Now that Tarek and Heather El Moussa have joined forces in holy matrimony and in the business of flipping homes and in starring on their own show, “The Flipping El Moussas,” we figured it was only a matter of time before they took the next step that all reality star couples take.

Can you guess? They’ve embarked on selling their own line of home decor.

Pretty much all big-name reality TV stars hawk their own products, of course. Chip and Joanna Gaines peddle home accessories galore at Magnolia and Target. Property brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott launched a furniture line at Living Spaces. Dave and Jenny Marrs of “Fixer to Fabulous” have a slew of outdoor wares at Walmart. Even Tarek’s ex-wife, Christina Hall, has her own bracelet line. In short, the list of celebrity-endorsed products is nearly endless.

So it stands to reason that the El Moussas would also enter into the fray. Yet while I was excited to check out their offerings, I have to admit I was somewhat underwhelmed.

Is Tarek and Heather El Moussa’s home decor line a flop?

Home by Tarek & Heather currently offers only four products: two candles priced at $38, one candle priced at a jaw-dropping $249, and a dispenser of hand soap for $16.

Apparently, these four products are just the start, with more to come—at least according to the second episode of their show, when Tarek and Heather were celebrating the arrival of some samples. They are not only sniffing candle scents, but also plumping pillows and nuzzling what looked like whisper-soft throws.

Tarek describes their new line: “In all of our flips, we’re going to put in candles, we’re going to do floor mats, rugs, maybe blankets, like homey stuff. Like comfy rugs and pillows.”

“So when people walk in, they know it’s a home by Heather and Tarek—er, Tarek and Heather. Sorry,” Heather says with a laugh.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who immediately wanted one of those throws. Given my anticipation, I was sorely disappointed to scour their website with nary a throw in sight—just four freaking products, one of them a $249 candle.

Could they have been overly eager to get to market, or just painfully naive about marketing home products? Tarek is known for selling homes, but selling home decor is a whole different game.

To find out what they might have been thinking, I reached out to consummate branding and marketing expert Klint Briney, founder and CEO of BRANDed Management. His company has worked with celebs, including Ed Sheeran, LeAnn Rimes, Mariah Carey, and Mark Cuban among others.

I asked him why the El Moussas launched so few products right out of the gate—shouldn’t they have waited until they had more to offer? Briney thinks not.

“By entering the saturated market of celebrity brands and home goods, a more risk-averse approach would be to initiate a small launch to test the market,” Briney says.

In other words, less is initially more when it comes to these lines.

“They chose two hero products that are both gender-neutral, accessibly-priced, and shelf-stable,” Briney continues. “In a time when most Americans struggle with decision fatigue, fewer offerings can often initiate higher conversion rates, as they are not bombarding the consumer with too many choices.”

I heard that. When I do a search on Amazon for one specific product and get 20 pages of results, I am usually overwhelmed by the choices and hold off on my purchase.

Tarek and Heather’s products haven’t been picked up yet by big-box stores like Target and Walmart, where their contemporaries have a presence? Is that a bad sign?

Not really, according to Briney.

“It appears they are taking a more targeted and narrow approach upon launch, as it is critical for them to ‘win their own backyard’ before employing a more large-scale, blanketed rollout,” Briney continues. “Their items are strategically branded Newport Beach and Los Angeles, the two markets they work and reside in. This sort of data is great presentation material when meeting with mainstream retailers, which often leads to better terms.”

In other words, you start out small and targeted, prove your work in a niche area, then your business offers a lot more value to a big-box store.

“They can learn a lot by the recent acquisition of Aussie brand Aesop,” Briney adds. This producer of skin, hair, and body care products was recently “acquired by Loreal for $2.5 billion, the largest in company history.”

If they’re lucky, Tarek and Heather, after starting with a few candles and some hand soap, could end up with a billion-dollar deal with a major international corporation.

“In an era of cancel culture and the fast rise and fall of most celebrity careers, the fact that Tarek has had a show in production over 10 years, along with reinventing himself after a high-profile divorce, shows his marketplace viability,” Briney concludes.

Forget the throws. Maybe instead I should buy stock in the El Moussa company.

The post Tarek and Heather El Moussa Have Just Taken an Important (and Obvious) Next Step—but Is It a Flop? appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.