Hairdirect was a front-runner in the hair replacement system industry for over 26 years.
On February 20, 2022, this Pennsylvania-based, father-son-operated family business closed its doors, leaving tens of thousands of its customers worldwide in the lurch.
Customers all over the globe now have to look for alternative sources for their hair replacement systems.
How had Hairdirect managed to thrive over the last two decades? How did they get hit by the Pandemic, which triggered their downturn, eventually leading to the permanent Hairdirect closure? Continue reading to find the answer.
Related: HairDirect Closed, How to Distinguish Competitive Hairpiece Suppliers
Hairdirect, once a superstar in the hair replacement system industry
Well established in 1994, Hairdirect remained a customer-oriented leading business in the hair industry for over two decades.
Hairdirect’s mission remained constant: to make the hair replacement system available and affordable to the whole balding population. Hairdirect reviews will never disappoint you.
“Hair replacement system was my dad’s life-long work,” Bill Biesecker, II, CEO of Hairdirect, said in a news release in their early days.
“He has been a herald in the industry. Having coped in all aspects of the hair system business, dad and I started Hairdirect with a do-it-yourself model. We first started by launching ads in the United States. Today, we target more retail customers to grow into an international company.”
In the first decade of its establishment, Hairdirect had chain stores throughout the western world and a resourceful factory built in China.
The worldwide revenues of Hairdirect grew at a double-digit pace annually and successfully hit $11 million in 2012.
There was hardly anyone who started making hair systems before the Bieseckers did in the United States and even worldwide.
Progressive and customer-centered thinking was the key to bringing Hairdirect endless fun in growing their hair system career.
Hairdirect’s passion remained constant, too: to keep their customers excited with their ever-evolving and affordable products and services.
A unique business model allows Hairdirect to stand out
According to Hairdirect, Hairdirect’s business model had always defied convention from the first day they started.
Hairdirect operated out of Bill Sr.’s childhood home along the river in Bainbridge for the first ten years.
They then steered away from outside financing — learning to be creative, artistic, and resourceful with every penny.
However, it also meant having complete control over the business and a focused commitment to the mission of selling natural-looking, tailor-made hair systems to hair loss sufferers all over the globe.
“One bald head at a time” is Hairdirect’s slogan.
With the focus on nonsurgical hair replacement, and after ten years of hard work, they could even offer a full lineup of options from the regrowth and surgical markets.
No matter the severity of hair loss, the ultimate goal of Hairdirect was to have a solution that fits their customer perfectly.
2005 breakthrough by Hairdirect
This year marks a breakthrough and an evolution in the hair system industry — men and women looking for alternatives to overpriced hair systems could now get custom-fitted hair replacement systems.
Now the wearer can take their own measurements and send them back to Hairdirect for precise fitting and design.
To achieve this, Hairdirect had pre-developed an extensive online hair gallery, which allowed their customers to choose a hairstyle that best suited their personality.
With this new technical breakthrough, Hairdirect could work directly with their customers to determine their choice of attachment methods, base preferences, hair density, and color of their favor.
The hair system was cut, styled, and shipped to the customer within 6-8 weeks without seeing the client in person.
2006 Hairdirect published their first post in their new blog
On January 20, 2006, Bill Biesecker, Jr posted his first message on a newly published BLOG.
That was one of the first Blogs covering the topic of hair systems.
The BLOG focused on the day-to-day issues faced by all men and women suffering from hair loss.
Highly anticipated among clients and affiliates, the new BLOG promised to bring a wealth of fresh content on everything about hair replacement.
The Blog was more than a technical evolution to Hairdirect and the Bieseckers (or Bills).
According to the former vice-president of US International Hair Goods, co-founder of the American Hair Loss Council, and consultant to the OnRite Company, with the help of the Blog and other IT elements, Biesecker had maintained a solid tie to industry insiders while running his own company that sells hair systems directly to the customer from the manufacturer through their website.
Perhaps this is how they got the name Hairdirect for their company.
