Rocket Internet’s Glossybox hits 4m beauty boxes sold

Beauty subscription service Glossybox today announced that it had sold its four-millionth beauty box, meaning that it’s sold a box every 20 seconds since its founding in 2011.

The company, which is a part of German clone incubator Rocket Internet’s massive global stable, operates in 15 countries on three continents and has backing from the likes of Holtzbrinck Ventures and Investment AB Kinnevik.

According to Glossybox founder Charles von Abercron: “When we started our company in 2011, we only had one goal: To provide a broad range of tailored beauty products to different peer groups with a constant element of surprise. Now, less than two and a half years later, we sold our four-millionth box.

With more than 200 000 subscribers and counting on three continents, we already gained a strong competitive edge in the majority of the 15 countries we operate in. The great resonance from our customers reinforces us in what we do and motivates us to push our product to the next level.”

The company puts its success down to “its elegant and creative boxes with the element of surprise across all countries”, as well as the broad range of diverse target groups it claims to cater for: men, women, teenagers, brides, expecting mothers or natural cosmetics lovers.

Glossybox also says its success also benefits big brands such as L’Oréal, Mont Blanc, Burberry Beauty, Yves Saint Laurent or Lancaster, because the model provides a great marketing platform to increase reach and sales in early adopter groups. So far, the company says, it has managed to get more than 400 partners on board. These companies can then get “detailed insights about the adoption of products”,something which they’d ordinarily have to do market research to find out.

People can choose between different subscription boxes as well as special one-off boxes. The main model, the Glossybox Beauty, contains five cosmetic and body care products and is sent to the customers each month based on the subscribers’ Glossybox beauty profiles.