The Age of Delivering Beauty Supplies

The Age of Delivering Beauty Supplies

 

Many advertisers have been replaced this year in the Super Bowl, the championship match of the U.S. Pro Football (NFL), which is considered the largest TV advertising event of the year in the U.S. If you take a look at Super Bowl’s advertisement list this year, you can get a glimpse of the social changes caused by Covid, most of which are non-face-to-face economic companies that have recorded significant growth since the pandemic. One of the most notable companies is DOORDASH, a mobile delivery agency. Taking advantage of this craze, even retail stores are now using delivery agency services to make up for reduced sales. Recently, there have been many retail stores that use delivery services, including Beauty Supply, mostly because shorter operating hours due to the pandemic lead to decreased sales, and can secure consumers who are not accessible to transportation or are reluctant to go out. Delivery service has the advantage of delivering products to customer’s home within an hour or two. BNB looked into the current status of delivery agency services, which have become a trend, and the platforms available to Beauty Supply stores.

 

Delivery agency service attracting attention after the Pandemic

The history of delivery service in the US is not as old as in Korea. In the United States, delivery service started only a few years ago, and the number of users increased rapidly as the pandemic made it difficult to go out and about. Representative food delivery services include UBER EATS, DOORDASH, and GRUBHUB, and grocery and household goods delivery services include Instacart and Postmates. In particular, in this year’s Super Bowl advertisement of Door Dash, the No. 1 food delivery service company, the characters from the children’s program “Sesame Street” appeared and emphasized that they deliver kitchen utensils, like kitchen towels, as well as food. Door Dash, a food delivery company, has greatly expanded the range of delivery items such as household goods and health products to keep pace with the spread of Covid-19 last year. The highlighted keyword of these delivery agencies is “Local,” which means creating new jobs and increasing the number of **Gig Workers, as the focus is on growing the local economy and local communities.

**Gig Worker This may be an unfamiliar term, but the gig economy’s “Gig” meant a short-term performer who performed for a short time in an American jazz performance in the 1920s. Now in the modern society, it can be viewed as a stand-alone contract worker who provides labor at any time and as much as desired in various fields.

Online delivery agency Doordash featured in Super Bowl ad for $5.5 million for 30 seconds

Expert Beauty Supply Manager, a Delivery Person in their Spare Time?

Expert Manager A, who has been working as a manager at Beauty Supply for more than 10 years, has been working as a direct deliveryman since the start of Covid, and is currently running a business that connects deliverymen to four main delivery agencies along with his original job. The reason for this is because the concept of a lifetime job disappeared due to employment insecurity and the policy against raises caused by Covid-19. In this era, it is normal to have two or three jobs to increase income in the sense of making as much money as possible when work is available, hence, the trend of N-jobs. What started for Koreans who have difficulty registering and processing deliverymen with delivery companies now brings him and everyone who started similar business quite a bit of income. He especially added that if marketing goes well, it is worth using the delivery agency service in beauty supplies.

 

Delivery Agency Service from the Perspective of the Owner

Mr. A, the owner of a restaurant in Virginia, uses Door Dash service. Retail store owners who aren’t familiar with delivery agency services will most likely be wondering if it actually helps the store run, since you have to pay an average of 15% commission to the delivery agency. In order to prevent loss of profits, he sells the menus on Door Dash at about 10% more expensive than the usual store menus. Mr. A cited the promotional effect as one of the advantages of using Door Dash. Because of the pandemic, it became difficult to advertise the store, but the number of customers who visited his restaurant through Door Dash and later tuned into regular to-go customers was quite increasing. In addition, there are riders who are always active regardless of the weather, so it has the advantage of guaranteeing basic sales. The downside is that the door-dash company said that there are some areas where refunds are free only for customer complaints. In addition, there are drivers who are always active regardless of the weather, so basic sales are guaranteed. The downside is that the Door Dash company’s policy requires easy refunds, even with simple customer complaints.

 

Expanded Areas of Delivery

Instacart

InstaCart, called the leader in online grocery delivery agency, plays a role in accelerating the onlineization of offline markets through purchase agency and same-day delivery (within 2 hours) in various fields ranging from groceries, prescriptions, household items, and pet products. Recently, the service has been expanded to Best Buy, Family Dollar, and The Wine Shop, and in September of last year, it formed an alliance with Sephora, a large beauty chain, providing same-day delivery within an hour.

Sephora product order screen provided on Instacart


Partnerships with various recently added companies

Delivery Platform Available in Beauty Supply

Currently, if Beauty Supply wants to start a delivery service, there is a way to deliver directly from the store and delivery through a delivery agency. Direct delivery is burdensome to the employment budget if the business is not large enough, and it is difficult to proceed with the service properly if the schedule of the delivery staff clashes. However, if you use a delivery agency, services or products requested online are provided in the form of O2O (Online to Offline). In the past, the freelancer had to find a buyer for a supplier, but now the big difference is that it connects the supplier and the consumer through the O2O platform.

Postmates by Uber

Postmates entered the food delivery industry relatively early in 2011, but was acquired by Uber last year. This service can also be used by owners who do small businesses such as clothing, cosmetics, and beauty without having to deal with food delivery services. Postmates has partnerships with a number of companies, and in the case of delivery costs, they also offer discounted prices as a promotion. However, if you use it frequently, the delivery cost is also a big burden. Recognizing this, Postmates benchmarked Amazon Prime to provide Postmates Plus Unlimited service, bringing the subscription economy into life. Currently, it is serving approximately 4,200 cities.

The order screen of a beauty supply using Postmates


Postmates Postmates providing same-day delivery service for large beauty chains; Cosmoprof and Sally Beauty

 

 

Wayslay

Wayslay is a local delivery business for the delivery of beauty products. Beauty supplies and drug stores can be purchased by an agent in less than 20 minutes. Although contemporarily limited to Pittsburgh and Miami, it is a good example of the expansion of the O2O delivery business.

 

The Future and Risks of Delivery Service

Delivery agency services are currently in a breeze, but there are also risks. If it shows the same growth as in 2020, it is expected that net profit will increase, but since last year was a special year, we cannot make the same assumptions and is difficult to predict the growth rate. If the pandemic is lifted and people start being active, one cannot expect to make sufficient sales from delivering. As with everything, there aren’t just risks. Delivery companies are investing heavily in autonomous delivery for operational efficiency and cost reduction, and there is a possibility to expand from delivery platforms to courier services, digital payments, and financial services. Therefore, many are taking notice of the delivery agency business.

 

 

Retail Advices BY Kyounghyun Han
BNB Magazine APR 2021 ©bnbmag.com

  

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