Birchbox puts together team for brick-and-mortar expansion
Judging by its recent executive appointments, online beauty subscription retailer Birchbox is getting more and more serious about expanding in the physical space.
The company has named Benjamin Fay as VP of retail development and customer experience, with responsibility for translating the Birchbox brand experience into store design and overseeing execution of the retailer’ s off-line growth.
Fay served as senior director of retail real estate, design and development at Apple from 2004 to 2012. He left the company to join his former boss Ron Johnson at J.C. Penney, where he had the title of executive VP, store design, real estate and construction. He left Penney in 2013. Prior to Apple, Fay was with Gensler, a leading retail firm.
In addition, the company tapped Philippe Pinatel as chief operations officer and president. Pinatel is a 20-year beauty veteran whose has served as senior VP and general manager of Sephora Canada, managing director of Guerlain France and VP and general manager of Sephora Inside J.C. Penney.
Katia Beauchamp, cofounder and CEO of Birchbox, said brick-and-mortar retailing wasn’t part of the company’s plan when it launched five years ago.
“But as we evolved, we realized that this business is about underserved consumers,” she told Women's Wear Daily.“We can’t be just one channel. And as we have become a much larger company, it’s become really important for us to have both expertise and entrepreneurial tenacity.”
Birchbox, which opened its first (and, to date, only) physical store in 2014, in Manhattan, has made no secret of its desire to expand to offline retailing. The company announced plans to open two additional stores in 2016.
In other Birchbox appointments:
Douglas Simpson was named VP of retail. He was previously with Juicy Couture, where he opened more than 60 stores.
Andrew Lande-Shannon was appointed design director of off-line retail, responsible for spearheading the visual merchandising creative for the company’s offline initiatives. He previously held executive and creative director roles such retailers as Joe Fresh, Prada, J.Jill, and Abercrombie & Fitch.