Gillette Fact Sheet

[BradF]

I came across a Gillette timeline while considering my answer to this thread. Of interest was another fact sheet that, along with some quick math, illustrate an interesting belief held at Gillette right now.

• On average, men in the U.S. shave 4.6 times/week.
• Men spend, on average, $23.00 for blades and razors per year.

At Target and Amazon, a 4 pack of Gillette Fusion Proglide blades is $15.99.
So, in one year, the average man will use 5.75 blades (ackowledge that's not possible, but stick with me here), meaning he changes blades every 9 weeks.
Gillette intends one of two things:
a) You use one Fusion Proglide cartridge for 41 shaves!
b) You up that average $23.00 per year spent on blades.
I'm near the end of a 100 pack of Red Personnas that I got from West Coast Shaving in 2008 and I use one blade for 4 shaves, 2 on each edge of the DE blade. Six months of that time was on deployment, where I shaved much less than 4.6 times per week.

Given what is expected of me, I really don't know what to do with my free Fusion Proglide that I got in the mail!
Unless I made a math error, this could be a case where YMM not V.

 

[StylinLA]

I'm not a hater of the Gillette cartridges, but I can only get about 6 or maybe 7 shaves before it's tugging and pulling and irritating. And my beard is not very heavy.

But, I do work with a guy who claims to use one cart a month.

I don't how they come up with this.

 

[DunEdinRanger]

So that's about 240 shaves a year.

Even allowing for discounts, and assuming $23.99 translates to 8 cartridges, that would mean 30 shaves per cartridge.

 

[Stubblefield]

The problem with the average user is that they don't actually exist.

 

[pauls51]

translates to 8 cartridges, that would mean 30 shaves per cartridge.

I'd hate to think what the 10th shave would be like, let alone the 30th!

 

[flight567]

i've never made it past 4 with a cart... and some of the disposables must be changes halfway through the shave because they quite cutting so screw 30 shaves lol

 

[Greglam]

I'd hate to think what the 10th shave would be like, let alone the 30th!

A total +1 to this and I just have an average beard.

I got 100 Derby Extras for $18 (shipped) and shave 6 or 7 times per week on one blade. So, for $18 I got two years worth of blades.

 

[josie67]

No doubt. When I used a cart, I was lucky to get 5 shaves from one cartridge. I find it hard to believe that anyone can get 30 shaves from 1 without ripping his face apart.

 

[SiBurning]

They only sell about 100 million fusion blades a year, so they're obviously not assuming every one of those 105 million shaving males are using their product. That data looks to be 5 years old. They also don't know how to add--just compare the men who shave with a blade and razor vs electric and see how they lost 2,000,000 men in the process of getting to 100%. The phrase "on average" is useless. Is that the mean or median? Could be a big difference. The $23 seems to include men who use electrics. I won't strain my brain on how the other $3 accounts for $300 million when the men's razor market isn't 6 times that, yet men spend a slippery average on nearly 8 times that much on blades.

Here's a fine companion piece on P&G's approach to flavor and fragrance: 1 + 1 = 3.

 

[Elecid]

There's so much we don't know here that the data is almost meaningless.

When I shaved with a cart, i was broke--so I tried to stretch my one cart past a month or more, and would supplement with cheap, cheap disposables. I couldn't afford to buy new carts as much as I needed them. (college, grad school)

Now, I'm a little better off, but not too much--but I am spending about as much buying awesome creams and new blades as I did on awful shaving.

 

[Alec79]

I've always found that it's clogging kills any of the multiblades that I've tried long before the thing goes blunt.

 

[DavidP]

When I used a Mach 3 I would shave three times a week, and the carts would last me 4-6 weeks. The thing is, these were 1 pass, WTG shaves so there wasn't a lot of wear and tear on them. With this in mind I can kind of see how Gillette would get these numbers.

 

[crocto]

that data doesn't make sense. in order to spend $23 a year on blades you could only buy a 4 pack. what the hell do you do change your blade every fiscal quarter?

i wouldn't read too much into that since i don't think they got the population figures right.

 

[SiBurning]

that data doesn't make sense. in order to spend $23 a year on blades you could only buy a 4 pack. what the hell do you do change your blade every fiscal quarter?

i wouldn't read too much into that since i don't think they got the population figures right.

If 103 million is 91%, the population of males age 15 or older is 113m. Those under age 14 account for 21%, giving a total male population of 143 million. The Gillette data is from 1984, and the census number of 148m is an estimate over 1986-1988. Seems legit.

You can do the math and see where the average numbers came from. $1.7b in blades & razors for 74m blade users is $23. $300m of creams for 103m users is $3. At least that answers one of my previous questions.

I don't doubt a single one of their numbers. I only want to know the source and the methodology used. At a quess, they got the prices and number of shaves per week through sampling using their own customer surveys, and the industry data from a marketing report. Both of those sources are essentially guesses, and probably very good ones, but unfortunately, guessing is the best that can be done. There's also some minor anomalies that are unaccounted for. Without the background there are questions. Here's one. Do they count the cost of used razors and hones?

 

[Slivovitz]

Gillette probably knows that the average Fusion user will spend more than the average shaver. There's no indication that this data applies only to men using Fusions or other expensive cartridges. If it's an average of all men, then it probably includes users of cheap disposables and the cheaper cartridges. It might even include the injector, SE, and DE users here, averaged in with the people who use more expensive cartridges.

My personal experience with a Fusion was that, after the fifth shave, it was feeling a bit rougher, and I didn't want to push it more than that. I can imagine that maybe I would have gotten another couple of shaves from it, but no more, so there's no way I'd do it for $23 a year.

If I were still using my Personna Atra style cartridges, I'd be paying about 50¢ each for them and using about 1 a week, for about $26 a year (I'd probably be shaving only five times a week instead of every day). Some quick estimating tells me that it could probably cost less than $20 a year for Bic disposables, and less than that for DE users, of course. So on average, Gillette's data is quite plausible.

 

[amspratt]

Back in my cartridge days I'd use a Sensor cartridge for at least a month before switching. This was not because they were good for that long, but because I was cheap. Now, thank heaven, I don't worry about switching blades when it's time.

 

[Angus Young]

I've always found that it's clogging kills any of the multiblades that I've tried long before the thing goes blunt.

I agree with this. I don't shave everyday and a cartridge is less than useless if you have more than two days growth.

 

[gard van hulzen]

There is no thing as an average man, just al dull group of people that are indoctrinated by large advertisement campaigns.

What ever knife you use, without the right cream it'l still be a mediocre shave..

(average for me is 6 time a week, 7th time only when a have a trip to my mother-in-law)

 

[Angus Young]

There is no thing as an average man, just al dull group of people that are indoctrinated by large advertisement campaigns.

What ever knife you use, without the right cream it'l still be a mediocre shave..

(average for me is 6 time a week, 7th time only when a have a trip to my mother-in-law)

What's worse? Using a dull blade or meeting the mother in law?

 

[Tha Baron]

The problem with the average user is that they don't actually exist.

+1

Head in the oven, feet in the freezer! On average, youre doing ok!