Birchbox plans London pop-up shop
By Retail Technology | Wednesday August 13 2014
The previously online-only retailer is hosting a London-based pop-up event powered by booking technology
After four years as an online-only brand, fashion and luxury goods retailer Birchbox is expanding its offline footprint with an upcoming pop-up event which will take place in London at the end of this month.
The charity Manicure Marathon event in support of breast cancer is powered by appointment platform vendor BookingBug, which will be managing over 450 appointments, a PayPal integration and delivering a branded booking experience.
Handling complex bookings
Birchbox briefly considered traditional event and ticketing systems, but realised this strategy wouldn’t allow it handle the demand or technical complexities of this event.
“Birchbox has always believed that making the right technical design decisions is vital to creating a smooth, seamless customer experience,” explained Rachel Higgin, partnerships manager at Birchbox. “This is even more true offline, so we were really glad to find a fast, integrated platform for everything from payments to branded confirmation emails.“
Starting with a clean slate
This pop-up event follows the retailer’s first New York store and is seen as an example of how retailers can complement their online efforts with effective offline services and experiences while starting with a clean slate where established high street retailers must work around their legacy equipment and technology.
From BookingBug’s perspective, founder and CEO Glenn Shoosmith describes this growing trend: “The fact that previously online-only players are now joining in is an incredibly positive development, both for the UK retail scene but, most importantly, for customers themselves.”
Birchbox customers pay £10 a month and receive a customised box of high-end beauty and lifestyle samples. To date, Birchbox has shipped over 5,000,000 Birchboxes globally and currently has a global subscriber base of over 400,000 people.