Live every day for 18 months: how Cheeky Wipes turns awkward questions into sales on TikTok.
In this mini episode, Helen Rankin, founder of Cheeky Wipes and Cheeky Pants, shares how daily TikTok Lives build community and remove barriers to buy. She speaks to Natalie Berg at TikTok's live shopping event in Covent Garden.
Cheeky Wipes and Cheeky Pants is a reusable hygiene brand founded by Helen Rankin in 2008 after she struggled to find baby wipes suitable for eczema-prone skin. What started as Helen packing boxes in her garage has grown into a team of 20. The company sells reusable wipes, period products, cloth nappies and incontinence solutions, helping consumers reduce waste and save money.
On TikTok, the brand has built a loyal community through educational livestreams, sustainability content, and product demonstrations. The focus is on educational and relatable content, demystifying sensitive topics and creating a space where customers feel comfortable asking the awkward questions they might not ask elsewhere.
For retail leaders, Helen explains why consistency beats virality, how live Q&A helps shoppers try education-heavy products, and how TikTok and cheekywipes.com work together.
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBKrO5D-mk8
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[00:00:06] You're listening to Retail Disrupted, a podcast that explores the latest industry developments and the trends that will shape how we shop in the future. I'm your host, Natalie Berg. Hello and welcome back to Retail Disrupted.
[00:00:28] If you haven't already subscribed, please do follow along over on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Every week you'll hear from the leaders and disruptors shaping the future of retail. Last week we heard from Paul Mears, who is the Group Vertical Director of Retail and E-Commerce at TikTok.
[00:00:48] Paul talked to us about how live shopping is creating new opportunities for brands to create more meaningful, authentic connections with existing customers, but also to help new shoppers discover the brand. Well, today you're going to hear from one of those brands. I'm speaking to Helen Rankin, founder of Cheeky Wipes. Now, if you're a parent in the UK, you probably know Cheeky Wipes. It's a reusable hygiene brand.
[00:01:11] They started out doing reusable wipes and cloth nappies, and more recently they've moved into reusable sanitary pads and period pants. Now, if you are new to these products, you are going to have a lot of questions. When my kids were little, I had them in cloth nappies, and personally am a huge fan of Cheeky Wipes, so I was very excited to speak to Helen. But making the decision to go into cloth nappies is, I mean, there's a lot to it.
[00:01:36] I remember going down various rabbit holes and being a researcher trying to kind of uncover everything I possibly could about, you know, doing it right and making sure that they didn't leak and all the other things that you need to work out. So it's just one of those categories that needs a little demystifying. It needs someone to show you the ropes. And as Helen is going to tell you, TikTok is now the platform where Helen and her team are answering questions, they're building a community, and driving sales.
[00:02:05] I hope you enjoy this brief conversation with Helen Rankin. Helen, thank you for joining me on the show today. And we're here in Covent Garden. It's very exciting. It is very exciting. And thank you so much for asking to have me on the show. I'm delighted to be here. Yeah. And you've got some live shopping happening right behind us now. We do. We do have live shopping. We are live every single day on TikTok.
[00:02:33] It's something that we've been doing for the last 18 months. And as you know, we've been going at Cheeky for, we've been doing live since, well, we've been in business since 2008. And we launched all our wipes kit. And then we launched reusable period products and incontinence products about 13 years ago. But TikTok is still like a fairly new channel for us. But we have been live pretty much every day since, for the last 18 months or so. Yeah. Wow. Okay.
[00:03:02] And so when you're doing live shopping, are you reaching new customers? Or is it a way to kind of deepen the connection with existing ones? A little bit of both, actually. So we love getting new customers. And TikTok's brilliant for that. We call it our happy family club. Because what we find is a lot of our products are reusable period products. They're still quite a new product. And they've got the, they've got the ear factor. And you know what I mean. Reusable wipes. People look at you sometimes like you've got your head cut.
[00:03:27] But what we really love about our TikTok community is that people try the products. Then they come into a live. And we've got a supportive community who explain how easy the products are to use. And I'm aware I'm waving, I'm waving a sanitary pad around as I'm, as I'm talking. I was going to ask. I know. But we've got this, this really good community. And actually, we point people from our website to our TikTok shop if they've got questions. And we find that that really works well.
[00:03:56] Because again, oh, I've just had some pants grabbed off me. But yeah, we love it as an opportunity to answer those elephant in the room questions. Like, don't period pants smell? Yeah. How do you wash them? How long do you wear them for? With the reusable wipes, you know, how long do they last? How much money can you save? And the TikTok shop and live is a really, really good way of doing that. Yeah. So it's that deeper engagement, I guess, with new customers and with existing ones.
[00:04:26] And I guess you're right. In this kind of category where there are still a lot of questions. And there is that need for advice and interaction with the brands. I think that's super interesting. One of the key findings from TikTok's report is that TikTok is actually driving customers to high streets. It's driving customers into stores. It's resulting in incremental sales. Is that something that you're seeing? Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, there's a two-way interaction there. So, you know, sometimes people come from our online shop, which is cheeky wipes.com,
[00:04:55] to TikTok and vice versa. So there is, it's a real, what's the word? Symbiosis. You know, they work together really, really well. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And can you talk us through some of the learnings, like when you first got on TikTok? Because I know the barriers are very low for any new brand or any creator to kind of start up, which is amazing. And it's creating a lot of choice for the customer. Or tell us, what did you learn in the early days? And how did you maybe overcome some of those initial challenges?
[00:05:21] The one thing I will say to anybody who wants to give it a go is JFDI. I made a commitment. When we started to do lives, I was a bit nervous about it. I mean, I can talk about our products all day long. We used to do exhibitions. We, you know, you'd stand and talk to people all day. So I'm really happy. I love talking about our products. I'm really passionate, as you can probably gather. And when we started doing lives, I made a commitment to myself that I was going to give
[00:05:48] it 90 days and go live every day for 90 days and see what it was worth, you know, because you can't just try it once or twice. You need to be consistent. And that really worked for us because we built that, our Happy Family Club. We built, started to build that community. And after the 90 days, we decided that we wanted to keep it going. It was obviously going to be too much for me to do by myself.
[00:06:12] So we've got some actual, real, cheeky users who are now our live hosts alongside me. And we're still live every single day. But it's now Holly and RJ who both, you know, I love the fact it's authentic. It's, we're not got somebody in a studio. It's people who actually use the pants themselves who are really happy to do videos of themselves in the pants. And it's just, it's great. You know, I really, I get a lot out of it.
[00:06:41] And as you can see, that's why we're live again here today because yeah, we just really enjoyed it and it really, really benefits the brand. Amazing. Helen, thanks so much for coming on the show. You're welcome. Lovely to meet you. Thank you for listening to Retail Disrupted. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to support the podcast, please leave a rating or review or share it with others. It really makes a difference.