Marine Health, a Kazakhstani company that sells dietary supplements in 11 countries, saw sales slump after entering the Uzbek market because its standard marketing strategy failed to resonate with local consumers. Arman Toskanbayev, a serial entrepreneur and the company’s president, discussed the experience on the «Business Ninja» YouTube channel.
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He said that in Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan, the company had successfully marketed its products primarily to women, based on the assumption that women in these countries typically make purchasing decisions for vitamins and household goods. However, when Marine Health applied the same approach in Uzbekistan, sales fell short of expectations.
«We operate in 11 countries, and each has its own specific characteristics. When selling in Kazakhstan, Russia or Uzbekistan, the situation is usually clear-cut: Women buy vitamins and groceries for the home and make the purchasing decisions. So you tailor your entire marketing strategy around that. But then we entered Uzbekistan and rolled out a similar strategy focused on women, and sales just didn’t take off,» Toskanbayev said.
Different approach to household spending
The company began investigating the reasons for the weak sales and identified what Toskanbayev described as a key difference in how household finances are managed.
«It turns out that while women manage the family budget in our countries, in Uzbekistan, it is the man who holds the purse strings and makes the final decision about what to buy for the household,» Toskanbayev said.
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According to Toskanbayev, men tend to be more pragmatic about spending. When faced with a choice between buying dietary supplements and spending the money on basic clothing or higher-quality food, they were more likely to skip the vitamins.
«Therefore, it is a mistake to assume that just because we are neighbors, our specific characteristics are the same,» Toskanbayev said.
Following this discovery, Marine Health revamped its marketing strategy to better reflect local consumer behavior.
