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Hey Reader,

I’m back with the third email in this series. If you are a new subscriber and would like to read the first or second emails, you can do so by clicking here. Without further ado, here’s everything you need to know about our newest brand and, our latest e-commerce play.

A brand I've wanted for a very long time ⭐

This is one I’ve wanted since I started in this industry. I have a couple of friends in other countries that distribute it, but as it’s Unilever owned, they very rarely use distribution networks. I am now happy to announce that we have added Living Proof to our portfolio. The brand was created by bioscientists in 2005 and quickly gained notoriety with Jennifer Aniston as a founding partner in the brand.

We are going to be rolling this out to a very exclusive number of A-Grade salons in Ireland. We will also be positioning the brand within some premium retailers and are looking to achieve the same balance of distribution that they have in the US. This is somewhat new to us as KM and ELEVEN exist exclusively in salons, but we’re excited for the opportunity. If it's something you're interested in, reach out to me directly.

What is Zolo Beauty and why have I launched it? ⬛

For years now, I’ve resisted launching a group e-commerce store for a variety of reasons. Number one on that list was never wanting to compete with my customers. We have some great customers who – in whole or in part – run some fantastic e-commerce platforms in Ireland. I also never wanted to compromise the end-to-end experience a customer gets when they buy from our brand-specific sites (like barebyvogue.com, k18hair.ie or elevenaustralia.ie for example).

These sites are vital in our 360° marketing strategy and make up a key fundamental in what drives in-store awareness and adoption. Simply put, we need a place to drive traffic to when we have influencers and content creators tagging us. This, in turn, gives us a place to harvest email addresses (our most powerful tool) and to build a longstanding relationship with that customer. The site also gives us a place to host a stockist locator.

I’ve had consistent and regular pressure from consumers that shop online in several of our stores asking to consolidate their boxes for reasons of both shipping costs and environmental costs. They all state that they’re aware the boxes are coming from the one warehouse and find it frustrating to have to carry out separate transactions.

Why only do this now? 🤔

The main reason that a group site became a strong consideration as I went through 2022 was something I was seeing in other markets and in other industries. There is a global consolidation of e-commerce happening very quietly and I feel that we may see it appear in beauty soon. What does that mean? Well, right now as a distributor of X brand in Ireland, we own, run and are responsible for the X.ie brand site. Most distributors will do the same in their market – albeit to varying levels of success. I can see in 2023 and 2024 brands beginning to ‘call back in’ their localised e-commerce stores and consolidate them into their main .com.

On a European level, National Beauty would be at the top of the pile in terms of brand e-commerce execution and that puts us right in the limelight. That doesn’t necessarily mean we would be first – in fact, I think we would be last and that they would clean up the badly done sites first. But, as e-commerce makes up a not insignificant part of my business, I need to mitigate against this risk in the long term. By creating a layer between the distribution company and online presence, I am creating a platform on which brands from within our portfolio can live safely.

What's so different about Zolo Beauty?

Good question! Most e-commerce stores focus on choice and discount. Choice is somewhat difficult for us (in the beginning) as we don’t have access to hundreds of brands. We just have access to our own portfolio and a few brands run by my own connections. As for discount, this was where I drew the line and wanted to draw the line with respect to my good customers I mentioned above. We obviously need to do a limited amount of it for first time buyers but the site will never become a discount store.

Instead, we are focusing on what we know we do well: Next day delivery, customer journey, UX & Customer Experience. We have created some beautiful shipping boxes as well as some luxurious black paper that wraps your product inside. Beyond that user experience, we are going to be focusing on search optimisation, email segmentation, customised content, behaviour-based journeys, live human support and rewards.

The site is still very much in development but if you'd like to take a look, head over to www.zolobeauty.com and have a browse. I would love your feedback.
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What I watched this week 📺

I came across a movie on Apple TV+ which was fascinating. Tetris was such a big part of my youth as I lived on my Atari, Commodore 64 and Nintendo. Tetris was an iconic game on the Gameboy but I never new the story was so interesting. It is also mental that Ghislaine Maxwell's father and brother were in the middle of violent negotiations with the Russian government for it! Click here to watch.

Right, that brings another email to a conclusion. I am not getting these out as fast as I'd like and time is the issue. I am thinking about completely reworking my weekly calendar and cutting my "catch-ups" in half. I also want to start blocking out time to just think and plan for the future rather than always being in the now. Like always, if you have any feedback or stuff you'd like me to write about, just hit reply 🙋‍♂️

take care,

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