Birchbox is moving into Walgreens.
The two companies announced in October that Birchbox, the beauty company best known for its monthly subscription boxes, will be opening up shop in 11 different Walgreens and Duane Reade locations this month.
The new retail spaces range from 400 to 1,000 square feet and look like mini-Birchbox stores. They carry brands that Birchbox has incorporated into its subscription boxes and that the company has found to be customer favorites based on positive reviews. Birchbox currently has 2.5 million active subscribers, according to Fast Company.
The spaces feature warm lighting, bright colors, framed Birchboxes, and several makeup stations throughout. Each Birchbox store has company-trained beauty consultants and a separate register. When we visited the space, it felt completely separate from the rest of the Duane Reade, and nothing like shopping at a typical drugstore.
For Walgreens, the Birchbox stores will help it be seen as more of a beauty destination. The company has been investing more heavily in beauty since 2016, when it started carrying brands such as NYX and No7. It also introduced a beauty loyalty program and began adding beauty consultants to some stores that same year.
“We’ve been working on elevating and differentiating our beauty experience,” Lauren Brindley, group vice president of beauty and personal care at Walgreens, told Fast Company in October. “We’re trying to give our customers a reason to shop beauty more often.”
We visited a Birchbox store that recently opened inside a Duane Reade in Manhattan. Here’s what it was like: