Credo Beauty goes bicoastal
Shashi Batra, who was a part of the team that launched Sephora in the US, founded Credo Beauty as an online retail site specializing in more natural cosmetics and skin care. And, the retailer has been a shop to watch since day one.
Digital native
Credo Beauty ran for five months (starting in February of 2015) as an e-commerce site before opening its first store and continues to be a leading retailer in the clean beauty movement.
In her article for wellandgood.com (a wellness lifestyle news site), Rachel Lapidos notes that “New York City is on the brink of a clean beauty boom, with businesses like CAP Beauty, Vivrant Beauty, the New York Institute of Aromatherapy, HeyDay, TenOverTen, Shen Beauty, and Van Court opening their fume-free doors at a clip.”
Credo she believes, “just might be the push the movement needed.”
Street smarts
The company opened its flagship location in San Francisco, California, last June. Where Credo takes real estate is no accident. Batra recognizes the value of being among like-minded people and opening stores where consumers are ready to embrace and embody the company philosophy.
Describing his choice to locate the first shop in San Francisco, he told Janna Mandell of the San Francisco Chronicle that “the concept was driven around finding a location that is a neighborhood with high traffic of people that have a certain belief system. You tap into a belief system of people who buy and understand this category — not just in beauty, but this category. Fillmore clearly is the street.”
The New York City location is on Prince Street in a downtown neighborhood known as Nolita (that’s short for ‘north of Little Italy’). It’s an area where artisanal shops, classic New York low-rise culture, and designer boutiques coexist. Credo should do well there.
Upward trajectory
With the opening of the New York City location, Credo continues to grow its product offerings. Back in the online-only days, the company sold around 70 brands of cosmetics and skin care. In the downtown location nearly 100 brands from around the globe are available.
As new and legacy brands alike are focusing more on sustainability, it’s reassuring to see clean beauty succeeding: “The products we carry show you don’t have to sacrifice beautiful packaging or efficacy to be natural,” Batra tells Lapidos.
The company is following a business model that works, opening large stores in prominent cities, and will likely expand exponentially from there as the marketplace develops.
This article was updated on 17-May-2015 to reflect that Credo was online-only for just 5 months (rather a full year, as reported earlier) and that the company has not announced a next, prospective store location.
