Lady LUX

Billing itself as “the world's premier online luxury fashion retailer,” Net-a-porter is adding beauty products to its incredible range of offerings with The Quintessential Edit. Releasing March 20, the new line will incorporate brands such as 3Lab, Aesop, Beauty Works West, Chantecaille, Ilia, James Read, Joya Ames Soeurs, Le Métier de Beauté, Natura Bissé, Philip B and Sarah Chapman, reported WWD.

To include makeup, hair care, skin care, nail polish and perfumes, the new offering is a big move for the international retailer, which has already expanded into menswear and the off-price market.
“The proposition is really where the beauty-meets-fashion aspect, and we see it as so symbiotic with the rest of our offerings. As we’ve developed our content, beauty is such a big part of fashion,” Alison Loehnis, Net-a-porter’s managing director, told WWD. “As we started to expand it was a disconnect to not be able to offer beauty. By being at the front lines, we have an enormous amount of insight and exposure to talent and also product.”

In keeping with the luxe theme, the prices are nothing to sneeze at. Products range from Chantecaille’s $35 lipstick and $500 Joya Ames Soeurs solid perfume to Philip B’s luxe Russian Amber Imperial Shampoo for $140 and a Le Métier de Beauté antiaging complex for $125.

According to Loehnis, the expansion – to be offered directly on the Netaporter.com site – is not a whole new venture but rather a new category. While the company is thinking big and aiming high, the managing director maintains that Net-a-porter wishes to keep its status as primarily a fashion business and not become a stand-alone beauty destination.

While the online sphere is crowded with firmly established beauty behemoths, such as Sephora and Blue Mercury, Loehnis asserted that Net-a-porter will stand out due to its different approach. The site hopes to attract shoppers in search of combining their fashions with their beauty scheme. As part and parcel of a head-to-toe look, beauty thus becomes an integral part of fashion – and an integral part of Net-a-porter’s business plan.

“It’s so interesting because we have this panel of just under 10,000 customers that are superusers who provide us with amazing insight. Beauty is the chart topper without fail,” Loehnis said, noting that the top categories consumers have inquired after during the past three years are men’s, beauty and children’s wear. “We’ve known this, and hearing it from customers again and again was additional encouragement.”

Also in search of expanding its reach, next week the e-tailer will launch websites in Mandarin, French and German. Although Net-a-porter vends its wares to 172 countries, the new launch will be the first time the majority of the site will be multilingual.

“It’s fascinating operationally to see how things do get easier, and from a customer perspective to see what’s moving and to see what people are responding to and when. I’ve been surgically attached to the screens and Net-a-porter Live,” Loehnis declared, noting that the retailer launched its third distribution center in Hong Kong on Thursday.

Loehnis estimates the new distribution center will mean express delivery times improve by roughly one day. Customers from Hong Kong, Australia, China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, India, Indonesia, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam will be able to purchase items using Hong Kong, Australian or U.S. dollars.

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