SmartCompany50 rank: 39
Revenue: $1.5 million
Growth: 34.6%
Founders: Kate Morris, James Height
Based: Melbourne
Employees: 5
Industry: Retail trade
Website: www.adorebeauty.com.au
Kate Morris is a self-confessed beauty junkie who could not buy the products featured in glossy magazines in her home town of Launceston. The company, which started in 2000, now retails an extensive selection of beauty products with a mix of niche and mainstream prestige brands, and all can be bought online.
The start was deathly slow and there was extraordinary resistance to the idea. “At first we could only find two companies which were prepared to sell to us: the rest simply slammed the door in our faces,” Morris says.
“I worked from home for the first three years and it was incredibly isolating, not to say depressing.” But they slowly chipped away and kept a tight rein on the purse strings. The introduction of a beauty forum for other beauty junkies helped awareness. The company has a small number of customers in the US and is now focusing on the New Zealand market
Morris says the aim is to become the number one online beauty destination in Australia, and she says at last the beauty industry is beginning to embrace the internet as an essential part of the marketing and retail strategies.
