True price of luxury? Tech start-up launches program to track real-time cosmetic and fragrance sales
Founded in 2018, Suburbia has launched a data tracking system for France – Europe’s largest luxury cosmetic and fragrance market worth an estimated €3bn.
‘Granular insights’ on luxury cosmetic and fragrance sales
The start-up’s proprietary technology compiles millions of anonymised sales data from multiple partners in the payment system space, delivering daily signals on publicly listed and private companies, including majors like L’Oréal Luxe, Coty, Estée Lauder and LVMH, and more than 100 brands like Dior, Chanel, Lancôme and YSL. Data includes item pricing, product category, basket composition, geography and time of transaction and an anonymised merchant ID to compare same-store or like-for-like sales.
Suburbia said the real-time tracking enabled investors to “predict the performance” of luxury brands in the beauty and personal care space. “The data product has been built specifically for investors who want granular insights into how these companies’ main revenue drivers are performing, whether by brand, category or product.”
French focus - a ‘trendsetting and tastemaker’ market
France, along with being Europe’s largest luxury cosmetics and fragrance market, was also the fourth-largest in the world and therefore an important focus point, said Suburbia.
Hamza Khan, CEO of the company, said collecting sales data across France not only showed which companies and brands were popular in this particular market, it also indicated what would be popular globally.
“France is not just a large market for the world’s biggest luxury companies and beauty brands, it is also a trendsetter and tastemaker,” Khan said.
Speaking to CosmeticsDesign-Europe, Suburbia’s marketing director Stephanie Tan said data collated from France served clients across the world, predominantly in the UK and North America.
“We do have very strong data partnerships with companies in France and I think because it is a sizeable market for the segment as a whole, that is why we’ve chosen to focus on France,” Tan said.
Beyond France, beyond cosmetics…
Asked whether Suburbia planned to expand its real-time data tracking to other markets, Tan said that was certainly part of the longer-term plan. “We are always sourcing for new data partners to work with. …I think right now, we’d love to get stronger coverage of Europe and I think markets in Asia-Pacific, like Japan or China, would also be great.”
Suburbia also wanted to eventually expand beyond the luxury cosmetics and fragrance market, she said, tracking different sectors within the next three years.
