British department store staple Liberty has come up with a novel way to get beauty shoppers spending in-store and online with them.
The high street name’s new beauty subscription service, The Beauty Drop, asks customers to pay a monthly fee of £20, which transfers into credit that they can spend in-store or online.
The initiative gives customers an incentive to buy beauty with the iconic retailer as it recovers from the full force of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Liberty said it has set up the initiative at a time when it is experiencing steep e-commerce acceleration, as beauty consumers opt for different ways to shop.
Liberty Collective members will be the first to opt into the scheme later this week, while non-members can register their interest from September.
By becoming a Beauty Drop member, Liberty is also offering a free quarterly beauty Discovery Box, curated by its buying team.
The four boxes delivered throughout the year are thought to contain £300 worth of products for the year.
“The events of 2020 and 2021 have shown that beauty is not only a non-negotiable part of our collective self-care routine, but it’s an industry built on incredibile innovation,” said Sarah Coonan, Liberty’s Buying Director.
“We wanted to work closely with our loyal community to make shopping with us even more rewarding.
“What has become clear is how much our beauty customers love our curated edits, from the iconic Liberty Beauty Advent Calendar, which sells out every year, to our high-value Beauty Kits where we often partner with incredible beauty experts.
“The Beauty Drop is the next evolution of this.
“Expertly curated product delivered straight to your door every three months, free delivery on all orders and all monthly payments fully redeemable on products.
“It’s the only beauty subscription that literally pays for itself.”
Shoppers open up to subscriptions
Throughout the pandemic beauty subscription services became a new way for customers to discover beauty products, while their favourite stores were shuttered.
Beauty giant Lush revived its subscription service to meet demands of locked-down consumers and Roccabox, another British subscription box brand, saw revenues at an all time high in 2020, up 500%.
According to findings from Cosmetics Business, since the pandemic hit, 31.7% of customers who had previously bought a subscription service signed up to one during the pandemic; while 70% of those who said they had not bought a subscription beauty box before said they would now consider buying one.
Some 69% of shoppers also agreed the culture towards subscription boxes has shifted since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
The findings also uncovered that more than 74.2% of respondents believe buying a subscription box makes it easier to consume beauty products and 42.4% want a subscription box that offers a selection of products from different categories.
