Following a 98% drop in sales as the impacts of Covid-19 reached their peak, On the Mark Consultancy tells TRBusiness that the company acted quickly to adapt to the near impossible trading conditions with the launch of new pop-up beauty retail website, ‘Beauty Boat’ in order to keep the business ‘afloat’.

The consultancy, which supplies niche and cult beauty brands to the travel retail market, set up the new pop-up business after just two weeks, according to Katy Mason, the company’s Business Development Director. “After a few weeks of wondering how long the crisis was going to last, Mark Brewer, the owner of the company, had the idea to take the business online,” said Mason.

“We had a whole warehouse of stock just sitting there, and we thought ‘why not sell it direct to consumers?’ We knew that many of the online beauty retailers were performing exceptionally well during lockdown, becoming the only option for consumers, as bricks and mortar stores were not operating.”

Mason said that the move was essential to the company’s survival and that they have been ‘very happy’ with the sales results thus far.

In addition to offering niche and cult beauty products direct-to-consumers – at duty free prices – the company has recently launched the travel retail market’s very first ‘beauty box’. Beauty boxes contain a range of skincare and cosmetics products from different brands, often not yet well-known to consumers, that can be purchased on an individual basis, or via a subscription.

The number of beauty box providers on the domestic market has grown rapidly, propelled by celebrities and KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) conducting live ‘unveilings’ or ‘unboxings’ on social media platforms.

“We were about to launch with our first customer on 1 May with Jet2 Airways,” revealed Mason, who also shared that since a beauty blogger had filmed an ‘unboxing’ of one of their Bon Voyage Discovery boxes, they witnessed a significant spike in sales.

The Bon Voyage Discovery Box can be purchased online at www.beautyboat.com.