Zalora Singapore jumps into beauty box business, gives proceeds to charity

Beauty subscription services in the form of beauty boxes are on the rise now, and fashion e-commerce site Zalora is jumping into that with an interesting twist: by selling them for charity. In partnership with women’s organization YWCA Singapore, all the money generated from Zalora’s beauty box sales (dubbed the “beauty fix box”) will be allocated to YWCA’s Youth Centre and its new girls’ hostel, a safe haven for disadvantaged youths regardless of race or religion.

The YWCA Youth Centre aims to cater children between the age of 13 to 18, whereas the girls’ hostel aims to take care of girls aged between 18 to 25 who are looking for a place to stay to help them get back on their feet. The latter hostel is being renovated until November. Rocket Internet-owned Zalora Singapore ¹ notes that this is the first corporate social responsibility program that the company has ever done.

Each beauty box (pictured right) sells at SG$25 and Zalora Singapore promises to take care of all the overhead costs for this product – including delivery fees – to send the message that this program is truly for the well being of the community. If the charity beauty box sells very well, then there’s also good reason for Zalora to pursue the beauty box subscription program further in the future. That could really hurt specialist beauty box startups in the region such as VanityTrove and BellaBox.

(Updated: Zalora told us that the company as a whole does not have plans to pursue the beauty box subscription plans. The Zalora Singapore team has plans to continue its CSR program should they deem this project to be a successful one, whether it will be in the form of beauty box or not.)

If you’re feeling charitable and fancy a parcel full of random beauty product samples, you can make your way here. Be sure to enter the coupon code “ZBFB” at checkout for the free delivery.

(Editing by Steven Millward and Anh-Minh Do)