Thinking outside the box isn’t always the best way to grow a business.
Los Angeles is no stranger to the growing subscription box trend as companies like LootCrate and MakersKit have connected to their niche markets through innovative, curated boxes. But LA’s local fashion and fitness scenes have created a hotbed for beauty and lifestyle boxes that have revolutionized e-commerce on a national level.
Launched in 2010, FabFitFun didn’t intend to enter the e-commerce, specialized box industry. Yet, the Beverly Hills-based lifestyle site has emerged from a crowded field as a trusted source for both online content and quarterly boxes.
Co-founders Daniel Broukhim, Michael Broukhim, and Katie Rosen Kitchens created the lifestyle brand and community for beauty, fashion, fitness and wellness, but after years of producing online content, the company noticed the rising curated box trend and decided to pivot towards the growing industry.
“We were attending a lot of events where we’d get VIP gift bags and we thought it would be cool to take that same experience and give it to consumers,” CEO and co-founder Daniel Broukhim said. “We saw subscription e-commerce boxes were doing well, but noticed no one was curating full-sized lifestyle products. These companies were all beauty focused and there was a world of great products to discover in these other areas.“
After three years as an online content brand, FabFitFun planned to send 2,000 boxes as an experiential batch in 2013. Within two days they had sold out.
Subscribers now pay $49.99 four times a year for boxes valued over $200. FabFitFun is growing 300% year-over-year and has quadrupled their box count since last summer. That kind of growth mirrors the success of the booming industry. By limiting inventory for a curated box, companies are able to cut costs and pass on those saving to their consumers. As more companies enter the curated box market, Broukhim believes the right brands and the right niche can spur a revolution in the e-commerce industry.
“You’ll see a lot of failure and consolidation, but you’ll see a few of these boxes break out to be some of the biggest brands in the world in the next 10 to 15 years.”
