See and try. This was the ritual for buying dozens of products even before the pandemic, including cosmetics. But the American brand IPSY wants to do things differently in Mexico through a personalized service, which is accessed through a monthly subscription. A format that in 2015 other brands had tried for the sale of clothing and that is now making a strong comeback for the sale of cosmetics.
With the payment of 319 pesos, those who contract the IPSY service will receive a bag with five products -makeup, hair products or skincare-. The company will select the products based on the data they collect from their customers. These bags will be shipped from the firm’s distribution center located in Texas, United States, while alliances for logistics in Mexico are being set up.
Mexico is the first country outside North America to be reached by the company, which was founded in 2011. For Marcelo Camberos, co-founder and CEO of BFA industries, the attractiveness of the market is its size and the growing search for personalized products and services.
“I have high expectations (for growth), because for me in this market the service is an opportunity. We have brands that are easily accessible in the United States and here, except for some specific stores, it is difficult to access these brands at an affordable price”, he declares without revealing his growth projections or investment for arrival in Mexico.
The beauty and personal care market in Mexico is growing and will go from 9,440 million dollars in 2020 to 19,480 million by 2028, with a growth of the compound annual rate (CAGR, which measures the return on investment) of 7.5% in the period, estimates Verified Market Research.
For IPSY, customization is one of its advantages in the market. The profiles are created from a test that buyers answer (at least in the United States), which are processed through machine learning. After the test, it is the nearly 300 million reviews of subscribers and subscribers that give more data: from all this data, the company creates profiles to have about 10,000 product combinations.
But it is not all. The company also seeks to position itself in the Mexican market through small brands and that is why they have a team dedicated to looking for ventures, and although in Mexico they have not yet signed with any, the intention is that the glam bags contain a product made in the country and that responds to the needs of the market. Meanwhile, some smaller US brands will be able to make their way into Mexico.
“My hope is that we can help launch hundreds of new brands that are Latin made for us instead of having a French brand trying to figure out what we want,” says Camberos. “We have big brands and a lot of small brands (from the United States), and some are not going to work in the Mexican market, but two or three surely will, and it is a market to which they would not have been exposed,” he adds.
Democratize beauty
The company carved out a niche for itself in the cosmetics stores of Americans due to the relationship it has developed with influencers and vloggers, and in Mexico it will maintain this path.
For now, the company has an alliance with singer-songwriter Becky G, who also distributes her cosmetics brand in IPSY, while waiting for brands with the Made in Mexico seal to join, such as those of Mexican influencer and singer Kenya Os.
“This is not just a strategy, it is part of how we think about the world: the big brands or the big stores or the big beauty magazines do not have the authority. It must be much more democratized, we want to enter the market in a very authentic”, adds Marcelo Camberos.
