Germany-based fashion e-retailer Zalando SE last week opened a physical store in Berlin called Beauty Station—its first brick-and-mortar location. The retailer already sells discounted items in its four outlet stores. The new store, however, sells beauty products, which Zalando also began selling online in March 2017 on its German website Zalando.de.
The new store from Zalando, No. 6 in the Internet Retailer 2018 Europe 500, will feature 53 beauty brands, including MAC, The Estée Lauder Cos. Inc. (No. 70 in the Internet Retailer 2018 Top 1000) and Clinique. The store also will offer tutorials and treatment stations at make-up counters and nail bars.
“This is a big step for Zalando and its new beauty category,” says Claudia Reth, vice-president of specialties, premium, beauty and kids. “With these highly established partner brands, we can enhance our beauty assortment even more for our customers.”
Zalando reported a 22% sales growth year over year for Q1 2018 to £1.05 billion ($1.23 billion). The fashion section of its e-commerce site accounted for £959.7 million ($1.12 billion) of those sales, a 20.4% growth compared with £797.3 million ($932.2 million) in the same quarter last year.
In other e-commerce news:
- Beauty company Avon Products Inc., No. 327 in the Internet Retailer 2018 Top 1000, has hired two technology executives. Benedetto Conversano will be Avon’s senior vice president and chief digital and information technology officer—a newly created role. Prior to Avon, Conversano was chief global information officer at international food, health and beauty business Jerónimo Martins. He also served on Ikea’s (No. 75) e-commerce board. Additionally, Heather Payne has been named chief technology officer. Before Avon, Payne held the same role at media business Daily Mail Group.
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Online grocery and personal care retailer and manufacturer Brandless has raised $240 million in Series C funding, led by the SoftBank Vision Fund. Existing investors NEA, Redpoint Ventures, GV, and Sherpa Capital also participated in the round. Brandless says it plans to use the funding to deepen its investment in data science and accelerate the creation and distribution of new products and categories, as well as invest in its operations and logistics platforms. Brandless is a consumer packaged goods retailer where everything it sells—from organic extra virgin olive oil to green tea and aloe body wash—is $3. It also offers a shipping membership that’s just $36 a year. “SoftBank’s deep experience in e-commerce, global network and long-term perspective will help us accelerate our mission to make better stuff accessible and affordable for more people,” said Tina Sharkey, co-founder and CEO of Brandless.
- Barneys New York Inc. (No. 180) has named Katherine Monasebian as chief digital and technology officer, where she will oversee the digital, e-commerce and information technology teams. Prior to Barneys, she was head of marketing and e-commerce for jewelry retailer Alex and Ani LLC (No. 300), chief marketing officer and new business development manager for luxury watch retailer Tourneau and chief marketing officer and executive vice president of e-commerce for athletic apparel retailer Lululemon Athletica Inc. (No. 90).
- E-commerce platform vendor GroupBy Inc. has appointed Mark Stibbe as chief information officer and as privacy officer. Stibbe will oversee the company’s IT initiatives, internal reporting and analytics. Prior to joining GroupBy in 2013 and serving as GroupBy’s vice president of customer solutions, Stibbe worked at cloud computing software company Oracle Corp. as practice director for North America East and as client director at performance management software company Cognos.
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