Online Vendor Aims to Click In Europe

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Professional hair stylists can whip up perfectly matched hair color blends, but at a price – usually starting at about $200.

Online retailer eSalon in Culver City set out to lower that price four years ago by offering customers made-to-order hair-color kits they can use at home for $25.

Now the company is expanding globally, with new websites and a customer service center for the European market.

Francisco Gimenez, chief executive of eSalon, said the company occasionally gets business from foreign customers, but that the new overseas-focused sites should bring in many more. The company launched its U.K. site last month; followed by sites serving the euro zone countries and Canada.

“We’re quite excited now about reaching out to new clients that we couldn’t otherwise,” Gimenez said.

Customers submit a current photo and answer questions about their age, ethnicity, skin tone and eye color. An eSalon stylist formulates a color and ships it out. Customers pay $25, although first-time customers pay only $10 as an inducement.

The new sites will let British, Canadian and euro zone customers transact in their respective currencies. And the new London office, also opened last month, will be staffed with stylists who speak various European languages and who are up on the latest global hair trends.

“Each market is different,” Gimenez said. “We are just using the platform we created for custom hair color and letting the local team of colorists really come up with custom formulations for their own clients, knowing the local preferences better than our U.S.-based team.”

– Subrina Hudson

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