Birchbox Wants Customers To Help Decide Where Next Stores Will Be

birchboxinBirchbox, the company to blame for the current subscription beauty box trend, opened a retail store last year in Manhattan, where shoppers can create their own boxes in person and shop for other beauty products. Now the company wants to expand, and wants customers to tell them where to build their next store.

The plan is to use shipping containers to create pop-up stores in three different cities next month, then open permanent stores in two cities sometime in 2016. To promote this summer tour, Birchbox is asking users to vote on their preferred city, which will be one factor in how they decide which cities to visit or settle down in. Voting ends on Friday, July 17.

“Our offline customers have a higher lifetime value with us online, so for us, this isn’t just another cute pop-up,” co-founder and CEO Katia Beauchamp said in a statement. “It’s a serious step towards further retail expansion and a way for us to test the waters in new markets.” While the company already knows where their customers are located, with the whole shipping-monthly-boxes-to-them thing, their most dedicated customers are the one who will stop by the website and ask the beauty retailer to come to their city.

The expansion is also an expansion of the Birchbox Man brand: each pop-up stop will have separate shops for products for men or women, and one of the new stores that will open next year will feature only men’s products.

Online beauty retailer Birchbox delving deeper into offline [Chain Store Age]

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