Subscription beauty product services are popping up all across the country. And this weekend, one of the top startups is bringing its services to Chicago to test a pop-up shop on Michigan Avenue.
Chicago is just one of three cities that will be a site for the New York-based company to test out its “roadtrip” shop to see if it’s worth adding a physical store in the city. Atlanta and Los Angeles are the other cities that will be part of the pop-up shop tests.
Birchbox, a $10 monthly subscription service that ships beauty products right to the customer’s door, has been working on growing its bricks-and-mortar presence. Its first shop opened in NYC last year and two more shops are in the works. The company focuses on delivering sample-size, high-end products to help consumers get a taste of the beauty market.
“We found that we really tap into a different beauty consumer that isn’t really the focus of other retailers because she is not the highest spending,” Birchbox co-founder Katia Beauchamp told The Chicago Tribune. “She is just the everyday woman who has a casual relationship with beauty, but we get her to double her spend in the category within six months. We can’t just be there for her online, we need to be there for her full stop.”
Birchbox has grown substantially since it was founded five years ago and it now boasts 1 million subscribers. The company, which offers samples from across 500 brands, has managed to raise $72 million in that five-year time. Its big competitor in the market is Sephora, which has plans to soon launch a similar test subscription service in certain markets called Play!
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