Beautycounter isn't your typical beauty brand. Given its network of roughly 50,000 independent consultants marketing and selling its products, company founder and CEO Gregg Renfrew feels "an enormous sense of responsibility to make sure that we are operationally sound," she said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast.
"I say it's both our opportunity and our responsibility right now," she said of the company's place amid the current coronavirus' outbreak. "Because it may be just a three-month, short term gig for them." But for others, she added, it could be a way to "continue to pay their mortgages, their rent, when other things have dried up."
Renfrew said Beautycounter has seen a rise in younger consultants joining as a way not just to make money, but to find community in a time of frequent isolation.
Overall, she thinks the pandemic will amplify the advantage of direct-to-consumer businesses like hers. "I think the wholesalers in general are in a lot of trouble right now. I hope some of them weather the storm. I think some of them will not, unfortunately," she said.