213Deli founders on building a ‘text commerce’ beauty retailer: ‘Nobody wants to download an app’

Weiss worked in media at Sony Pictures and Yahoo before spending a decade growing the business side of Ipsy, a beauty subscription service started by Michelle Phan in 2011, where he met Collins. Meanwhile, Collins spent four years at Ipsy growing the brand partnerships team before joining the founding team at Flip, a shopping social network. Collins was also the co-founder of Yume, a Chinese-American company responsible for launching American beauty brands into China via the popular Little Red Book social shopping platform.

Both found inspiration for 213Deli across these experiences, but it’s the changing commerce marketplace in China — where consumers are accustomed to live shopping, text commerce and shopping across social media — that drove the duo to launch a text-only shopping platform stateside.

“There are so many really exciting ways to discover and shop beauty outside of traditional brick-and-mortar and e-commerce, which is really what’s been going on in the United States for a long time,” Collins told Glossy. For 213Deli, meeting the company’s millennial and Gen-X customers where they are means to slide into their text messages once a week with a new, can’t-miss beauty offer.

“You go to 213deli.com and give us your name and your phone number,” Collins said. “It’s totally free, (and) once a week on Thursdays, at noon Pacific time, we’re going to send you a text message about a really spectacular product.”

So far, this has included brands like Osea, Farmacy, Phlur, RMS and Saltair. “If you want to buy that product, you text back and let us know how many pieces you want to buy,” Collins said. “If not, you ignore it — no big deal. And you get a message (about a new product) the next week.”

213Deli does not have an e-commerce platform and consumers provide their credit card information over text during their first purchase. The allure for many shoppers is free shipping and a gift with purchase, which is often a full-size complimentary product from the same brand.

Brands like Vacation and Thrive Causemetics, for example, have used 213Deli as part of their launch strategy. To wit: Vacation included a free full-size bottle of its after-sun aloe with the purchase of its Orange Gelée SPF, while Thrive Causemetics’ GWP was a full-size mascara to accompany its new Sheer Strength Lip Plumper. Shipping is also fast and free.

To a consumer, 213Deli is streamlined and simple. But behind the scenes, Collins and Weiss have developed a custom tech stack to make the concept possible. And they’re growing the business through partnerships with trending beauty brands and industry thought leaders like editors, artists and influencers.

Collins and Weiss discuss the advent of the brand and the future of text-to-shop commerce in the US in today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast.

On pivoting away from app shopping

Weiss: “We are not an app. We deliberately and intentionally didn’t didn’t want to have an app, because we find that people are not looking for an additional app on their phone. We also are not SMS marketing; we are SMS commerce, and there is a big difference. The entire transaction takes place on your phone to the point that you don’t ever have to go to a website if you don’t want to.”

Collins: “I’ve worked for a bunch of social commerce companies in the United States in the last few years, and I can tell you from experience that nobody wants to download an app.”

On reaching consumers in text

Collins: “What’s attracting brands to the partnership (with us) is, quite frankly, new customer acquisition. It has become extremely expensive to acquire new customers through digital advertising and that’s not very innovative. So how else do you reach a customer? Long gone are the days when you sit on a shelf in a store with an ad in a glossy magazine and wait for the customers to come to you. … Now you have to be where the customer is. You have to get in front of the customers where they are … and the average American looks at their phone 96 times a day, which is about once every 10 minutes. … (Text commerce is) a very sticky customer experience and a very easy way to get in front of a customer.”

On the future of 213Deli

Collins: “We clearly have an eye toward personalization down the line. When we hit scale, you will be able to tell us your favorite brands and colors and categories and the cadence in which you’d like to receive your messages, and we’ll deliver that right to you, right then. (Until then), hopefully we’re delivering big smiles, delight and fantastic customer service on a weekly basis.”