Is Net-a-porter ceasing its beauty operations?
Sources say that is the case, with one specifying that the luxury e-commerce platform’s beauty arm has been ailing for some time, and that a pivot toward ultra-luxury price points earlier this year was enacted as a Hail Mary effort to resuscitate the business.
Indeed, in November the e-tailer’s market director Libby Paige laid out a project called “New Luxury,” sharing plans to double down on luxury brands that perform well, such as Liberowe, Sasuphi and Veronica De Piante, and trim those that don’t.
As part of the shift, the source said the e-tailer trimmed its beauty assortment “significantly” this past winter. Among the e-tailer’s most luxe beauty offerings are a $2,695 Lyma Laser Starter Kit; a $1,900 Shani Darden + Déesse Pro LED Light Mask, Numerous $900-plus serums from La Prairie, Auteur and Natura Blissé, and more.
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Other brands that have remained on the site are Le Labo, La Mer, Hourglass Cosmetics, Diptyque, Sisley Paris, Augustinus Bader, Oribe, Westman Atelier, Gucci Beauty and Eighth Day.
Representatives from Net-a-porter did not respond to a request for comment as of press time.
In December, the online retailer’s parent company, Compagnie Financière Richemont, called off its long-awaited deal to sell Yoox Net-a-porter to Farfetch and Alabbar. The decision came shortly after Farfetch — embroiled in luxury e-commerce headwinds of its own — entered prepack administration and was acquired by South Korea’s Coupang for $500 million. (Farfetch shuttered its own beauty arm in August 2023, just one year after acquiring Violet Gray and launching a beauty assortment of its own with more than 100 prestige brands.)
Net-a-porter entered beauty in 2013 with the launch of The Quintessential Edit, which included makeup, skin care, hair care and fragrance brands such as Aesop, 3Lab, Joya Studio, Philip B, Chantecaille, Sarah Chapman and more.
Alison Loehnis, then-president of Net-a-porter and current ad interim president and chief executive officer of the company, told WWD at the time: “We see [beauty] as so symbiotic with the rest of our offerings…as we started to expand, it was a disconnect to not be able to offer beauty. By being at the front lines, we have an enormous amount of insight and exposure to talent and also product.”
Indeed, months after entering beauty, Net-a-porter became the first retailer to carry Charlotte Tilbury’s eponymous makeup line, which launched that September. Dr. Barbara Sturm, too, looked to the retailer as a launchpad in 2014 when she introduced her eponymous luxury skin care range. Both brands have since been acquired by Spanish beauty conglomerate Puig — Charlotte Tilbury in 2020 and Dr. Barbara Sturm in January of this year.
Similarly, color cosmetics giants Ilia Beauty and Glossier launched on Net-a-porter long before their respective 2019 and 2023 forays into Sephora (Ilia more recently also entered Ulta Beauty in August).
But the luxury e-commerce space has endured much upheaval of late. In addition to Farfetch’s recent woes, Matches was placed into administration by Frasers Group in March, just two months after the group purchased the e-tailer from Apax Partners for 52 million pounds. Frasers said of the decision: “It has become clear that too much change would be required to restructure it.”
