Julep Offers Subscribers Self Selection Through Its Maven Program

Julep Beauty announced its new fully customizable monthly beauty box subscription. Beginning in May 2014, subscribers to the Julep Maven service can create their own personalized mix of products for their boxes, choosing from among two million possible combinations of full-size beauty products and limited-batch nail polishes.

In the past, "subscription" has meant "set it and forget it"—sign up, give your credit card info and then each month receive a selection of products chosen per the brand's schedule. Julep is changing that paradigm by asking customers to actively engage in their subscription each month, choosing exactly which products they'd like to receive. Subscribers will be able to choose from innovative new products or Julep bestsellers, discovering innovations in skin care, color cosmetics and nail colors.

"We want women to engage with us each month," said Jane Park, CEO and founder of Julep. "With this new service, we're bringing the beauty counter experience to our community of Maven subscribers; letting them actively engage in product selection so they receive exactly the combination of monthly products that works for them."

During a window of five days every month, Maven subscribers are invited to view the newest products, discuss on Julep's active social communities online, and then make their own personalized selection of products for inclusion in their boxes. This engagement subscription model lets shoppers come together at "a moment in time" to share their opinions and feedback.

"For beauty enthusiasts, the monthly Maven window is like the lead up to the Oscars," said Park. "It's a time when our community comes together, posts questions and comments on Facebook, reaches out to others on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, and makes and changes their selections in real time, in part based on what they learn from us and each other."

"We're only able to do this because we're a full-stack beauty company," said Park.  "Since we own the entire customer experience from product development through to fulfillment, we can let customers choose from the over 300 new products we launch every year, including the best of what we've launched to date."

"Julep has always been a company using the power the web to revolutionize retail, combining the web's ability to enable 1:1 personalization with proprietary insights into the latest beauty trends," said Jason Stoffer, partner at Maveron, an investor in Julep. "Julep is the first ecommerce company to offer a fully customizable monthly subscription box, combining innovation in real-time distribution, personalization and social engagement together to offer a totally new type of subscription service that blows the old 'set-it-and-forget-it' model out of the water."

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