For Malaysians like me who want to shop at global skin care brands that are not sold at physical stores like Sephora or pharmacies, going online is our only option. That means looking at places like HERMO and Favful resellers, Shopee or Lazada, or jumping into mass shopping through Instagram stores.
HERMO and Favful aside, some issues with the other methods are that you’re not sure if you can trust these vendors to provide you with the original products (especially if it’s your first time buying them) and that the product information you provided is generally incomplete.
If you frequently change your skin care products, it means that you are repeating this process over and over again with little certainty that you will successfully find a trusted dealer.
Personally, I have been able to find trusted people in Shopee who charge an affordable price, but not everyone would be so lucky nor would it be experimental enough to try this method.
Meet the needs of the market
These questions are the novelties of the beauty e-commerce contestant Threebs wants to solve. Following a soft launch in March 2020, it was officially launched in May 2021 through a partnership with JD.com and DKSH.
Like HERMO and Favful, Threebs has popular international brands like CeraVe, which are hard to come by locally. But unlike HERMO and Favful, Threebs focuses on skin care products. Therefore, it offers a wider range for the brands it carries.
“My co-founders and I noticed an opportunity in niche e-commerce platforms and wanted to bridge the gap between the giants of the online market and online commerce. We realized we wanted to give digital service to industries and products where a high level of trust is required, ”Threeyo co-founder Eyo Zhen Yi told Vulcan Post.
“In this process, we decided we wanted to serve the 3Bs: body, bath and beauty. And so the name Threebs arose. As time went on, I guess “Threebs” was easy to say and the pronunciation stayed. “
Taking advantage of an opportunity without taking advantage
The Threebs team has had experience working with Watsons, Zalora, Abbott and Sanofi, and more. before this adventure, and working in the beauty industry made Eyo realize that it is a personal and appreciated business.
At the same time, he saw that there was no dominant local player dominant in the skin care industry. This opened her eyes to an unexplored opportunity and she took advantage of it.
Threebs currently houses 50 brands and 2,000 products. More than 100,000 pieces of products are also sold at the time of writing. Eyo’s projection is that the brand will reach 250,000 products sold by the end of 2021 and house a total of 100 brands.
To clarify, Threebs is not an online marketplace where brands list their products. Rather, your purchasing team purchases these products from authorized brand manufacturers or distributors.
Stay informed of the data
“Data analysis and big data are words that are widely used in the e-commerce and technology space. Basically, it is the process of setting up crawlers to acquire data, clean it, generate information from the data and make adjustments to the user experience linked to the established objectives “, explained Eyo.
For the Threebs team, the data leads them to introduce new brands until the launch of new filter features on the platform.
For example, they would monitor whether a new filtering feature actually improves UX by clickthrough rate, average session time, and sales conversion rate. If they want to incorporate a new brand, they would also monitor data like their search engine to see what their users are asking for.
This focus on the effective use of data is definitely reflected in its place. My first impression was that it was very “clean”, in the sense that there are not too many distracting graphics and that the presentation of the product is quite organized.
What stood out to me at Threebs were the filtering features that include skin types, active ingredients, and benefits, which I can’t find in HERMO, let alone Lazada or Shopee.
Instead, these would be filters that you are more likely to find in places like skin care brands Innisfree, Kiehl’s, o The ordinary. From this alone, I can see the intent and dedication of the Threebs team in ensuring that it is a uniquely beneficial place for the skin care needs, especially for the brands it carries.
For brands with lots of products like Cosrx (which is the brand I buy regularly), it was helpful to include these filters at the top, and you could also mix and match between the type of products you want and the active ingredients you’d like.
Favful and HERMO filters for the same brand only include skin types and product types, respectively, which means you have to research for yourself about their ingredients and effects.
With the amount of information given to customers (up to the size of the product compared to an iPhone X), it can seem like Threebs is intimidating to navigate. However, as mentioned above, the clean and streamlined user interface gives you a pretty straightforward experience.
Being so detailed allows you to cater to not only beginners in skin care, but also enthusiasts who know exactly what active ingredients they want in their routine.
Upon receipt of its website, Eyo sparked the potential launch of a Threebs app below. According to him, it is an idea that many of his customers are also interested in.
So far, it would be safe to say that Threebs ’attention to detail has made the site a well-deserved user base, sharing Eyo who see an average rate of 60% of customers returned month to month (MoM).
The user experience is the highlight
Using Cosrx as an example, their prices in Threebs do not differ too much from those of Watsons, Favful or HERMO, which are around € 45. But since I usually do my skin care at Shopee, the price difference for me is quite significant.
For example, you would normally get the Cosrx Low PH Cleanser for RM23.80 at Shopee, which is almost 50% cheaper. A la Cosrx Shopee official storehowever, the normal price (no discount) is around € 55, so the cleaner prices have been marked on these websites.
As for The Ordinary products, Threebs ’prices are a few Ringgits cheaper than Favful’s. Meanwhile, HERMO no longer bears the mark.
For those of us who want to save a dollar or two with every purchase, Threebs is likely to be the site of choice, but more than its price, the user experience on offer is one that will consolidate its longevity in the industry. of ecommerce skin care. .
While most users go to the site to get the global skin care brands she wears, Threebs also lists the Malaysian brands. On demand products. It’s nice to support a local brand and it would be interesting to see what others it will bring.
- You can find more information about Threebs here.
- You can read more e-commerce platforms we’ve covered here.
Featured Image Credit: Eyo Zhen Yi, co-founder of Threebs
