What is Birchbox? Birchbox Review

Basic Introduction

Founded in July 2010, Birchbox is an online beauty brand headquartered in New York, USA. Its founders are Katia Beauchamp and Haley Barna, graduates of Harvard Business School. Users only need to pay $10 per month to the website to become members. Every month, Birchbox will regularly send members a small sample gift box suitable for their skin type and needs. In addition, there are also beauty and makeup tips and tutorials on it. Initially, Birchbox only served female users. After 2012, the company expanded its target population to men, and the company's region also expanded to Europe.

There are more than 800 brands on Birchbox, which can be divided into two categories. One is high-quality niche brands. Due to the lack of funds and channels, they cannot connect with users, so small brands are more willing to cooperate with Birchbox. On the other hand, some top cosmetics brands such as Kiehl's and Benefit have also found opportunities and started to cooperate with Birchbox to promote their new products. Usually, if users are satisfied with the samples after trying them, they will directly place an order on Birchbox to buy genuine products.

Website Mode

They charge a monthly membership fee of $30-60, and send trial samples of skin care and cosmetics every month based on the consumer's personal information and preferences.

Birchbox's main profit model

One is a subscription-based monthly income of $10 ($20 for men);

The second is the share of income from goods sold in the online mall.

Development History

By the end of October 2010, Birchbox had 2,000 paying customers.

In January 2011, Birchbox had 5,000 members, with 50 new users added every day. In April, it had 22,000 members, and by August, it had more than 45,000 members.

In February 2012, according to media reports, the number of members had surged to 100,000.

In September 2012, Birchbox acquired JolieBox, and since then Birchbox has had operations in France, Spain and the United Kingdom outside the United States.

In November 2012, Birchbox entered the third field - home, entertainment, and design items. For example, the home deco box is a box worth $58, which contains decorations, kitchen utensils, food, etc. needed for various parties and evening parties.

Birchbox opened its first physical store in New York in July 2014. It later opened a second store in Washington, DC.

In June 2015, Birchbox and Gap cooperated to open temporary counters in seven Gap flagship stores in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and New York. This offline effort also confirmed the importance of the O2O landing process for e-commerce.

Financing

In October 2010, Birchbox received $1.4 million in funding led by First Round Capital and Accel Partners.

In 2011, the company completed a $10.5 million Series A round led by Accel Partners, with participation from First Round Capital, Harrison Metal, Forerunner Ventures, Lerer Ventures, Sam Lessin, Consigliere, Gary Vaynerchuck, Dave Morin, Stanford University Endowment and Andy Dunn.

In April 2014, Birchbox received $60 million in Series B funding, with a valuation of $485 million. This round of funding was led by Viking Global Investors, followed by First Round Capital, Accel Partners, Aspect Partners and Consigliere Brand Partners. (2014-04-21 20:32:42 Source: )

In August 2016, Birchbox received a new round of investment of US$15 million from investors including First Round Capital, Accel Partners and Viking Global Investors.

References

• 1. After two layoffs in half a year, investors injected $15 million to help Birchbox come back to life: Sohu [cited on 2016-08-03T16:00:00.000Z]
• 2. Birchbox: Monthly cosmetics subscription: Dreamweaver source code [reference date 2013-09-30T16:00:00.000Z]
• 3. Birchbox is a women’s favorite website that combines trial and retail, and is a customized cosmetics website: Hong Kong Silicon Valley [reference date 2011-08-10T16:00:00.000Z]
• 4. Imitators flocked to interpret the unique charm of Birchbox website model: A5 Venture Network [cited date 2012-03-04T16:00:00.000Z]
• 5. irchbox received $60 million in Series B funding, with a valuation of $485 million: NetEase Technology [cited on 2014-04-20T16:00:00.000Z]
• 6. The cosmetics subscription model may have come to an end: Local Network [cited on 2016-02-15T16:00:00.000Z]