Although everyone and their mother launched a subscription service last year, good-looking sideboards dominated the market for most of the decade.
Things reached a climax in 2010 when Katia Beauchamp and Hayley Barna, Harvard Business School graduates, introduced Birchbox, a good-looking company that promised to deliver a box of makeup and skin care samples to her door for just $10 a month.
The concept caught the attention of the good-looking industry, bringing Birchbox $ 1.4 million in seed investment in its first month of activity, prompting immediate global expansion in the UK, France, Spain and Belgium.
In 2014, the corporate valued at $485 million.
But over the years, his price proposal has disappeared.Magazines introduced good-looking cabinets, good-looking brands introduced good-looking cabinets, and discussions about “subscription fatigue” exploded as everyone from razor manufacturers to food kits implemented their own subscription models.
The category of well-looking subscription box in limbo and, in February 2020, Birchbox was forced to reduce its overall staff by 25%.
“Being a global company, operating locally in all markets, is the most productive thing we can do, but at the same time we learned that efficiencies had to be achieved and that it was one of the offsets,” says Alex Valbona, president of Birchbox Europe.
Many competitors followed suit and abandoned their subscription altogether.Even the good-looking giant, Sephora, ended his “Play” service after five years of relative success, replacing it with exclusive collections of good-looking patterns ranging from $10 to $25.
So, what may have been the last nail in the coffin, the accidental resurrection of the good-looking box industry.
Layoffs have been low-kept during the global coronavirus outbreak.”No one can simply say that I had expected something like this Array …except Bill Gates,” Valbona laughs.” But we learned that one of the trends was noticed, probably since 2010, 2012.”more or less — it’s on the rise: cocoon.”
Cocooning vaguely defines the concept that consumers are susceptible to enjoying entertainment and retail reports from the comfort of their homes.
“It accelerated through COVID, but we were already the pioneers of this trend in the beauty sector and we were in the most productive position to make the most of it,” he says.
From February to early March, the pandemic hit the company, making it more difficult to turn visitors into subscribers on the online page, but only lasted a few weeks.”In mid-March, everyone found out that we were going to spend a lot of time at home and that it’s the best time to stay and start taking care of ourselves.
“The acquisition took advantage of this trend and everyone started to convert well.We didn’t see an increase in cancellations. Cancellations are solid and acquisitions are higher.”
As new consumers flocked to the brand’s many global sites, he also noted that newcomers shared a “psychographic mindset.””They’re not experts in the good looks,” he says, “but they’re willing to take care of themselves.”With the right advice, each and every visitor is willing to spend more on the category, so they are willing to spend more on good looks.They are not motivated by passion, but by purpose.
With a large number of new subscribers on its side, Valbona believes the company now has the momentum to correct the mistakes it would have possibly made in the past.
“2019 has reinforced our idea. One of the differentiating points we have in our market is the visitor to which we are aimed: the informal visitor of good appearance.
“We have replaced and refocused our marketing strategy to target this customer, as they were more valuable than in the past.”
For years, the industry has been providing products, messages and vending to a customer who claims to have a higher point of knowledge of good looks, most customers of good looking products have no compatibility with this mold.
For Valbona, the assembly of “casual good-looking customers” is valuable because they have a tendency to locate the intimidating sector and do not need to have interaction in the category in the same way as experts or artists.
“We are expanding the market by attracting a customer who is willing to spend more on the category and asking them to increase their expenses by combining samples, content and prescription,” he says.
“One of the things we’re committed to is evolving our platform and subscription style to something more flexible, and that’s one of the things we’re working on by 2021.”
In particular, lasting and “clean” beauty.” Not only because we need to bring those kinds of brands to our customers, but also because we are going to invest in our own brands to bring them to our customers.Building our own brands is exciting.”
Exciting and, perhaps, a small glimmer of hope for the pandemic in general.
Award-winning journalist and blogger of everything that resembles culture: write about trends before they are global, innovation before advertising and the long term before
Award-winning journalist and blogger of everything that resembles culture: write about trends before they’re global, innovation before it’s publicity, and the long run before it arrives.