For a company that was launched in 2017 and has steadily built a loyal customer base for its body-shaping creams and lotions among new moms and 25-35 year old millennials, nothing can compare to the growth Maëlys has experienced over the past year.
According to Maëlys (pronounced my-lees ) CEO Rom Ginzburg, the company has benefitted from two key trends: the digital shift that has been hastened by the COVID pandemic, as well as the ongoing structural shift by consumers who want more payment flexibility and choice when it comes to paying for their purchases.
“The pandemic obviously accelerated eCommerce and online sales,” Ginzburg said in a recent chat with PYMNTS, especially the beauty and cosmetics category. “Because while people are spending more time at home, they have, I believe a stronger desire to take care of themselves,” he added.
At the same time, Maëlys added a new Buy Now Pay Later option through Afterpay to its checkout page last March, followed by a similar payment plan roll-out in Canada in September.
“At some point, we realized that our customers were asking for [BNPL] and we saw it becoming sort of a norm in the eCommerce space to offer those solutions,” Ginzburg said. “As CEO, it was an extremely easy decision to sign up for it and to provide these types of services as an option for our customers.”
Post-COVID
Like many direct-to-consumer online retailers, Maëlys also caught the COVID-wave of consumption in 2020, and likewise, is planning for life in the post-COVID era of 2021.
“As a category we actually saw great growth in terms of skincare and online,” he said, adding that “it’s no secret” that more people were — and are — buying online who never did so before.
“But at some point, COVID will be over, and their face and their body will remain their face and their body and they will still want to take care of it,” he said.
To facilitate and nurture its growing customer base, Maëlys said it plans to double its product line from 20 to 40 SKUs over the next 18 months, yet keep its focus on the body-shaping category.
“We are a body-focused brand. That’s our bread and butter,” Ginzburg said.
Expanding The Pie With BNPL
Simply put, Ginzburg said the use of alternative payment methods is commanding a “larger share of the pie,” as well as an overall driver of growth.
“What BNPL enables us to do as a company is really to enlarge that pie, and I see that today we are meeting customers that we were not able to meet before,” he said.
In fact, he said the decision to add the installment plan option came as a result of listening to customers who were eager to buy the company’s products, which average about $40- $45 a piece, but more comfortable spreading out the cost over a period of four months.
“We first launched [BNPL] in the U.S. in March of 2020, and when we saw the insane success and increased requests from other geographies, we added Canada to the mix in September 2020,” Ginzburg said. “So within six months from offering nothing, we offered two different countries, US and Canada — which are our two of our main markets — and as we speak, we’re currently working to add additional countries and are super excited about the continued growth in this space.”
Growth and Evolution
Ginzburg said the company’s focus remains on growing its direct-to-consumer franchise driven by a unique combination of data and technology, aided by an active social media presence of micro and celebrity influencers and an ambitious product R&D program.
“We’re working super hard night and day to keep expanding and developing our product range in keeping with our mission to deliver innovative ways to solve real problems for real women,” he said. “So I’m optimistic that [the beauty and cosmetics industry] is going to evolve and continue to grow at a rapid speed — I have no doubt about that — and I think that eCommerce is here to stay, and here to grow,” he said.
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