News

Beauty retailer hits omnichannel strategy head-on

Sephora is launching a subscription beauty box service and the move is getting applause from industry watchers.

August 12, 2015

Retail shoppers are becoming agnostic to channels, and it’s a trend leading retailers are aware of and responding to with omnichannel strategies.

The latest is beauty retailer Sephora, which is launching a subscription beauty-box service called Play1, according to a Mediapost report citing Women’s Wear Daily.

The $10 box will launch in Boston and Ohio and then go national. It’s a solid strategy to put new products in front of consumers and also gain insight on customers’ needs and wants, according to industry watchers.

"This is just the way of the world now, where multichannel has morphed into omnichannel, and now we’re just calling it all retail," Barbara Kahn, director of the Jay H. Baker Retailing Center at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, told Women’s Wear Daily. “There are apps. There’s a lot of webrooming and showrooming. And it just shows that people are now agnostic to channels."