Luxury beauty ecommerce with Jet.com…

Sindhura Sarikonda, Associate Director of Prestige Beauty at Jet.com & Walmart.com (bio), joins Julie Fredrickson , Regina Gwynn, Stephanie Betzler and guest host (and editor for WWD) Allison Collins for a live audience interview on location at La Marina Restaurant Bar and Beach Lounge in New York Cit. Sponsored by Stylitics, Musefind and Instasleep.

Fast growth, the need for a point of view, and the value proposition for brand partners

Sarikonda reviews her background in ecommerce and consulting, how Jet.com is getting brands on the Prestige Beauty category, how luxury brands want to know they are in good hands, the importance of understanding adjacencies, how pricing is important to brand equity and prices next to brands are priced right for that brand equity, and the reach Jet has with 8 million customers and as the fastest growing ecommerce space. How luxury beauty at Jet.com has partnered with 68 luxury brands in just 3 months, how 50% of beauty sales are in luxury in the industry and 40% of beauty customers have shopped luxury beauty. The need for a POV at jet.com, what beauty at Jet means, and creating a specialty experience for any customer with a different experience for different shopping focuses — making the customer feels different while shopping different areas of jet while always knowing they are on Jet. What shopping cart behavior looks like, and how most shopping carts include a luxury beauty product.

Overcoming the past, authenticity and brand comfort, and driving conversation

A look at how Amazon is apparently not known for courting prestige beauty brands, and resulting reported tension. How to approach partners who might have been previously reticent to partner. The access to the brand portal to see real time sales and resellers, and controlling authorization. How helping to run a startup provides autonomy, and everything happens in one team. Plus, a look at authenticity and brand comfort. Looking at beauty as the slowest adopter of innovation of any lifestyle category, pushing beauty out of the comfort zone, how 9.6% of retail in ecommerce but beauty is only around 6.5%, brands that do well and grow have adopted ecommerce years ago, and how Jet.com works with brands to help them get more into ecommerce. Looking at what drives conversation such as SEO, images, description content and length, pushback from ads for PLA, issues regarding bidding on same keywords as partnered brands, but how sales matters.

Best in Class from two perspectives, a functional differentiator, and an inspiring woman in India

Being very involved with brand partners, what Best in Class looks like from both customer and brand perspectives. Visions of content to provide on platform, being a place of discovery, being treated as an incubator to test out new features, how rolling out functionality is a differentiator, how content needs to be different, but delivery is same. Developing content accurately, considering that brands know their customer and brand the best. New brands discovered along the way, and a top brand on Jet in beauty. Personal questions in Hitting the Pan cover a Williamsburg obsession, Sephora vs. Duane Reade, a favorite beauty aisle, Captain Kirk, an inspiring woman in India, leaving Minnesota forever, and looking to the future at Jet’s trajectory in the beauty business as a prominent beauty destination.

References:

Laura Mercier

Bobbi Brown

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