Why it matters:
- Ordo is redefining the big-brand-dominated oral care category with its results-driven, design-forward line of sonic and electric products.
- Its most recent U.S. expansion into Walmart stores is the latest step in a global growth strategy that’s delivering 250% year-over-year growth since the company’s 2019 launch.
- The under-tapped kids’, tweens’, and teens’ oral care markets are major areas of future focus.
Consumers
are often overwhelmed in the oral care aisle, puzzled by each
product’s attributes and what meets their specific needs at a price
they can live with. At least that was the contention of Barty Walsh,
Founder and CEO of Ordo,
when he set out to develop a solution: a line of sonic and electric
toothbrushes, water flossers, toothpaste, and mouthwash designed to
offer better, more affordable oral care to more people. Since
starting in the United Kingdom and growing internationally, Ordo is
now expanding in the U.S. market with its latest brick-and-mortar
debut at Walmart.
A
healthcare product as well as personal care
Walsh’s
own trip to the dentist a few years ago was the impetus for the brand
when he discovered that he, like 3.5 billion people on the planet,
was dealing with oral health disease. Proper oral hygiene can reverse
many oral health conditions, like gingivitis, if a person can access
what they need, according to the American Dental Association.
Walsh
had been using a manual toothbrush but was advised that electric
options were better. He soon realized that choices and price points
were daunting among electric and sonic brushes (Electric toothbrushes
use a rotating head, while sonic toothbrushes use high-frequency
vibrations to clean hard-to-reach areas.) “Most people use manual,
partly because of price and partly because, confusion,” he said.
“It was unclear what I needed as a consumer.”
Ordo was designed to stress the basics: brush properly for two minutes, two times a day. “It doesn’t go much deeper than that,” said Walsh. The magic formula was achieving the best level of cleaning combined with affordability. For example, Ordo’s most expensive item in the Sonic Lite line is $50, and the results are at the same level as a $150 to $200 item from competitors, according to Walsh. “Why should someone who can’t afford it not have access to quality? This is a healthcare item as well as personal care.”
According to [Founder and CEO Barty] Walsh, hitting the market with a new product comes down to persistence. He remembers showing up at Boots, a U.K. health and beauty retail chain, pretending he had a meeting and then asking to see if the buyer was free. Boots went on to be Ordo’s first major retailer, though it took years, he added.
Walsh founded the company in 2018
and began by reaching out to dental clinics in the U.K., getting
dentists on board with the products. This helped build an audience
for Ordo before launching in U.K. retail stores in 2019.
While
efficacy came first, Walsh understood the importance of design and
emotion in carving out a niche. The design of oral care products was
generally bland, but Ordo’s line of sonic brushes comes in eight
colors: violet, charcoal gray, rose gold, white/silver, arctic blue,
mint green, snow, and sage. “If people can connect emotionally with
it, they are more likely to use it,” Walsh explained.
Creating an emotional connection with consumers
While Ordo offered a straightforward value proposition, nudging its way into a U.S. market dominated by big players was not as cut and dry. Oral care is a category that is largely monopolized by two major brands globally: Oral-B, from Procter & Gamble, which is reported to comprise 51% of the U.S. electric toothbrush market alone, and Philips, with a reported 23% U.S. market share. Overall, the global oral care market is valued at $37.8 billion, according to Grand View Research, a market research and consulting company.
Ordo eventually partnered with Squishmallows, a brand of stuffed toys, to license some of its popular animal designs for a line of rechargeable or battery-operated toothbrushes aimed at kids and teens. “It added credibility because it had a fan base, and retailers were already working with that brand, which made it a bit easier to get on the shelf,” he continued.
The company also touts its
sustainability commitment. In
the U.K., for example, in addition to offering fully recyclable
toothpaste tubes and reuseable mouthwash bottles, it developed a
closed-loop system for recycling brush heads. Users ship used brush
heads back to Ordo, where they are collected and broken down, with
leftover plastic reprocessed into new home products like soap dishes
that are offered for sale on Ordo’s
website.
Walsh is working on bringing the closed-loop system to other
countries where it sells, including the U.S.
Work
like its sustainability efforts helps tell Ordo’s
brand story to consumers. “People want to believe in the brand and
the journey. We do a lot of charity work with kids and dental causes,
for example,” Walsh noted.
[Read
more: 5 Consumer Trends Shaping Spending Patterns in 2025]
Kids and teens: an untapped oral care market
Ordo
started selling internationally in 2023, first expanding to
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and
Europe, and since late 2024, the U.S., where the oral care market is
valued at $10.3 billion, says Statista.
“Each
country brought its challenges with different markets, currencies,
and buying habits,” noted Walsh. “The U.S. was another beast due
to its size and supply chain complexity. We knew we would do it, but
it would take a bit longer.”
Ordo has grown rapidly in the U.S. since fall 2024. The brand launched first in CVS online and in about 2,000 stores, which has since grown to 6,000. Next came walmart.com and Walmart stores, and Amazon. More retail expansion in mass merchants and smaller nontraditional outlets is imminent.
While Ordo is
devoting time and resources to brand awareness and media events to
build its name here, Walsh noted that U.S. sales have exploded since
the launch, especially in the kids/tweens/teens range, which includes
the Squishmallow and Sonic Lite lines. The Squishmallow rechargeable
kids’ toothbrush is the best seller in the U.S. at around a $30
price point, Walsh said, while the $10 battery version is higher in
volume sales.
The
under-tapped oral care market for kids, tweens, and teens is where
Ordo plans to concentrate. “If you get them young, they have less
expensive dental procedures down the road,” said Walsh, who points
to young families, adults ages 30 to 45 with children, as Ordo’s
core customer.
Ordo’s
goal in its first year on the U.S. market is to capture 10% of the
kids’ market and 2% of the adults' market, which includes teens. In
addition to increasing presence in stores, its U.S. expansion plans
involve more collaborations, and new products like the toothpaste and
mouthwash lines, which Ordo is working on for FDA approval.
U.S.-imposed
tariffs are, of course, a big area of uncertainty, Walsh said. “We’re
doing everything we can to not pass on the costs to the consumer.”
[Read
more: Trend Forecasters on the 6 Consumer Trends Set to Impact Business in 2025]
Sell-through rate is the ultimate KPI to keep in mind
According
to Walsh, hitting the market with a new product comes down to
persistence. He remembers showing up at Boots,
a U.K. health and beauty retail chain, pretending he had a meeting
and then asking to see if the buyer was free. Boots went on to be
Ordo’s first major retailer, though it took years, he added.
Once
a startup is on the shelf, “ultimately, it comes down to the
sell-through rate. You can have a great product and a great brand,
but that’s the ultimate KPI [key performance indicator],” Walsh
said.
“First is emotional and then commercial,” he continued. “Build the [emotional] connection, but then you have to understand what buyers are looking for and think about what the buyer thinks about.”
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