Dive Brief:

• Beauty retailer Sephora is taking a page from online upstart Birchbox and is now offering a $10 monthly sample-box subscription dubbed Play! by Sephora.

• The retailer has 1,900 locations worldwide and 360 in North America, while Birchbox has one New York City store with small-scale plans for a few more, in addition to sales through Gap stores. 

• Birchbox has made a splash with its subscription service but is pushing to increase sales of full-size products after finding that many subscribers buy those goods at other retailers.

Dive Insight:

Sephora has been enjoying the windfall from Birchbox’s sample-subscription service, and that's a major reason for Birchbox’s expansion into physical retail with both stores and pop-ups. But ramping up into brick-and-mortar is a slow and expensive process for any retailer, much less one practically starting from scratch. 

By contrast, Sephora will find it much easier to take a page from Birchbox’s playbook. The samples subscription service will likely be an smooth move for Sephora, especially at the irresistible $10 monthly fee that Birchbox set long ago.

It's an example of how some ideas are great innovations, but are easily copied -- more easily than creating an infrastructure of brick-and-mortar stores, which are turning out for many retailers to be handy sales, marketing, and fulfillment centers.