Scope of Birch Box

The monthly subscription service of Birch Box is continuously becoming famous in the market as it is involved in sending a box of four to five samples of selected make up products to its subscribers. The products that are included in the package are organic products, cosmetic products, perfume, and skincare item.

Running head: STRATEGIC MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Birch Box
Strategic Marketing Communication
4/20/2019

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Scope of Birch Box
The monthly subscription service of Birch Box is continuously becoming famous in the
market as it is involved in sending a box of four to five samples of selected make up products
to its subscribers. The products that are included in the package are organic products,
cosmetic products, perfume, and skincare item. As of 2015, the company has millions of the
subscribers and is involved with 800 brands partners. The company’s motivation is that the
customers choose to buy the full-sized product of any of the sample they like from the
website of the company. According to the company’s reports of 2016, around 50% of
subscribers of the business initiated full-size purchases (Chabra, 2015).
Size of Birch Box
Birch Box was established in 2010 in the month of September with the initial funding of $1.4
million. In 2011 the company received the funding of $10.5 million in the Series A Funding.
After this the company received the funding of $60 million in the year 2014 as the Series B
funding BY Viking Global Investors. As of 2015, the company had around 300 employees
who are hired by the top management with the view of development and growth through their
skills and expertise. However, in 2016 due to shift and fluctuations in the market, the
company decided to get involve layoffs and cut of its staff by 25% (Henry, 2018).
Business
Birchbox offer points to its customers on every purchase of full-size products, through
different customers’ referrals. Besides this, points are awarded to those customers who
purchase the subscription of Birchbox for gifting someone else. Birchbox give opportunity to

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its employees to design and create a next generation experience of e-commerce for its
customers which could work towards attracting them to purchase the subscription. Every day
the team members, come together to discuss about different and innovative ideas which could
be loved by the customers. To appreciate the efforts and engagement of the employees, Birch
Box offer different benefits such as vision, dental, and health benefits, free subscription of
Birchbox. In addition to this, every employee of the company gets the opportunity to own a
company’s piece through equity (Birchbox, 2019).
Product Range
Birchbox is known in the market for offering range of products to the subscribers related to
beauty related products; make up products, skin care items, number of cosmetic products, and
organic based products. Few of the incredible products that could be purchased from
Birchbox are Vasanti BrightenUp!, Living proof perfect hair day shampoo, Rollar Lash
Mascara, Dr, Brandt Microdermabrasion Exfoliator, Cargo Land Down under eye shadow,
Pixi, Amika Perk Up Dry Shampoo, etc. (McAnaw, 2017).
Competitive position
Birchbox is working to change the way of discovering and purchasing the beauty, lifestyle,
and grooming products. It incorporated the personalized subscription service in its operations
that offers high quality samples straight to the subscribers through online medium and stores
(Birchbox, 2019). The company deal with intense competition in the industry from one of the
biggest online beauty and health retailer of the world that is the Hut Group (Ohr, 2017). In
addition, few of the competitors of the company are Fabfitfun and Ipsy (Similar Web, 2019).
Birchboc is struggling to differentiate its products from its competitors in the market by

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offering best customers service and employee as well as customer engagement programs. The
prices, place, and products of Birch Box are comparable but its techniques of promotion
exceeds from its competitors.
Market Segments
Market segmentation is said to be the activity adopted by the businesses to divide the wide
customer base, which is comprised of potential as well as existing customers. There are four
types of categories that are adopted by different businesses to segment its market like
geographic segmentation, demographic segmentation, behavioural segmentation, and
psychographic segmentation (Goyat, 2011).
Target marketing is comprised of breaking the market into different segments and then
focusing the marketing efforts on the selected target of the company (Sheau-Ting,
Mohammed and Weng-Wai, 2013).
The company has adopted demographic segmentation, psychographic segmentation, and
behavioural segmentation as the category of segmentation for promoting and vending its
products. Many of the retail brands gather customer information as a routine, but there are
very limited number of brand that estimate the collected data in order to get valuable results
for framing strategies and understanding the needs of the customers. However, cosmetic and
make up brands are different, like Birchbox they collect comprehensive data to do market
segmentation (Love Fashion Retail, 2015).
Under demographic segmentation the criteria of segmentation of company is age, gender, and
income. In the psychographic segmentation company has adopted the lifestyle, interest,
opinion, preference and activities as the criteria for dividing the market. Further, in the

