Victoria Beckham Beauty Expands Wholesale as Sales at Selfridges Surge
LONDON — Five years after launching as a direct-to-consumer brand, Victoria Beckham Beauty is expanding further into wholesale and reinforcing its relationship with Selfridges Group in the U.K. and Ireland.
The brand, which broke into wholesale last year, has struck gold at Selfridges in London and is opening two more counters at stores within Selfridges Group.
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Earlier this month it opened a popup at Selfridges in Manchester, and on Thursday it will unveil a space at Brown Thomas in Dublin, its first physical presence in Ireland. Both spaces will sell the full range of beauty products in addition to Beckham’s trio of fragrances.
Emboldened by its success at Selfridges London, the brand is looking for like-minded wholesale partners who are willing to commit for the longterm.
Katia Beauchamp, chief executive officer of Victoria Beckham Beauty, said the brand is looking for “unicorn opportunities, wholesale partners that really want to get behind us, and make us a top brand. We want to be number one, and I don’t think we should be shy about that.
“It doesn’t happen overnight, and there’s a lot of work that has to happen on both sides. So we’re looking for partners, identifying them, and then we’ll try to see how can we help each other win. We only have a handful of doors to date, and what’s really amazing is that we get to write our own future,” Beauchamp said.
The brand’s success at Selfridges was quick — and surprising.
Last year, a few months after it launched, Victoria Beckham Beauty became the sixth biggest seller at the store despite its relatively small footprint and number of skus on offer.
“It was the biggest beauty launch of 2023 and the biggest one since COVID,” said Judd Crane, executive director buying and brand at Selfridges. “It surpassed their expectations and ours, too. It continues to do so, and is competing against very established brands.”
Crane said the brand’s attention to detail is “unparalleled.” He said the innovation, ingredients, quality and packaging — in addition to the brand’s authority in the space — have all contributed to the surge in sales.
He added that the success of Victoria Beckham Beauty dovetails with the trend he’s been seeing of smaller, lesser-known brands clocking the biggest growth on the Selfridges beauty floor.
Beckham’s Satin Kajal Liner is the number-one eyeliner across the Selfridges London beauty hall, with the top color being Cocoa, followed by Cinnamon.
The waterproof liner, which costs 30 pounds, can deliver a tight line, and be smudged into a shadow for up to 60 seconds before it sets.
Tiffany Petersen, global head of wholesale at Victoria Beckham Beauty, said 15 liners are sold every hour at Selfridges London. On the weekends, people are lining up to buy it, and other products, from the brand’s counter.
A fashion and makeup devotee — and a marketeer to her core — Victoria Beckham can often be spotted organizing the counter display at Selfridges — and mingling with her customers who follow her every move on Instagram.
“We see a lot of our direct-to-consumer customers coming in, people who are already shopping victoriabeckham.com,” Petersen said. “They’ll see us on Instagram, see Victoria posting. They want to look like her, and we give them the full Victoria Beckham experience.”
She added that the brand has cross-generational appeal. “The products can work for everybody. It’s one of the reasons behind its success.”
The second most popular beauty product at the store is fragrance. Beckham launched a trio of personal fragrances last year, and Petersen said the 100-ml bottle of Portofino ’97 is the biggest seller.
Portofino is citrusy, with notes of bergamot. Beckham told WWD last year that the scent reminds her of her secret courtship with David Beckham before they first appeared in public as a couple.
“That time spent together in Portofino was so romantic, which is why the fragrance smells like passion and young love. It’s fresh and innocent,” she said before the launch last year.
Petersen said the three fragrances already generate 15 percent of the brand’s beauty sales at Selfridges, and the plan is to expand to all of the Selfridges fragrance halls in the U.K.
Victoria Beckham Beauty’s arrival in Ireland is another big move, and one that Donald McDonald, CEO of Brown Thomas Arnotts, has been anticipating for some time.
Victoria Beckham has been selling at the store since 2012, and is one of the top fashion brands at Brown Thomas.
McDonald said the fashion has been “on a consistent upward trend for the last number of years. It’s very popular with the Irish public, as the overall Beckham brand is.”
McDonald said the Brown Thomas beauty hall is a luxury destination in Ireland, and the busiest beauty space in the Selfridges Group.
For Victoria Beckham Beauty, he’s expecting “equal success in Ireland as we’ve seen in Selfridges,” in the U.K.
“Our beauty customers have been asking us constantly about when the brand is arriving, and we cannot wait for it to launch. It’s huge for us here,” said McDonald, adding that the new space will be about 260 square feet, with adjacencies including Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Dior.
As reported last month, beauty sales gave a boost to the overall performance of the brand in 2023.
Victoria Beckham Ltd. reported a 52 percent uptick in total revenue to 89.1 million pounds in 2023 compared with the previous year. It was the third consecutive period of high-double-digit growth.
In 2023, adjusted EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, reached 1.8 million pounds, compared with 200,000 pounds in 2022.
Operating losses fell to 200,000 pounds from 900,000 pounds as the company continued to focus on streamlining the business, driving efficiencies and becoming profitable.
Sales momentum has continued into 2024, across all product categories, and despite lackluster demand in the luxury market.
Beauchamp described 2023 as a “significant year of growth” for the beauty business, driven by product development, and a growing repeat purchase rate.
Victoria Beckham Beauty continues to launch new product categories.
Earlier this month, Victoria Beckham Beauty and Augustinus Bader jointly debuted the Concealer Pen, marking both brands’ first forays into complexion. In addition to Augustinus Bader’s proprietary hero ingredient, TFC8, the concealer includes squalane, polyglutamic acid and a peptide to aid in wrinkle reduction. The product retails for $68.
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