E-commerce retailer Quidsi today launched its third e-commerce site, BeautyBar.com, carrying luxury beauty products with a price point ranging from $20 to a $715 anti-aging cream.
The site is offering 3,000 products that Carolyn Childers, director of merchandizing at Quidsi, places in the “prestige” category. It hopes to compete with department stores that sell online, she said.
Although this is the second e-commerce site the company has launched in less than four months, both Childers and David Zhang, director of marketing at the Jersey City, NJ-based company, contend that BeautyBar.com compliments Quidsi’s existing sites, Diapers.com and Soap.com.
“We went back and forth internally about whether to launch Soap.com and BeautyBar.com at same time,” said Childers. “The person looking for Pantene shampoo is also looking for Bliss Body Cream. I don’t think the two dilute each other; they compliment each other.”
The three sites share backend systems, including an in-house call center, shipping, a warehouse and an online shopping cart. The company hopes that BeautyBar.com leverages the half-million-strong active customer base that Diapers.com has established, and that it will narrowly target consumers interested in luxury beauty products.
Quidsi is relying heavily on PR from its agency LaunchSquad for the debut, as well as some social media marketing, cross-site online promotions and e-mail to existing Quidsi customers. The company is also considering a future catalog. Current incentives include free 1-to-2 day shipping on orders of more than $25 and free samples with each order.
Acknowledging that the potential customer base for Soap.com is much larger given its focus on general household products, Zhang said the company expects that by next year BeautyBar will be about one-tenth the size of Soap.com in terms of revenue. “BeautyBar has a smaller individual product count but it is focused on $200 and $500 products,” he said. “We’re expecting BeautyBar to be a smaller business, but a profitable part of the business.”
“As we add sites to our portfolio, we’re adding to the value proposition in that you’re able to get so many errands done at the same time,” Zhang said. “Many of our orders are cross-site orders, which is what we are hoping for.”
