Glossier Case Study

1 Glossier Case Study The makeup brand Glossier dominates the beauty industry with its online presence. The beauty industry has become a $532 billion industry, according to Business Insider. Glossier’s business is done entirely online, which is very rare for a makeup and skin care beauty brand, but Glossier identified this gap in the industry and had yielded $86 million from venture capital investors, growing rapidly. While over 80% of beauty and personal care products were still purchased through physical retailers, direct-to-consumer digital brands are gaining traction.

Glossier has been named as a top beauty brand by Allure, Teen Vogue, Glamour, Nylon, Women’s Wear Daily and Cosmopolitan. It also won WWD Beauty Inc. 2015 Digital Innovator of the Year award, was named to LinkedIn Top Startups of 2018 list, recognized by Fast Company as one of its Most Innovative Companies of 2017 and called out as one of Inc.’s Company of the Year 2017 (Forbes 2018). Glossier encourages women to celebrate the uniqueness of who they are, and their company reflects this. Glossier is described as a “people-powered beauty ecosystem.” They release products slowly into the market by analyzing the feedback from their audience. Glossier stays closely connected to their consumers and are able to fulfill any basic demand other beauty brands may be overlooking (Numerator 2018).

Emily Weiss, Co-Founder of Glossier, was taking on the $433 billion global beauty industry, projected to grow to $750 billion by 2021 and dominated by eight companies. The estimated annual revenue for Glossier is estimated at $100 million. Glossier’s top #1 rival is Milk Makeup. Milk is in the personal products field with an estimated revenue of $4 million.

Milk generates $96 million less revenue than Glossier. Lime Crime is another one of Glossier’s top competitors that also competes in the personal products field. Lime Crime generates 2.50%

2 the revenue of Glossier with an estimated $2.5 million in annual revenue. RMS Beauty is a top competitor with an estimated $3 million in annual revenue (Owler 2019). By 2018, Glossier offered a line of products ranging from $12 to $60, placing the brand at a higher price point than mass-market and drugstore brands, but lower than most brands sold by specialty retailers or in department stores. Glossier is the number one beauty brand in the market, with Milk Makeup second behind. RMS Beauty is third in the beauty market, followed by Lime Crime.

The brand Glossier emerged from the beauty blog, Into the Gloss, which was launched by the CEO and founder, Emily Weiss in 2010 right after she left her career at Teen Vogue and Condé Nast. The beauty blog strived to give its readers tricks and tips on makeup. The blog was successful and attracted women of all different backgrounds and eventually got to the point of popularity where Emily Weiss was able to create a brand out of the demand of the market she saw through the lens of her blog. The brand initially focused on skin care, but later expanded to be what it is today with categories of makeup, fragrances, skin care, body and even merch. An excerpt from their website states, “Glossier is a new approach to beauty. It’s about fun and freedom and being OK with yourself today. We make intuitive, uncomplicated products designed to live with you”. The brand was formed around the idea that beauty is as much of an element of personal style as fashion. Emily Weiss, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Alexandra Weiss, and Chief Financial Officer Henry Davis helped to expand the brand and were able to get sales up 600% in 2017. Into The Gloss delivered a continuous stream of new products, launching one product about every six weeks. By 2018, Glossier was able to carefully curate and edit a line of 26 products, ranging from $12 to $60, which put the company at a higher price point than most drug store brands. Now, Glossier focuses on expanding their company to continue to live up to their goals they have and to serve the wants of the audience they have attracted over the years.

3 Glossier has many strengths in their company. A huge strength for the Glossier brand is it is the “first socially driven brand.” Compared to other beauty brands, Glossier has leverage on social media by creating a feed on Instagram to 2.4 million followers that speaks directly to what women want to see. They can use their platform to directly communicate with their audience’s wants, needs and concerns. This creates a desire for social media users to want to share their Glossier purchases with their followers. The company focused on empowering Glossier’s customers to share their passion for the brand, outsourcing many marketing tasks to them. Within the first year, Glossier spent little on paid marketing; instead, it drove nearly 80 percent of its sales from owned and earned media. The also utilize social media by using a professional influencer marketing program.