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behavioural segmentation company has adopted behaviour, usage, and decision making
patterns of the customers as the criteria for segmentation.
The Birchbox primary target markets are middle to upper class students. Besides this, the
company also targets house wife and working women. The primary target that is college
students are generally educated and young women who have interest in personal growth and
self-improvement (Goldman, 2018). According to the analysis, they are inclined towards their
self-development and generally spend around $500 yearly on lifestyle and personal
improvement.
The college students are being targeted by the company because they are majorly involved
and prefer involving in the media, popular culture, and social media. They are the normal
subscribers of different fashion magazines (Robischon, 2018).
Customer profile
Customer
Segment/Criteria
Primary Target
Market
Secondary Target
Market
Demographic
Segmentation
Age 19-25 – College
Students
25 above – house
wife, and other
professionals
Income Middle to Upper
class segment
Middle to Upper class
segment
Gender Female Female
Behavioural
Segmentation
Attitude Positive Positive
User Status Active Active

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Occasions Regular Regular
Psychographic
Segmentation
Lifestyle High class and
sophisticated
High class and
sophisticated
Preference High quality
products
High quality products
Personality Trendy Trendy
The media preference of college students is social media (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat,
etc.). Besides this, they also get attracted towards television media and print media
(magazines, blogs, etc).

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References
Birchbox (2019) Revolutionize Online Retail [online]. Available from
https://www.birchbox.com/about/careers [accessed 20 April 2019]
Chabra, E. (2015) Key To Success: Beauty Box Company Birchbox Says It's Not Just About
The Box [online]. Available from https://www.forbes.com/sites/eshachhabra/2015/09/23/key-
to-success-beauty-box-company-birchbox-says-its-not-just-about-the-box/#5eb975a66511
[accessed 20 April 2019]
Goldman, J. (2018) Birchbox Is Winning by Doing Something Every Startup Should Be Doing
(but Isn't) [online]. Available from https://www.inc.com/jeremy-goldman/birchbox-is-
winning-by-doing-something-every-startup-should-be-doing-but-isnt.html [accessed 20 April
2019]
Goyat, S. (2011) The basis of market segmentation: a critical review of literature. European
Journal of Business and Management, 3(9), 45-54.
Henry, Z. (2018) How Birchbox Started Making Money? Savvy Moves and a Series of Tough
Decisions [online]. Available from https://www.inc.com/magazine/201707/zoe-henry/how-i-
did-it-katia-beauchamp-birchbox.html [accessed 20 April 2019]
Love Fashion Retail (2015) How Birchbox is serving a Customer Segment ignored by the
whole Beauty Industry [online]. Available from
https://www.ilovefashionretail.com/journal/how-birchbox-is-serving-a-customer-segment-
ignored-by-the-whole-beauty-industry/ [accessed 20 April 2019]

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McAnaw, E. (2017) 27 Incredible Products At Birchbox That People Actually Swear By
[online]. Available from https://www.buzzfeed.com/emmamcanaw/products-at-birchbox-
that-people-actually-swear-by [accessed 20 April 2019]
Ohr, T. (2017) Rocket Internet’s Birchbox clone Glossybox gets acquired by UK-based The
Hut Group [online]. Available from https://www.eu-startups.com/2017/08/rocket-internets-
birchbox-clone-glossybox-gets-acquired-by-uk-based-the-hut-group/ [accessed 20 April
2019]
Robischon, N. (2018) How Birchbox Discovered The beauty consumer everyone else was
ignoring [online]. Available from https://www.fastcompany.com/3053388/how-birchbox-
discovered-the-beauty-consumer-everyone-el [accessed 20 April 2019]
Sheau-Ting, L., Mohammed, A.H., and Weng-Wai, C. (2013) What is the optimum social
marketing mix to market energy conservation behaviour: an empirical study. Journal of
environmental management, 131,196-205.
Similar Web (2019) Birchbox [online]. Available from
https://www.similarweb.com/website/birchbox.com [accessed 20 April 2019]