier women, the two friends can also feel proud of having helped more than one baby come into the world, something very few brands can say.

But their commitment to bringing this natural compound, produced in Mexico, to the market came with a scalability problem: Rosario managed every package by hand, one by one.

Then they discovered Cubbo. Today, HoliHerb is no longer limited by manual logistics and is already thinking about conquering the global market.

This is their story.

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Frank: How did HoliHerb come about?

Rosario: I have a friend, Priscilla, who studied holistic nutrition and was interested in launching a line of high-quality food supplements at an accessible price.

I decided to join the project. She was in charge of sales and product development, while I focused on operations and administration.

Frank: Was HoliHerb born during the Covid crisis?

Rosario: Yes. Right in the middle of the crisis.

Frank: What exactly is HoliHerb?

Rosario: It is a natural nutritional supplement designed to support women’s hormonal balance.

Right now, most solutions for women’s hormonal issues involve a doctor prescribing birth control pills, which are synthetic hormones. But that does not really solve the root problem of hormonal imbalance. It is more like a band-aid.

That is why we decided to create a solution that addresses the problem at its source. With HoliHerb, we seek to help women balance their hormones naturally, without applying the band-aid of synthetic hormones.

The idea is to help the body produce the right hormones in the right amounts. This can bring many benefits, such as supporting fertility, stabilizing hormonal imbalances, improving related symptoms, and helping with issues like insulin resistance.

It is about helping the body work naturally and optimally.

Frank: Is the product entirely natural?

Rosario: Yes. The active ingredient is myo-inositol, which is found in fruits and vegetables. In the quantities we use, it can have more therapeutic functions.

Frank: Were you born as an ecommerce brand?

Rosario: Everything has been online. We have around five distributors in the country, and those are our only physical points of sale. Other than that, everything is through ecommerce.

We started ecommerce pre-sales in February 2020, and by March 2020 we were already operating. From the beginning, we started distributing throughout Mexico.

Frank: I see that the packs you offer in the store also include other accessories.

Rosario: Yes, exactly. We have other products that complement the supplement. They are not manufactured by us, but we have partnered with brands that help complete the treatments, especially vitamin D and probiotics.

Frank: Did you have to educate people a lot? Was it difficult to enter the Mexican market?

Rosario: My friend Priscilla is an Instagram influencer in the nutrition space, and through her account, @gastrawnomica, we have been able to communicate to the Mexican market what HoliHerb is and what we want it to become.

It was not very difficult to find a market because we were already immersed in a community of people interested in this topic and this type of product.

Once we launched, of course, we had to focus on growing our audience, encouraging word of mouth, and maintaining and improving the quality of the product.

On the HoliHerb website, we also have a section where we explain the product, its components, and its benefits.

Frank: What platform is your ecommerce built on?

Rosario: Our store is built on WooCommerce.

Frank: Do you also sell on marketplaces?

Rosario: Yes. We sell on Amazon.

Frank: Can you share a testimonial or story from a customer whose life changed with HoliHerb?

Rosario: Wow, we have thousands of testimonials.

The most beautiful ones are from women who had been trying to get pregnant for years and could not. After a few months of taking HoliHerb, they were able to achieve pregnancy. That is why this year we started registering the births of “HoliHerb babies,” and it has been incredibly rewarding.

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Climbing to succeed with Cubbo

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One of the biggest challenges for any successful venture is scalability. In many cases, this is what separates a good business idea from a real business.

After all, what is the point of having a great product if you cannot sell more than ten units a day?

Scaling, and being able to sell at volume, is key to the survival of any online business.

Cubbo entered HoliHerb’s story precisely to solve this problem. Rosario, who was personally packing each of the brand’s orders by hand, decided to look for a professional solution that would allow them to grow with quality and dedicate their time to what truly created value for HoliHerb.

Frank: At what point did you find Cubbo?

Rosario: We had been operating for around six months when a friend of mine, who sold children’s toys, told me she had used Cubbo to solve all her deliveries.

It seemed incredible to me because it was exactly what I was looking for.

At the beginning, when we launched, I was the one who physically had to prepare each box, create each shipping label, track the packages, and confirm their arrival.

It took too much time and required me to be in Mexico City constantly. I could not leave Mexico City for many days because, otherwise, the orders would not go out.

When I found out about Cubbo, I spoke with Sofía and joined as a client. Honestly, it has worked really well for us.

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Frank: Was there anything you asked Cubbo for that was a must-have condition in order to work with them?

Rosario: More than anything, good service. For us, order tracking, timely customer response, punctual deliveries, proper storage, and shipping speed are very important.

Frank: What technical problem did you have when launching the ecommerce?

Rosario: At first, we used a payment provider that caused us a lot of problems. When we launched, we had many sales, and this company blocked our account.

That is why we had to choose PayPal as an emergency solution, and we stayed with them. Payments were a problem at the beginning.

Frank: Was Cubbo your first experience with a logistics operator?

Rosario: Yes. Before that, I handled the shipments myself.

The truth is that it frees up my time and allows me to focus on the company’s real challenges and on developing the strategy needed for it to grow.

That is worth a lot, and that is why I think moving logistics to Cubbo was an excellent transition.

Frank: Cubbo handles the complete fulfillment process for you, right?

Rosario: Yes. Cubbo handles all our fulfillment.

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Read also: Nuda Est, great experiences through logistics and unboxing

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Frank: What plans does HoliHerb have for the next five years?

Rosario: We really want to sell in other countries. That is our goal this year.

It is a little complicated because, since we sell a food supplement, each country requires health approval, and that process can be complex. But we are already working on it.

Frank: What advice would you give to an entrepreneur who wants to launch an ecommerce in Mexico?

Rosario: I would tell them to dare to do it. If you wait for everything to be perfect, you will never launch.

When we launched, we had a thousand details that were not perfect. For example, the product photos were not exactly how we wanted them to be.

But we decided to take the leap, because if you do not, you never go to market. I would tell them to launch, see the reality of the market, and then correct and learn.

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Are you looking for an ally that improves your delivery process, compliance, and customer satisfaction?

Contact us. Cubbo is a fulfillment solution for ecommerce brands in Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil.

During 2021 at Cubbo:

Our clients recorded 21% savings in operating costs.

97.1% of the products received were processed and ready to sell within 24 hours.

We achieved 99.7% shipping compliance.

We recorded 99.9875% accuracy in order preparation, equivalent to 1 error every 8,000 shipments.

60% of our deliveries in CDMX were completed the same day.

We completed nationwide deliveries in an average of 1.3 days.