While online provides an environment within which start-ups can establish a following and challenge longer-established legacy brands on a more level playing field, they must eventually transition from a virtual to a physical reality in order to turn traction into scale.
For all the buzz created by enthusiastic brand ambassadors or the gloss of a slick Instagram presence, there's no substitute for getting hands-on in public to fully check out the goods.
"Most beauty brands are driven by if not an individual then a marketing proposition. A lot of brands coming into the category start off in somebody's kitchen or at somebody's dressing table and then will grow from there into something much, much bigger, so their DNA is in a fairly home-grown environment," Michael Sheridan, Chairman and founder of retail design agency Sheridan&Co, explains to Cosmetics Business.
"Take Morphe, for example, for which we designed a handful of stores in the US from bottom up, and which is now working on its new outlet in the Westfield Centre in Stratford (London).
That's a business that was started in LA by two people at just about the same time that Instagram went live, so it genuinely is a product of the digital era – and with something like 10 million followers to prove it.
[Previously] when it launched products, its audience immediately knew the product was in the market, so it has had very little retail presence up until now, as a lot of the sales were transacted online.
"Now, however, it feels the need to have a
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