Because the brand was created by an influencer, Glossier created a representative program where influencers can sell Glossier products for commission. Representatives of the brand are the first to receive notice of product launches, participate in exclusive feedback sessions, have direct access to Glossier’s team, and can host brand events. The influencers help to build their “beauty in real life” philosophy, creating a desire for social media users to want to share their Glossier purchases with their followers. Another strength of the company is their use of packaging. The minimalist, simple, yet modern packaging and down-to-earth messaging goes against the sense of unattainability seen by other beauty brands. Their brand encourages women to celebrate their own uniqueness. The brand’s identity featured a simple logo, a curvy graphic G on a field of soft, washed-out pink making their look distinctive. The brand was built to be social media friendly. The minimalist packaging and graphics were used because they would photograph well, adding to their social media brand.

4 Glossier is an online-based company which is a weakness of their company as the customer doesn’t test out the products before purchase. Customers could potentially end up dissatisfied by their purchases. The company is restricted to strictly an online presence, and this could limit their reach to other consumers. Glossier has the opportunity to reach an untapped audience beyond their online presence by moving from digital to physical. Currently, Glossier is only available in North America and in the UK, which gives them an opportunity to become a global brand if they choose to expand. The company has many opportunities to expand and build physical stores if they choose because of their huge and loyal clientele base. There is an opportunity to create a loyalty program to enhance its relationships with customers. The biggest threat Glossier faces is the crowded marketplace of the beauty industry. Currently, the industry has blown up to be a $532 billion industry. Glossier faces the risk of losing customers to global brands. Being heavily customer-based, customer reviews can put the brand in a bad light.

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The company Glossier has dominated the beauty market by creating a direct-toconsumer digital brand. Emily Weis was able to utilize their social media to speak directly to their consumers. This allowed the company to pursue marketing strategies through their followers without spending a ton on paid marketing. Weis created conversation on her blog Into the Gloss. The company was able to easily identify what their customers wanted and what their customers valued. The niche they were able to find was that to many customers, big beauty brands didn’t matter to them so much because they didn’t know where their products were coming from. Glossier found that there was product loyalty, but the products were becoming separated from the brands. Glossier created a brand focusing on the trends for natural-looking

6 skin. Because the company is very consumer-oriented, they could create a loyalty program and build on the loyalty they currently have.

Although Glossier is a highly successful online beauty store, the company faces barriers that may prevent them from reaching the top of the industry. With the beauty industry being as big of a market it is, the competition is fierce. Glossier needs to consider that the market is fickle to change at any given moment and they can lose or gain business quickly. With that being said, the barriers they face are as follows. Glossier is not a global brand and is missing out on a global niche audience. If they were to expand globally, they would not only increase the overall awareness of their products but would also see an increase in revenue. They also have competitors, such as the brand, Milk, that are right behind them and have the potential to move up if they are able to improve in areas Glossier does not.

A solution with competitors is that Glossier could launch a sales representative program or a professional influencer marketing program. Glossier also needs to consider that most top beauty brands have physical stores and not having any may be a downside in the long-run of Glossiers’ business. The company could go a long way towards opening new showrooms, hosting more pop-ups, encouraging at-home peer-to-peer-selling, or moving into Sephora. The company could combine an online community with an e-commerce platform. Weis believes that people want to hang out on Glossier.com just like they do on Into the Gloss. No one else is creating a space like this - where you’ll interact with a community one day and then the next day you’ll go back and shop. If Glossier can use these solutions to their advantage and be proactive about strategic options, their company would grow exponentially and make an impact on larger audiences.

7 Works Cited Avery, Jill. “Glossier: Co-Creating a Cult Brand with a Digital Community.” Harvard Business Publishing, 22 Oct. 2019 Badlotto, Jill. “Millennials, Marketing, and Makeup: How Glossier Is Revolutionizing the Beauty Industry.” Numerator, 5 Mar. 2018.

Biron, Bethany. “Beauty Has Blown up to Be a $532 Billion Industry - and Analysts Say That These 4 Trends Will Make It Even Bigger.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 9 July 2019.

Danziger, Pamela N. “5 Reasons That Glossier Is So Successful.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 7 Nov. 2018.

“Skincare & Beauty Products Inspired by Real Life.” Glossier, 2014.