Hairdirect introduced a partial hair system for the hairline
Another achievement that marked the unusual 2006 was Hairdirect’s partial hair system that’s specially fitted for the front hairline.
High Definition HairTM System, named by Hairdirect when it first came out, was available exclusively from Hairdirect.
All men and women could now ease their worries and have a hairline that looked natural and authentic.
The same year Hairdirect also introduced a transitional density technique along with the partially frontal hairpiece.
This technique allows the hairpiece to replicate the wearer’s natural hair with a subtle gradient into the area with natural hair density.
What does the transitional density technique look like?
Hairdirect and its new 3D online systems
Hairdirect never stopped investing effort in speeding up the online ordering process.
In mid-2018, Hairdirect introduced the Gather Pre-consultation Tool.
Gather is a 3D online design application. It allows the user to pre-design their looks online to see how they would look in one of Hairdirect’s hair systems before they hit the “buy button,” saving time and money throughout the process.
Based on the media and customer reviews, Gather has made it easier for customers to order hair systems from the comfort of home.
It delivers a dynamic experience uniquely tailored to each individual.
Because the brain of the app integrates well with CRM, e-commerce, appointment scheduling, customer search, personalization, and marketing automation platforms, the system could quickly obtain intricate details and simplify the process for the user.
The system then walks the user through a step-by-step process to capture measurements, and selections of hairstyles and colors, followed by scheduling a one-on-one consultation with a licensed hair replacement consultant.
Gather, an innovative technology for a precise fit
We have to say Gather is probably Hairdirect’s most outstanding contribution to the hair system industry.
It is the first of its kind. It perfectly captures the wearer’s pattern of hair loss, contour, sizes, and shapes to achieve a precise fit.
With the help of Gather, customers can video their heads with a smartphone or tablet.
Then Hairdirect will transform it into a 3D file for the system to take down critical measurements.
This way, the time from sizing and design to the final product could be reduced to half.
What caused the Hairdirect closure?
At the beginning of 2022, the Hairdirect closure shocked the whole hair replacement system industry.
How could this hair system giant, arguably the hair industry leader, suddenly close its doors forever?
The pandemic triggered its downturn
2020 was an unusual year for every nation around the globe.
At the turn of 2020, the Covid started lavishing its grudge from one country to another. Millions of Chinese factories were bankrupted.
The Chinese factory Hairdirect had been in long-term collaboration with could no longer keep up with their massive demand from all over the western world—a short supply of hair systems sent over half of Hairdirect’s customers away.
As mentioned above, Hairdirect developed many hair replacement methods and services over its thriving years.
Their profits were reinvested into developing new products or services, and their Hairdirect empire kept expanding.
However, a massive company means it costs heaps to keep it running—the sudden shortage of product supply leads to a dramatic cut in customers. The supply chain became less stable.
Customers worldwide started to complain about the hair quality not being as consistent as before.
To Hairdirect, it was just too hard to restore itself to its former glory.
Money flow issues and the Pandemic seem to be the perpetrator
Based on marketing research conducted by various business institutes, Hairdirect closed due to the company’s financial issues aggravated by the Pandemic.
They believe that the Pandemic had worsened their economic issue that was already existent to the point that they had to close their doors.
Some business development analysts believed that the Hairdirect closure was due to a money shortage.
They advised that Hairdirect had rarely kept any monies on the business’s saving account.
Of all the company’s profits, 70% would be used to develop new products and improve customer experience.
However, with their newly developed techniques and services, Hairdirect does need heaps of money to maintain and keep them running above par to keep their customers over the moon.
The Covid hit the world trade pretty hard.
Hence to some degree, it paralyzed Hairdirect’s money flow.
Hairdirect could no longer look after its newly developed systems, large-scale offices, and factories worldwide.
Plus, Hairdirect never allowed themselves to compromise on quality. Sadly, and at last, bankruptcy had them cornered.
A factory fire?
Some sources also say that Hairdirect’s well-communicated Chinese factory had caught fire after the pandemic breakout.
The fire burned down half of the factory.
It happened too quickly that Hairdirect had to look to alternative means for hair systems.
