What is Boutiqaat? Boutiqaat Review, Features

Founded in 2015, Boutiqaat is a beauty e-commerce platform that provides cosmetics and beauty products for women in the Middle East. The investor is the Kuwaiti consortium Boubyan. Its model is very different from Pinduoduo. The sellers on the website are mainly various big Vs and Internet celebrities. Their fans can easily choose the products recommended by their idols through this website.

About Boutiqaat

Boutiqaat mainly provides various beauty products such as foundation, eye shadow, lipstick, personal care, etc. to consumers in the six Gulf countries. Currently, Boutiqaat sells more than 25,000 beauty and fashion products, covering more than 700 international brands such as MAKE UP FOR EVER, ANASTASIA and BENEFIT.

Founder of Boutiqaat

Abdulwahab Alessa, the founder of Boutiqaat, was previously a TV anchor. He is also an internet celebrity with nearly one million followers on Twitter.

Development Status

Boutiqaat now has its own fleet to deliver goods. It can purchase and wholesale goods directly from brands or wholesale agents and deliver them to consumers, or store them in its own warehouses. In addition to Kuwait, the company's business scope has now expanded to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. According to Boutiqaat's official description, Boutiqaat currently has more than 700 brands and more than 25,000 products from around the world. Brands on the platform include international brands such as ANASTASIA, BENEFIT, MAKE UP FOR EVER, SHISEIDO, GIGI HADID, etc.

Operational Model

1. Boutiqaat provides virtual stores for influencers and sets up a special area for influencer recommendations. Influencers can add their favorite products to the virtual store, recommend them to fans and other consumers, and use their influence as influencers to attract consumers to buy.

2. Boutiqaat has its own accounts on social media such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Its Instagram account has over 1 million followers, and several videos on YouTube have over a million views.

3. Boutiqaat allows the signed influencers to post beauty tutorial videos, beauty competition videos and photos on social media to guide fans to buy the corresponding beauty products on Boutiqaat. All online product transactions are completed on Boutiqaat, and social media is a channel for marketing and promotion.

Features

The biggest difference between Boutiqaat and other peers is that they mainly rely on some influential "big V" and "Internet celebrities" on social media to help promote products. First, the company will let those social media "big V" and "Internet celebrities" add their favorite products, and then push these selected products to fans and other customers for browsing, and then they can complete the purchase transaction through the external links of the social media platform. The entire transaction process is supported by Boutiqaat. Through Boutiqaat, fans can learn about their favorite Internet celebrities and buy the products they recommend. In addition, fans can also view the makeup tutorials of Internet celebrities on YouTube and the beauty trend analysis on their Instagram through Boutiqaat. Currently, Boutiqaat has more than 1,000 courses such as makeup teaching, beauty secrets, etc.

Financing

In January 2019, Boutiqaat completed a US$45 million (approximately KWD13.5 million) Series A financing round from local investment institution Boubyan Petrochemical Company, which focuses on investing in different industries such as petrochemicals, manufacturing, healthcare and education.