Artificial scarcity

...He who figures out how to make the jump to mainstream grooming first will win.

I have thought that as well in the past, but now I am not so sure. I just cannot see DE/SE wet shaving going mainstream again at this point. It would take something on a national level to "jumpstart" it and that may be a case of being careful what one wishes for as you don't want the Big Boys getting back into this on a national level with their "scorched earth" marketing.

A lot of people are seeing $4.50 each cartridges​ behind locked shelves, too. And why wouldn't we want the big boys getting back into this on a national level? As long as the products are good quality, affordable and available, what difference does it make?

Barrister_N_Mann is right, whoever plugs into the larger grooming market first will win. A very good example is Art of Shaving. They started out as a tiny artisan operation with only one store. It became a huge success long before they were purchased by Gillette. Baxter of California is another good example.

Traditional capitalistic economics are sort of handicapped here. This is not a normal market, and normal market forces are somewhat muted by virtue of the fact that small/unprofitable firms are not closing up shop because their income is heavily supplemented. If the artisan soap world is to continue, then some sort of equilibrium is going to have to be reached...

Actually, that IS capitalism. Notice the recent market loss by Gillette to small upstart companies who are now large, e.g., Dollar Shave Club & Harrry's. This is only because of the power of the Internet. The same Internet that gives power to the large shaving soap makers also creates a level playing field for small Mom & Pop makers. I don't think it is so much a "death from a thousand cuts" as mentioned, but rather a stark realization that with Internet wet shaving products sales the people who buy these are fickle by their very nature. These are not our grandpas who just bought a puck of whatever was cheapest at the store 75 yrs. ago, but people who by their very existence in the small fringe of DE/SE shavers are adventurous and experimental. They like to roam about and try things new. Asking for loyalty in a market such as this is like asking for abstinence from a nymphomaniac. There is just too much novelty, innovation and new stuff to resist for many. However, there can be a downside with too much new product introduction that was the case just a year or so ago with one large Internet vendor. It seemed they were introducing new soaps at a breakneck speed and loyal buyers slowly dropped away as they realized "SOS with a slightly different smell". Customers became jaded.

This is a tough & unpredictable niche market IMO. If I were a soap maker I would marry a rich woman just in case.  

Its always prudent to marry rich . Marrying rich is second only to being born rich as the best way to become wealthy and its followed by a far, far distant third option, working for it. Its hard and too uncertain.

In the US, most millionaires are self made(around 80%). This according to a book called the Millionaire Next Door.

...And why wouldn't we want the big boys getting back into this on a national level?  As long as the products are good quality, affordable and available, what difference does it make?...

Because Gillette, if they returned to making shaving soap, would out-market & out-maneuver all others at the retail "brick & mortar" giants and in the end nothing will have changed for the artisan makers except for the fact that the NEW wet shavers they wanted to sell to would be using a Gillette product. It's easier to maintain a current customer than to garner a new one. Just ask Cap'n Crunch.  

What Will is talking about it is how to "wrangle" new customers by swooning them away from what they currently use. Remember, Madison Ave. spends billions of $$ on this every year and have it down to an art. For an artisan soap maker to go Big Time they need a medium that those people frequent, i.e., exposure. Obviously, if Will was filthy rich he'd simply buy Super Bowl ad time, but that's probably not the case.    I hearken back to where I first heard of this newest fad years ago:  an Internet firearms forum. Free advertising, but that doesn't reach that many men on a nationwide percentage. It's going to take a TV commercial IMO & that = Big $$. That brings us back again to the rich wife.  

No, I think it will be more a result of what we learn from the wet shaving world than wet shaving itself. Performance is so paramount that the hobbyist world is like an evolutionary incubator; the stuff coming out of most of the top manufacturers is miles ahead of most mainstream commercial work.

Going mainstream requires slashing costs. There's no way any of these artisan products has a chance of making it into Target, Walmart, or any big box retailer with the margins they demand. Other than specialty, gift shop, & other tiny retailers, I really don't see artisan products replacing Proraso. It's too cheap and works perfectly fine for 98% of wet shavers.

The closest to mainstream so far is RazoRock.

If by mainstream you mean getting a larger slice of the male populace buying our products, I'm betting my horse on products not related to shaving or beards. And speaking of beards, BeardBrand is killing us all in terms of market cap.

Meanwhile private equity is coming in and dumping cheap ass wet shaving shit all over amazon & the like. Bought out West Coast. etc etc.

Us artisans are better off staying niche until the bubble bursts again.

Meanwhile private equity is coming in and dumping cheap ass wet shaving shit all over amazon & the like. Bought out West Coast. etc etc.

West Coast Shaving was bought out by a private equity firm? Please elaborate.

Meanwhile private equity is coming in and dumping cheap ass wet shaving shit all over amazon & the like. Bought out West Coast. etc etc.

West Coast Shaving was bought out by a private equity firm? Please elaborate.

Yeah, the ownership changed. There's some sort of public filing in Cali I'm told. Unsure who the new owners are. Hell, could the same private equity group behind the Grooming Network for all I know.

Meanwhile private equity is coming in and dumping cheap ass wet shaving shit all over amazon & the like. Bought out West Coast. etc etc.

West Coast Shaving was bought out by a private equity firm? Please elaborate.

WCS was sold about a year and a half ago, if I am not mistaken. John and Christine Koontz, the original owners, now seem to have a business called Aramount LLC:

https://www.corporationwiki.com/p/2ybzsv/aramount-llc

If you want to know more about who owns WCS, you could always ask them.

Meanwhile private equity is coming in and dumping cheap ass wet shaving shit all over amazon & the like. Bought out West Coast. etc etc.

More stuff and more affordable is good, right?

Meanwhile private equity is coming in and dumping cheap ass wet shaving shit all over amazon & the like. Bought out West Coast. etc etc.

More stuff and more affordable is good, right?

Only if the quality does not suffer...Which we know it invariably does. When the goal is market saturation, instead of product quality, the consumers suffer...

Which means, in the case of a "wet shaving explosion" in the mainstream, we, as consumers, are going to be very happy that so many artisans are just hobbyists that don't need top make a profit to continue producing soap. The big ones like B&M and Stirling will definitely feel that pinch, but I would hope their following is loyal enough to keep them afloat until the chaff falls away and the wheat is allowed to rise to the surface...

Meanwhile private equity is coming in and dumping cheap ass wet shaving shit all over amazon & the like. Bought out West Coast. etc etc.

More stuff and more affordable is good, right?

No... Do you like the cheap ass plastic shit that's taken over everything you find at Walmart? If so, why do you even wet shave? And if so, that's up to you, but the rest of us do not like the cheap ass plastic shit. Which is how you drop prices. You slash the quality.