Lawless Beauty is headed to QVC.
On Friday at 11 p.m. EST, Lawless Beauty will make its TV shopping debut, about seven days after the brand’s makeup products were first listed on QVC.com. This is Lawless Beauty’s first foray into live shopping. Annie Lawless, Lawless Beauty founder and CEO, will Skype in to the Friday program, while QVC host Shawn Killinger will be stationed in the physical studio in West Chester, Penn. Lawless will appear on QVC once a month, she said, and the brand will offer an exclusive QVC product bundle each time, with the first being an eyeshadow palette and lipstick.
According to previous Glossy reporting. Lawless Beauty doubled its sales as of Oct. 2020, despite brick-and-mortar making up 70% of its pre-pandemic revenue. The company received its first outside funding of $5 million in 2019 from Cult Capital. It then was able to focus on digital hires, including a new director of consumer and digital marketing, a new president, a head of branding and design, and a new digital agency. The brand is currently looking for a new head of marketing, as well. Lawless declined to state sales expectations for QVC, but said that the brand is on track to double its overall sales in 2021 and that it’s expected to close its fundraising round this year.
“Our goal is to tap into this broadcast, streaming, social and mobile way of shopping,” said Lawless. “The way consumers shop post-pandemic going to be forever changed. We want to tap into this new QVC core demographic of customers who are avid and engaged shoppers, and that type of shopper will [connect] with our message and goal of clean beauty.”
Lawless plans to talk about her founder story and the mission of Lawless Beauty to expand the clean makeup category. She also plans to demo the products, many of which offer high coverage, on several different skin tones and skin types. Lawless said she views the brand’s debut on QVC as an “evolution and continuation” of her role as a public-facing founder. Lawless Beauty maintains an Instagram account with around 77,000 followers, while Lawless’s own account has more than 200,000 followers. She typically participates in Instagram Reels videos and IGTV sessions on both her own account and the brand’s.
Since March 2020, brands looking to diversify their omnichannel retail strategy beyond brick-and-mortar have turned to QVC and its sister network HSN to accomplish this. Brands like Estèe Lauder, MAC Cosmetics and Follain, with its private label skin care, have joined in the last 15 months. Meanwhile, Beautycounter, Beekman 1802 and Ulta Beauty have sought to build their own livestream shopping platforms.
“A lot of brands are seeing the data and the sales numbers and the power of what’s been happening in China,” said Madison Schill, head of communications at livestream-shopping platform Livescale. “It’s important to anchor a lot of [these types of] innovations in key performance indicators, such as what can you expect [in the short-term] and what can you expect this to evolve into.”
Lawless pointed out that QVC also helps tap into a more mature audience, as Lawless Beauty’s core customers are typically younger than 30-years-old due to its Sephora partnership. According to the Wall Street Journal, QVC’s core customers are women ages 35-64, and roughly 86% of QVC’s shipped sales came from repeat customers who spent an average of $1,281 in 2019. But Gen Zers have also played a role in the recent livestream boom.
“My background in beauty comes from blogging and YouTube. To me, QVC feels similar to YouTube-style livestream storytelling,” said Lawless. “QVC is going to allow us to tap into a whole new customer base that may not have access to us through Sephora or our social channels.”
