Feelunique CEO Joël Palix:
“Russian customers are very knowledgeable about beauty, the latest products and the new upcoming brands”
Founded in 2005, UK-registered Feelunique is now a leading international online retailer of premium beauty products. It has a range of over 35,000 products from more than 500 brands online as well as beauty stores, hair and beauty salons, a spa in the Channel Islands and near Paris.
Please tell us a bit about Feelunique’s cross-border business — and why you are so strong in China?
About a third of our worldwide business is done in cross-border by shipping products from UK to more than 100 countries in the word. China is our main cross-border destination because our Chinese customers have access to a large range of cruelty-free brands not otherwise found in China and because Chinese beauty customers are frustrated with the high level of counterfeit found on local e-commerce site and marketplaces.
What about your sales to Russian consumers?
Russian customers have been shopping for many years on our worldwide site. Parcels are prepared in our distribution center in Northampton and sent to customers across all of Russia.
Russian customers are very knowledgeable about beauty, the latest products and the new upcoming brands. They also like to find a better price for a beauty product abroad. Online shopping is getting quite popular and we expect a rapid surge in cross-border beauty sales in coming years.
What are Russian consumers most interested in? Is your offer and pricing differentiated?
Russian consumers are very keen on specialized skincare brands such as Elemis, Murad, Ren, Embryolisse and Bioderma. They also shop indie make-up brands including Anastasia, Charlotte Tilbury and By Terry. Haircare is also a large category and we sell well all the leading professional brands. Our pricing policy is aligned on UK prices.
You have chosen Yandex Bringly as a partner to develop your Russia sales. What were the reasons behind your choice?
Bringly is backed by Yandex and Sberbank, two strong companies that have an in-depth understanding of the Russian consumer. This give us access to a large and promising market and we expect to recruit a lot of new customers. Bringly is a proven and well-designed cross-border platform where we can offer a selection of well-known and exclusive beauty brands. We also expect some good data sharing to make our business with Bringly even better over time.
Will Bringly be your only partner?
We are signing a strategic partnership with Bringly and will focus on this collaboration for Russia. We expect some increase in our overall Russian business, including direct demand on our worldwide site because of the increased media coverage and awareness on the Feelunique brand.
Do you plan to launch your own marketing to support sales to Russia, in addition to the marketing instruments offered by Bringly?
Not at this stage.
Did you adapt your business processes to Russia specifics?
We hope to benefit from Yandex, Sberbank and Bringly experience in terms of payments and delivery options. We would like also to consider specific content for Russian customers and content in Russian language once our business reaches a certain volume.
Interview conducted in March 2019
CEO
Feelunique
Feelunique’s CEO Joël Palix — former president of Clarins Fragrance Group and marketing director Europe of Yves Saint Laurent Beauté — has stayed five years at the helm of Feelunique. In this interview, he shared his views on the current cross-border e-commerce evolutions and unveiled the company’s situation and plans in Russia.