Digital Forum: Birchbox Plans Small-Format ‘Expressions’ in 500 Walgreens Stores

Birchbox — which has toyed with retail concepts over its nine-year trajectory — may have found one that sticks. Katia Beauchamp, Birchbox cofounder and chief executive officer, said that the company is planning to expand further with Walgreens in November. “We are launching 500 stores with small expressions in November of this year,” Beauchamp told the crowd at the WWD Digital Forum. So far, Birchbox has been opening up shop-in-shops with Walgreens, which have been “meaningfully changing beauty sales” in the Walgreens doors they are in, Beauchamp said. Birchbox also just gave employees in 3,000 Walgreens stores the ability to subscribe people to Birchbox, Beauchamp said. “The next thing we’re testing is how can we leverage humans to remove the friction for the casual consumer,” she said. The idea, she noted, is to think about what “nirvana” looks like for the shopper, and then try to create that. For Birchbox, that means targeting a different consumer than most in the beauty industry, who often target beauty enthusiasts over those who are less deeply engrained in the category. They call that customer “Caj” — meaning “casual” — Beauchamp said. Really, she noted, the beauty enthusiast category is a small part of the overall industry. “Ultimately, we are

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