The Hut Group (THG) has snapped up beauty subscription service Glossybox in an undisclosed deal. Glossybox is a BirchBox-style service that sees a monthly consignment of beauty and make-up goods sent to subscribers thatbwas founded by the Samwer brothers in 2011. By buying Glossybox, THG can extend international reach to the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway and Sweden.
And don’t forget that THG already has several box subsriptions of its own as part of the organisation including MyGeekBox and PopInABox. Subscription ecommerce brands have become increasingly popular in recent years with Harry’s Razors being a notable success.
THG founder and CEO Matthew Moulding says: “This is another significant investment for The Hut Group. In Glossybox, we have acquired a great brand, with a solid and engaged customer base that, once powered through our platform and marketing infrastructure, should be capable of further significant growth.”
The Samwer brothers have had a remarkable career in ecommerce. I first encountered them when I was working at eBay in 1999: indeed Alexander Samwer hired me when I applied for a summer job as a category manager with the idea of recruiting sellers to eBay.co.uk when it very first landed on our shores. He and his brothers had recently been acquired by eBay. Their marketplace site alando.de emulated eBay and later became the German eBay site after rebranding.
The Alando story is one of the more interesting early interesting ecommerce stories. Founded in March 1999, deliberately aping the eBay model and enjoying sensational publicity in Germany at the time, it was bought by eBay just a few months later in June of the same year. eBay founder Pierre Omidyar was particularly impressed by their lean ethos, very early success and the Samwer brother themselves. From that early springboard, the brothers have enjoyed huge success in ecommerce and remain some of Germany’s most successful internet entrepreneurs.
