Back in 2010, two US business school students noticed that e-commerce sales were on a rapid upward trajectory across almost every category except for beauty and personal care, where only between 2% and 5% of sales were online. "That felt like a big opportunity for disruption," said Savannah Sachs, managing director of Birchbox UK.
Two other observations by the pair were also important to the development of the beauty-oriented subscription service: one was how the beauty industry used samples, typically giving them to customers who'd already bought something in-store – so more about customer loyalty than customer acquisition (and with...