PHOTO: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS
This WSJ article describes how New-York based direct-to-consumer beauty company Glossier has recently become a billion dollar business. Glossier, Inc. was founded by Emily Weiss (pictured above) in 2014. The brand is now valued at $1.2 billion dollars thanks to a capital infusion by Sequoia Capital. The firm also invested in Charlotte Tillbury in 2017.. Other companies such as Tiger Management and Spark Capital have invested $100 million dollars into Glossier (Chernova and Roof, 2019). Glossier has also hired Vanessa Wittman as chief financial officer. Wittman was previously the chief financial officer of Oath Inc., Dropbox Inc., and Motorola Mobility, LLC (Chernova et. al., 2019). Just last year alone, Glossier generated over $100 million dollars in revenue from their beauty products (which are branded as unisex). Unlike major department and drugstore beauty brands, most of Glossier's customers buy their products directly from its website. The average Glossier customers are millennials and the brand has a major following on social media platforms. Despite having two retail locations (New York and L.A.) and temporary pop-up shops in Miami, Glossier will mainly grow online. As quoted, '“The bulk of our growth is and will continue to be digital,” Ms. Weiss said. “We’re fortunate that we’re in a position where profitability is a choice.” She added: “We’re really choosing to invest in growth.” (Chernova et. al., 2019).
The article also mentions that Glossier is one of New York's most promising direct-to-consumer companies much like Warby Parker. Yet there were some New York-based e-commerce sites that did not fair well such as Fab.com. (Chernova et. al., 2019). Nevertheless, Glossier's investors have hope that Glossier will become a huge success. When Megan Quinn, a general partner at Spark Capital, was asked why she invested in Glossier, she responded that, '“Emily [Weiss] really cracked the code on selling direct to consumers [and that] [b]rands no longer require massive advertising budgets.” This strategy also means the company doesn’t have to pay a commission to retailers'" (Chernova et. al., 2019).
As a fan of Glossier's products, I was not necessarily surprised that the company is getting major investments. I always see their advertisements on Facebook and even recently on YouTube. The products are high quality, yet inexpensive compared to luxury brands. In relation to marketing, Glossier is a great example of a company using the 4 P's successfully. Thanks in part to their clever and frequent advertising on social media, Glossier is able to promote their products. They also regularly have promotions for beauty sets that generate buzz for their products and it's pricing. Finally, Glossier has successfully implemented e-commerce as it's place.
Works Cited: Chernova, Yuliya and Roof, Kathy. Glossier Tops Billion-Dollar Valuation With Latest Funding. Pro VC New Money, The Wall Street Journal, Web, 19 March, 2019. Accessed on 19 March, 2019.
Glossier has grown so big within the beauty community, their marketing strategy has improved so much from when they started. Great story.
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