During a chat back in 2014, John Rasjid, Christopher Madiam, and Chrisanti Indiana, three friends with backgrounds in finance, IT, and design and communication, respectively, agreed that beauty and personal care products required a dedicated place. Back then, there didn’t exist any online platform that catered to this specific market in Indonesia.
“Chrisanti was the beauty aficionado. She tossed the idea about beauty, and upon further learning the industry, we jumped right into it bringing our interests and skills to the table,” Rasjid said in a virtual interview with e27.
The beginning
The beginning of the startup was not a coincidence, says Rasjid. “There were many reasons for the trio to start Social Bella, including the need for authenticity and trust in the platforms.
We looked at what examples there were in the market, and Dollar Shave Club came to our mind. Its premise when it was launched in 2011 was pretty straightforward; it wanted to deliver razors and other personal grooming products to customers by mail. And it worked,” Rasjid explained.
The American company that inspired Rasjid today delivers razor blades on a monthly basis and offers additional grooming products for home delivery. The convenience of having one’s personal care products delivered to the customers’ doorstep should be and could be the norm, and it’s proven so today.
“Social Bella started out as a B2C e-commerce platform focussed on a single category, walking side by side with larger horizontal/marketplace e-commerce with much larger resources. The challenges have been there since day one; they just evolve from year to year,” remarked Rasjid.
He further added that identifying the right people to join the company was hard since the founders needed to look for the right team members from the same scarce talent pool and with industry interests. “Starting in mid-2018, when our ecosystem was finally formed, the execution wheel started to spin faster and we were able to serve a much larger customer base.”
Also Read: Indonesian beauty platform Social Bella embraces O2O with the launch of physical store
Social Bella’s commitment has always been centred around the needs of its customers. “Customers have always been our top priority and we want to continue to stay relevant for our dynamic customers, and that’s how we ran Social Bella with its three business channels, and now, with a new one in the equation,” according to him.
Building beauty ecosystem
Talking about the approach the Social Bella team is striving to provide, he said that the team continues to innovate to meet their needs and to support companies that provide holistic beauty services in Indonesia.
“Having said that, we conclude how we should aim to build a complete ecosystem to serve the growth of the beauty industry. Our focus now is to ensure that the innovations that we do continue to focus on the customer experience and seamless shopping experience,” he added.
The company has three business units:
- SOCO, an online consumer review platform for beauty and personal care products
- Beauty Journal, an online beauty and lifestyle media with O2O marketing service
- Sociolla, a beauty and personal care e-commerce which also has an offline store with the omni-channel concept
- Lilla by Sociolla, a beauty and personal care e-commerce service specifically designed for mothers
- Brand Development, the business unit that offers end-to-end distributor service for beauty and personal care brands.
A few days ago, the company announced a US$58 million funding round from Temasek, Pavilion Capital and Jungle Ventures. Along with this, Social Bella also announced the establishment of Lilla by Sociolla (lilla.id).
“Lilla is specifically built for young and sophisticated mothers who are looking for the best-curated products for children and themselves. There are growing needs for good quality products by mothers in Indonesia and we strive to deliver our best to serve their needs. We will focus on growing those existing business lines and strengthen our tech capability,” he explained.
Offline expansion
With the current business units, Social Bella is estimated to serve around 30 million users in 2020, Rasjid claimed.
Last year, Social Bella completed its ecosystem as an integrated beauty-tech and end-to-end brand distributor in Indonesia by launching a flagship omnichannel store in Lippo Mall Puri. At present, Social Bella owns six physical stores across the country.
“We started with e-commerce with Sociolla.com, yet we understand that when it comes to beauty products, physical shopping experience remains relevant. Customers want to feel, touch, smell and try the products. The offline experience provides that experience and serves our customers in a more interesting, personalised, and enjoyable way made possible by our tailored technology for beauty and personal care,” Rasjid said explaining the rationale behind the decision to go offline.
“At the same time, it creates a platform for new aspiring brands that we curate to get closer to customers. However, I don’t believe that an offline store is a one-size-fits-all solution for all e-commerce and even if one decides to have an offline presence, she certainly needs to be mindful of the degree of prevalence of their offline store versus digital,” Rasjid emphasised.
The beauty tech in hindsight
The Internet has enabled new brands since the early days when Dollar Shave Club hit the US market in 2011. It was a tectonic change in the consumer brand world and the beauty market has particularly witnessed a number of global-hit brands in the past five to six years.
The beauty industry in Asia, especially Indonesia, is growing very rapidly, especially thanks to the development of infrastructure and technology. Meanwhile, in Indonesia, the rising lifestyles and a growing middle class are driving growth in demand for beauty products.
Together with the strong influence of social media, this creates the new generation of consumers, who are more sophisticated and also more demanding of having the beauty and personal care products that are suitable for their skin type, skin tone, facial features, and more.
“Looking at this huge opportunity, constant innovations supported by creative, highly-skilled and experienced talents are needed to grow our business and capture the market potential. Technology development is also important to identify consumer behaviour, thus we can stay relevant to the market needs,” Rasjid added.
Coming up next
Looking at retailers around the world today, the digitisation trend is stealing news headlines, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak. “No one knows and everyone is guessing how the post-COVID-19 era will alter customers’ behaviours and hence, the responses by industry players. Microsoft, for one, decided to permanently close all their physical stores,” said Rasjid.
New trends have been coming from new brands born out of the digital realm. This will continue to shape up the beauty and personal care industry. Going forward, the tech will continue to play big roles in marketing efforts.
“Now, armed with the latest funding from investors, we will focus on building our technology infrastructure and digital assets to meet users’ need for a more optimal, relevant, and personalised shopping experience. This allows us to expand into broader market segments, accelerate our business even further and provide more comprehensive beauty services,” he went on.
Social Bella’s new plans are to provide beauty products that are of high quality and affordable for beauty enthusiasts in Indonesia in a more personal and fun way. In addition, Sociolla Store also connects consumers with various brands.
“This affirms Social Bella’s vision to position itself as an incubator for beauty and self-care. We’ll also focus on SOCO. By focussing on improving the quality of user experience, this platform integrates Sociolla and the Beauty Journal to answer the needs of Indonesian women for safe personal care and personal care products,” said Rasjid.
The Social Bella innovation in technology is highly relevant in response to the challenges in the beauty industry, especially when facing business turbulence amid COVID-19 pandemic.
McKinsey in its report entitled “How COVID-19 is Changing the World of Beauty” states that there are several things players must keep in their radar in the beauty industry to be able to survive amid COVID-19, one of which is shoring up digital aspects and speed of innovation.
Also Read: Sociolla’s parent secures US$40M to develop its community platform SOCO
The report said fortifying the digital aspects is necessary to accommodate the needs of consumers who have now turned to online shopping activities. On the operations side, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for contactless production and personalisation must also be expedited to accommodate consumers’ attention to product hygiene, especially if it involves direct contact.
“Answering the challenges that have emerged since the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, where activities are centred at home, we are strengthening Sociolla by introducing a new feature, namely live chat with beauty consultants. We understand, however, that shopping for beauty products cannot be compared to shopping for other needs,” said John.
Before the latest round of funding, Social Bella had secured a Series D investment of US$40 million in September 2019. The investment was led by East Venture Growth, Temasek, Pavilion Capital, and Jungle Ventures.
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Picture Credit: Social Bella
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