Beauty boxes – Thinking outside the box

Over the past few years, the phenomenon of beauty boxes has taken the C&T industry by storm. But in an increasingly crowded market, companies are exploring new online ventures, emerging markets and niche audiences in a bid to secure their stake as front runners, reports Lucy Copp

The sampling of beauty products has always presented challenges for consumers and brands. For the consumer, these challenges often manifest in the form of two main issues: confidence and accessibility. Approaching a beauty counter salesperson for a sample can be unpredictable, with attitudes towards this method of sampling varying between store and country. The alternative, having make-up applied on a busy shop floor, can also be daunting and is often followed by an unspoken pressure to purchase. Then there is a cross section of society that doesn’t have access to department stores or beauty retailers at all; for these people, it can be a struggle to keep up to date with new beauty launches, let alone source the actual products they want to buy.

Cue the beauty box. Over the past five years, entrepreneurs across the globe have begun to sit up and take notice of the challenges consumers face with sampling and, following the success of box subscription services in other retail categories such as the food industry, they began to explore ways that a similar business model could be applied to beauty. Consequently, a handful of companies began to crop up online in the US, tapping into the ‘try before you buy’ consumer mindset and overcoming traditional sampling obstacles. By bringing beauty samples direct to the consumer, the beauty box phenomenon began to boom worldwide.

Carving out a niche

Today there are over 50 beauty boxes on the market spanning countries in Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australia. Most, but not all, operate on a subscription basis and rely on consumers signing up to their service online and paying a monthly, quarterly or annual fee in return for a selection of sample and full sized beauty products delivered to their door.