Bath & Body Works starts selling on Amazon as more brands embrace its logistics network

Bath & Body Works Champagne Toast bodywash, with no minimal delivery threshold, is now only a click on away for Amazon Prime members.

The mall-favorite model is making a few of its best-selling fragrances, bodywashes, hand soaps and candles obtainable for Amazon’s U.S. buyers. The choice can also be eligible for Prime delivery.

Amazon is the No. 1 on-line vacation spot for U.S. magnificence buyers, accounting for 47% of the web magnificence and private care market within the U.S. in 2024, in keeping with Euromonitor. Sephora is second with 9% share. Euromonitor estimates 39% of all magnificence and private care gross sales happen on-line.

“Launching our first licensed model storefront on Amazon permits us to place ourselves straight within the path of the buyer,” Bath & Body Works CEO Daniel Heaf informed CNBC. “It is about assembly them the place they already store.”

The Amazon launch marks the newest effort by Columbus, Ohio-based Bath & Body Works to develop its entry factors for purchasers. Final 12 months, it started selling its merchandise in school campus shops — with a footprint of now more than 1,000 places — within the firm’s first factors of sale exterior its roughly 2,600 owned and franchised shops and its personal web site.

Heaf joined Bath & Body Works in Might after his function as Nike’s chief transformation and technique officer was eradicated by CEO Elliott Hill.

Heaf not too long ago laid out his “plan to return [Bath & Body Works] to worthwhile, sustainable development.” He calls it a “consumer-first system” with 4 pillars: creating disruptive and revolutionary merchandise; reigniting the model; successful within the market; and working with pace and effectivity.

The Amazon partnership, Heaf mentioned, “is the primary of many milestones that we’ll be delivering this fiscal 12 months in opposition to that technique.”

Earlier than the official storefront launch, Bath & Body Works merchandise had been bought on Amazon by way of third-party resellers.

Now, Heaf says, the corporate is trying to reclaim the model story on Amazon — and people market gross sales.

Whereas Amazon has many first-party relationships with brands from Nike to Calvin Klein that use wholesale partnerships as a part of their enterprise fashions, there are few examples of shops selling on the location that design, manufacture and promote their merchandise fully on their very own.

For these so-called vertically built-in brands, like Bath & Body Works, Amazon is more and more filling the function of expert logistics associate reasonably than retailer. 

Hole, J.Crew and Everlane are equally vertically built-in and have small picks of branded merchandise on the market on Amazon.

Hole started selling what it calls “core fundamentals for the entire household” in 2022 by way of a wholesale relationship, the place Amazon owns and sells the merchandise, that are Prime eligible. Hole has mentioned its objective is to succeed in new or lapsed clients as effectively as present current buyers the comfort for “core necessities.”

Underneath Bath & Body Works’ new settlement with Amazon, the model will retain possession of the stock and management pricing, however will use Amazon’s achievement companions network for Prime eligibility. 

Everlane declined to remark on its Amazon partnership. J.Crew didn’t reply to request for remark.

Jewellery firm Kendra Scott has a certified storefront on Amazon after initially opposing the partnership — though it had wholesale relationships with different retailers, together with Macy’s and Nordstrom. However over time, the model started to view Amazon as one other alternative to succeed in buyers reasonably than a aggressive risk, in keeping with an individual acquainted with the corporate’s decision-making, who spoke about inner issues on the situation of anonymity.

On its personal web site, Bath & Body Works is making it simpler for buyers to put their orders. The corporate lowered its free delivery threshold to $50 from $100 final month.

Nonetheless, Heaf admits, “We all know that we’ll by no means compete with Amazon by way of their Prime Network. Nobody goes to offer next-day delivery. That is simply not what we’re within the enterprise of. And so I believe that by going on Amazon, we’re additionally making our personal web site more aggressive however recognizing that our job is to not construct a achievement network that may function on the pace of Amazon.”