Talk:Bluemercury

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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.

History
Bluemercury was founded in 1999 by Marla Malcolm and Barry Beck as an online shopping website for luxury cosmetics. Marla Malcolm was vice president of acquisitions at a private equity firm. She met Barry Beck while her firm was seeking to acquire his company U.S. Maintenance, which provided maintenance services to chain stores; 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 Mercury, 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. The couple had found two struggling independent beauty boutiques in Georgetown and Dupont Circle called EFX, which they used to help fill their online orders. They decided to buy and rebrand the stores "Bluemercury," re-stocking and converting them to their developing concept, which was that of a neighborhood store offering beauty products, personalized advice and samples.

The company started its expansion in the Washington, D.C. area and along the East coast. In 2001 they opened a third store, in Philadelphia. By early 2005, the company had eight stores in the Northeast. By 2006, Bluemercury was generating $17 million in annual revenue and operated 12 stores. In June 2006 the Becks, who had married in 2002, sold a stake in the company to the private-equity firm Invus Group, the sale helping fund further expansion. The private equity investment also allowed the couple to found M-61 Laboratories, which developed its own line of cosmetics. The company began offering the M-61 Skincare line in 2012. In 2008, with approximately 30 stores nationwide, the first store opened in New York City.

Macy's Acquisition
By 2015 the company had approximately 60 stores in 18 states, largely in the Northeast. Seeking to further expand the number of stores and locations but needing additional capitalization to do so, in February 2015 the Becks sold the company to Macy's Inc. for $210 million, while retaining their positions as CEO and COO; the deal closed in March 2015.

The Macy's deal provided Bluemercury with financing, while Macy's now carries Bluemercury's products. Bluemercury has been valued at $1 billion, if it were a stand-alone venture. Macy's also added Bluemercury stores, called "shop-in-shops", inside some of its own department stores; the first four shop-in-shops, three in California and one in Houston, were launched in January 2016.

Retail stores
The Bluemercury store was designed to improve on the department store model, specifically the fact that luxury cosmetic sales happened through brand specific counters at department stores. Bluemercury stores are designed to be small, drugstore-like shops nearer to residential and business areas than department stores. Each store location has a spa and provides other services. The stores' curated collection of brands includes Nars, Bobbi Brown, and Laura Mercier, among others. In July 2016, the company opened its 100th store, in Savannah, Georgia. In July 2017 it opened a store at the base of the New York Hilton Midtown; the location was Bluemercury's 145th store.

Bluemercury products
Bluemercury opened its own cosmetics design laboratory, M-61 Laboratories, in 2006. The company's first line, M-61 Skincare, was released in 2012. This line carries products focused on skin cleansers, masks, serums, and moisturizers. The products are packaged in a blue on white box, being based on the blue-hued M61 galaxy.

In 2015, Bluemercury launched Lune+Aster, a makeup line.

Requested edits
These edits are meant to allay the advertisement fears. If not sufficient to have the template removed, please notify me and I'll make sure I address any further issues. Find the markup in hidden text following. Thank you for your time! JaneStrauss (talk) 23:41, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Reply
I have just edited the article to remove advertising like tone, and I have left a message with the editor who assigned the template to garner their support for removing it. If this is accomplished I will remove the template. Regards,  Spintendo  ᔦᔭ   01:46, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Would you be kind enough to include the infobox and inline photos as DGG suggested (total of 3: logo, one store front, and one interior below)? JaneStrauss (talk) 10:32, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry to bother you once more, but I wanted to know what the status of the article's copy edit was. Any feedback you could provide is most welcome, specifically as regards the ad tag. I listed a few links to the photos available at Commons in hidden text above (these include the logo, as well as several store pics) - I'm not entirely sure as to what exactly you proposed regarding them. Finally, I am also curious as to what the OTRS response period is after a photo has been released through that process. Thank you! JaneStrauss (talk) 00:56, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * OTRS can be slow; it can be helpful to send a reminder after a month.
 * As for promotionalism, I have just dealt with it.  DGG ( talk ) 21:25, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, will do! JaneStrauss (talk) 23:33, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Requested corrections to typos

 * "In 2017, the company opened a 2,700 square-foot flagship store" - was comapny
 * "in 2006. In 2015, the company launched Lune+Aster" - was in 2006; > In 2015

Thank you! JaneStrauss (talk) 00:29, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Reply 03-OCT-2018
 Spintendo   02:58, 4 October 2018 (UTC)