Bluemercury's Omni-Channel Odyssey

By Matt Pillar, chief editor

July 2015 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

How an ahead-of-its-time, high-end cosmetics merchant moved from purely clicks to an 80-store-andgrowing omni-channel powerhouse.

Barry Beck, COO of luxury cosmetics retailer Bluemercury, admits that he was just a bit too far ahead of a monumental shift in the late 1990’s. In a nutshell, he oversaw the quick rise of a well-funded Internet startup that he and his wife, Marla Malcolm Beck, founded. Back then, the Becks nailed down a million dollars in venture capital to launch a great concept — an e-commerce site for luxury cosmetics from the likes of Chanel, Bobbi Brown, and Fresh. The concept was great, but nobody was buying cosmetics online back then. Nobody was buying much of anything online back then. To boot, in those early days, e-commerce had a somewhat gimmicky feel to it. Those high-end cosmetics suppliers weren’t so sure it would be good for their brand reputations to sell online.