Kylie Jenner’s Company Slows Down, Will It Affect Her Billionaire Status?

Kylie Jenner shocked both the business and entertainment circles when she was recognized by Forbes as the youngest self-made billionaire. She breached the mark at a young age of 21, which is two years earlier than Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who became a billionaire at 23.

Part of Kylie Cosmetics’ success is Jenner’s more than 175 million followers on her various social media accounts. “It’s the power of social media,” the young billionaire said. “I had such a strong reach before I was able to start anything.”

Jenner also made a very savvy business decision when she decided to partner with Ulta, a chain of stores in the U.S. that is focused on selling beauty products. In just six weeks after she partnered with the chain, more than $54.5 million worth of Kylie Cosmetics products were sold through Ulta.

But a recent report by the New York Post suggests the Kylie Cosmetics sales might be slowing down. Apparently, the majority of customers who bought the product have not returned to make a second purchase, suggesting that the company might have to make some effort to ramp up customer loyalty to the brand.

As a result, the company’s sales declined by a whopping 14 percent from January to May this year. Data were collected by Rakuten Intelligence, a company that tracks online purchases.

Rakuten was able to track the cause of the company’s declining sales. And it found out that 60 percent of those who bought a Kylie Cosmetics product from June 2016 to May 2019 did not make a second purchase.

Digging further, Rakuten also uncovered that Kylie Cosmetics customers have taken to the internet to complain. The shoppers were dissatisfied with a variety of issues such as order mix-ups, no refund or return policy, product quality and poor customer service.

According to Forbes, Kylie Cosmetics runs on a lean workforce of only seven full-time and five part-time employees as everything else is outsourced. Manufacturing and packaging are handled by another company, Seed Beauty, while sales and fulfillment are handled by Shopify. Kylie Cosmetics reportedly declined to make a comment on the issue at the moment.