Beauty retailer Bluemercury is going strong and has plans for significant expansion during a time when many brick and mortar stores are shutting their doors.
According to Barry Beck, Founder and COO of Bluemercury, location is everything.
“I bet I could open 60 stores in Manhattan, 40 stores in Chicago, 50 in the greater Chicago area, and that’s my intention. We don’t see cannibalization, we see overall lift,” said Beck in a report by the Chicago Tribune.
BlueMercury was launched in 1999 as an upscale, neighborhood alternative to department store beauty departments. It was purchased by Macy’s in 2015 for $210 million and has nearly 140 locations nationwide with plans to open 40 stores in 2017.
When asked why he believes consumers will continue to purchase cosmetics from physical stores Beck responded, “For me it’s about customer behavior. People are ultimately social beings. They love interacting and they love being connected to each other, and shopping is a social experience, so I don’t think it’s going to go away. It’s just going to change. The store has to transition to become a place for information, education, edu-tainment, where we’ll do your facials and you can come in for a quick tip or trick or when you’ve got an emergency blemish and you’re on your way to a black-tie event.”
Accelerated Analytics reports and analyzes POS data from Bleumercury for beauty customer L’Oreal. For more information on our beauty industry expertise, POS data reporting and analysis solution and a list of our beauty clients, visit our website.
Source: Chicago Tribune
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