Glossy, a beauty blog that explores fashion and beauty through the lens of technology, recently keyed in on a few direct sellers who are taking innovative approaches to peer-to-peer selling.
A recent Glossy article mentioned Beautycounter, New Avon and Avon Products Inc., all three of which have launched new initiatives in the past year to enhance the customer experience.
Beautycounter became a full omnichannel brand last month when it opened a store in the Soho. The company, which was founded in 2013, has over 40,000 specialists selling its cosmetics through its e-commerce site. CEO Gregg Renfrew said social selling was necessary to start the brand five years ago because it was a useful tool to scale the business and to educate the customer around clean beauty. However, the opening of the Soho store was the brand’s attempt to be wherever the customer wants to be.
“Direct and social selling has always been an important part of our strategy, because we know our story is best told person-to-person,” said Renfrew. “[But] we are multichannel in order to meet our customers how and where they like to shop.”
Beautycounter—which is on track to generate $325 million in annual revenue for 2018 according to Business of Fashion—is not the only direct selling company changing up the peer-to-peer beauty selling concept. In the past year:
- New York City-based New Avon launched a podcast called “Make It Happen,” which brought together top-selling Representatives and industry insiders to share stories and inspirational advice.
- London-based Avon Products Inc. debuted a skin-shade matching app that delivers diagnostics regardless of ethnicity, skin tone and type using a phone camera and a unique calibration card exclusively available to Avon Representatives.
To read the full Glossy article, click here.