And that also contributed to Hairdirect’s compromised quality and lengthened shipping time.
Is Hairdirect likely to revive?
Soon after Hairdirect shut down, officials advised that Hairdirect was returning to the pre-pandemic levels, and they would soon carry out a new global marketing campaign, an overhauled subscription model, and a new product line. A new website would quickly come out, too.
All these, however, haven’t taken place by now.
“This is a lifetime of work that’s been wiped away in an instant,” said Biesecker again, after nearly three decades of business endeavor. “Our company started as a family. It has been a family. We have many folks who have been with us since the very beginning. They were our top priority.”
What does it mean to Hairdirect’s competitors?
As mentioned above, hardly anyone took part in the hair replacement business before Hairdirect.
Indeed over the decades, the industry had brought Hairdirect competitors and hundreds or perhaps thousands of them worldwide. Let’s call them Hairdirect Competitors.
But what does it mean to Hairdirect competitors with their industry leader’s sudden closedown?
Hairdirect’s contribution to the industry is highly valued.
Having also coped in their hair system industry for over a decade, here at New Times Hair, we see ourselves more as a co-worker and fellow hairpiece manufacturers and suppliers to Hairdirect.
Hairdirect’s values and how its services are carried out are highly valued here.
Over the last decade, we have constantly focused on promoting technological innovation and chain restructuring.
We never allowed ourselves to stay the same.
Improving our technologies and services in all aspects is deeply rooted in our genes.
Are you looking for a hair system supplier?
Fill in the shoes Hairdirect has left
New Times Hair has developed a whole new supply chain as a fellow hair system manufacturer and supplier with abundant hair system-making experience.
This new development has allowed us to keep the entire production under close control and reduce production costs to the minimum without compromising quality.
Our heart has always remained loyal to our vision.
That’s to make beauty available and affordable to everyone around the globe.
All our hair replacement systems at New Times Hair are made of 100% human hair, collected from reliable, ethical sources.
Besides factory direct prices, all our hair replacement systems must undergo two rounds of quality inspections and are underpinned by six standard procedures before they can be shipped.
Abundant selections of hair systems are available
Tens of thousands of Hairdirect clients worldwide now have to go to alternative suppliers or wholesalers for hair systems after the Hairdirect closure.
We never consider ourselves a competitor to Hairdirect.
We just offer alternative ways for all clients who used to order or source through Hairdirect.
Own factory, advanced online system
New Times Hair owns a sizable factory, which is only a few miles away. You can get quality hair systems at factory direct prices at New Times Hair.
In addition, you don’t have to quote and wait for a reply from the consultant. Our online shop allows you to make online orders with everything you want to know about the hair systems, including the inventory, prices, etc.
Once registering an account on our site, placing an order could happen in several minutes.
A broad range of selections: stock and custom-made items
We have a broad range of products of over 30 different types of men’s stock hair systems ready to be shipped immediately. With our tons of hairpieces in stock, you do not have to wait for a long production lead time.
We can also customize the hair system with your scalp measurement, especially for you, simply within 4 weeks! You can have as many online sessions with New Times Hair consultants as possible until the customer is delighted with the product.
All their customers’ head information is kept securely at New Times Hair’s customer base. When customers need to change to a new hair system, they will immediately retrieve that information and make the same hairpiece.
Stock
Custom
1:1 duplicate hair system service
Are you still waiting for Hair Direct products? If you have doubts about our claim, please find out more about our 100% & 1:1 duplicate hair system service.
Suppose your clients are currently using a quality hairpiece from another supplier (say Hairdirect), and the hairpiece is near the end of its lifespan.
In that case, we can duplicate exactly the same hairpiece for you, 100% duplicated hairpiece with the same look, size, quality, and everything else.
So, whatever product or services you used to order from Hairdirect, we will offer you the same.
Ready to trust New Times Hair and get your hair system sorted?
We always hope to become your treasured long-term hairpiece supplier at New Times Hair. Once you know our products and services, you will better understand what you can expect from the best supplier. We are a loyal sharer of the same spirit with Hairdirect.
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