Pandora's beauty box

How many times have you been left disappointed after buying a high-end beauty product? Either it has not suited your complexion or it has failed to live up to its claim. But this feeling can soon be a thing of the past, thanks to Vellvette Box, an online beauty service that sends out samples of high-end customised products.

Vellvette Box is the brainchild of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad graduates Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee

Launched in July 2012, Vellvette Box consists of three beauty products, which are customised according to the clients' tastes and is sent out on the fourth week of every month to only 200 subscribers. The subscription for a month costs Rs 399, while it is Rs 1,099 for three months, Rs 2,099 for six months and Rs 2,999 for a year.

The brainchild of friends-turned-entrepreneurs, 30 year -old Kaushik Mukherjee and 29 year-old Vineeta Singh, Vellvette Box boasts of luxury brands like Bvlgari, Chanel, Clarins, Elizabeth Arden, Estee Lauder and Lush to name a few. One can subscribe to the service by joining its Facebook community or filling up a form on the website - vellvette.com

Explaining how they got the idea, Singh says, "Our personal experiences and the love for exclusive brands led us to start this service. Most luxury beauty products in India are available only at select locations and there is no practice of providing a sample for a product before buying it. We wanted to change this process."

The duo conducted intensive research to realise this idea. Singh explains, "We knew we had an exciting idea but it needed a lot of hard work. Our prime aim was to satisfy each customer. We conducted focus group interviews where we interacted with bloggers and women who use beauty products regularly and eventually came up with the idea of providing sample products."

Later Singh and Mukherjee started interacting with brand managers of different products to decide the contents of the box. "Every month we have a meeting where we discuss about the various new launches in the market and after consulting our beauty editor, we decide which samples should be sent out to our subscribers,"says Mukherjee.

Rima Pundir, Vellvette Box magazine editor, elaborates on how the products are customised for the subscribers. "We have a fixed 10 scale questionnaire that is instrumental in deciding the products for clients depending on their skin and hair conditions, preferences etc."u00a0Initially the proprietors put up ads on Google and conducted a brief campaign on Facebook. They were elated after the boxes were sold out in less than 10 days and people started recommending the service to their friends. "Clearly the word-of-mouth strategy has worked for us," exclaims Singh.

Vellvette Box boasts of luxury brands like Bvlgari, Chanel, Clarins, Elizabeth Arden, Estee Lauder and Lush

One such happy customer is Ankita Chaturvedi who writes a popular beauty blog called Corallista (.com) that has more than 1,000 followers on Facebook. She says, "It is an amazing concept. I learnt about it after they contacted me for their research. I have subscribed for three months and am pleased with the service."

Though Singh and Mukherjee are happy with their product, they want to gradually expand their base. "Right now we want to focus on quality so we have restricted the subscriptions to 200. But in the long run, we want to increase the number of luxury brands and also include more subscribers," signs off Mukherjee.u00a0