Bluemercury
| Industry | Cosmetics |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1999 in Washington, D.C. |
| Founders | Marla and Barry Beck |
| Headquarters | Washington, D.C., United States |
| Brands | M-61, Lune+Aster |
| Parent | Macy's Inc. |
| Website | Official website |
Bluemercury is a chain of American beauty stores which was founded in 1999 by Marla Malcolm Beck and Barry Beck in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. The stores sell cosmetics, and in-store facials and spa treatments. In addition to selling cosmetics from other brands, Bluemercury developed its own M-61 skincare line in 2012 and Lune+Aster make-up line in 2015.
The company was acquired in 2015 by Macy's, which opened in-store Bluemercury shops in its department stores, as well as expanding the number of free-standing Bluemercury stores throughout the U.S. Marla Malcolm Beck and Barry Beck remain the company's CEO and COO, respectively.
Bluemercury was founded in 1999 by Marla Malcolm and Barry Beck as an online shopping website for luxury cosmetics. Marla Malcolm was in her late 20s and a vice president of acquisitions at a private equity firm, but was dissatisfied with her career. She met Barry Beck while her firm was seeking to acquire his company U.S. Maintenance, which provided maintenance services to chain stores and had grown into a multi-million-dollar enterprise; Beck convinced her to start a new company instead, with him as partner and co-founder. Their first idea was to sell luxury brands of cosmetics online; in naming the company they chose Malcolm's favorite color, and she asked Barry Beck to come up with something "strong and fast" to add to it. This led to Bluemercury, Mercury being the Roman God for speed and strength. As co-founders, Marla Malcolm (later Marla Malcolm Beck) became CEO of Bluemercury and Barry Beck became its Chief Operating Officer (COO).
The couple received $1 million in seed money for designing and developing the website. They had a number of early angel investors, including backing by two managing directors of The Carlyle Group, Dick Darman and Ed Mathias. However, luxury brands that Bluemercury courted were unsure whether they wanted to sell their goods on the internet, being unfamiliar with the incipient technology. At the same time consumers were not accustomed to buying cosmetics without trying them first. The website also faced competition from other companies that had the same idea of offering beauty products online. Six months after the website went live, the dot-com bubble burst, which called for a shift in the business model.
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