BeautyX Retail Summit Brings Frédéric Fekkai, Amazon, Revolve and More To Dallas Next Month

For beauty brand founders, there may be no greater mystery than what’s on the minds of retail buyers. BeautyX will shed light on their thinking about the indie beauty market at its upcoming Retail Summit in Dallas.

BeautyX, a Beauty Independent live event and the only educational symposium dedicated to addressing the needs of independent beauty and wellness brands, will launch BeautyX Retail Summit in Dallas, Texas from May 7 to 8. The inaugural BeautyX Retail Summit precedes the Dallas edition of Indie Beauty Expo on May 9 and 10. The BeautyX Retail Summit follows the success of January’s sold-out BeautyX Media and Influencer Summit in Los Angeles. Its two days of programming will explore the beauty retail environment for indie beauty and wellness brands.

Among the panel discussions, live case studies, hands-on classes and fireside chats at BeautyX Retail Summit will be a one-on-one interview with beauty industry icon and once-again entrepreneur Frédéric Fekkai. Rachel Brown, editor in chief of Beauty Independent, will ask Fekkai about the lessons he learned while developing his hair care empire as well as retail strategies he’s pursuing with his new natural beauty brand Bastide.

The BeautyX Retail Summit will cover digital commerce in addition to brick-and-mortar retail. The event marks the debut of a collaboration between Indie Beauty Media Group and Amazon. Justin Boettcher, strategic business leader at Amazon, and Jennifer Tran, marketing program manager at the e-tailer, will teach a course on how brands can grow and flourish on Amazon’s marketplace.

“We wanted to highlight the ease of launching on Amazon Marketplace by speaking to brands about leveraging Fulfillment by Amazon, Sponsored Products and other great tools,” explains Boettcher. “Amazon Marketplace allows brands to focus on telling their story and letting Amazon take care of the operations all while connecting them with tens of millions of customers. We will also be sharing a sneak peek at some new marketing programs exclusive to Indie Beauty [exhibitors].”

BeautyX Dallas will see the reinvention of brand pitch competition Deskside Domination, which was a hit in L.A., to speak to the retail orientation of its Dallas edition. The entertaining contest is being renamed Race For Shelf Space and will showcase three Indie Beauty Expo Dallas exhibiting brands pitching three retail buyers on the BeautyX Dallas stage.

Notable retailers speaking at BeautyX Dallas include Revolve, Whole Foods, Walmart, The Detox Market, Free People, Feelunique, Marjani Beauty, Neiman Marcus, Petit Vour, Beauty Heroes, Stanley Korshak and Cult Beauty. The second day of the event will include a clean beauty retailer panel with four of the biggest names in the segment: CAP Beauty, Credo, The Detox Market and Follain. Jillian Wright, co-founder of Indie Beauty Media Group, will moderate the discussion about natural beauty retailing today.

“In a crowded conference field that provides information to all types of businesses, nothing compares to the targeted thought leadership and experts involved with BeautyX Summit,” says Wright. “These are all the people you’d want to talk to as an emerging brand, in one room, in a setting focused on indie. You’re not competing with bigger companies for air-time, it’s all about indie and entrepreneurs. I had always wished for this when I had my brand.” Wright’s co-founder, Nader Naeymi-Rad adds, “This summit provides entrepreneurs, whether brands or retailers, a forum to have a frank and open conversation about what it takes for an indie brand to succeed in key beauty retail channels.”

Indie beauty brand founders such as Au Naturale’s Ashley Prange plan to build on what they learned at BeautyX Media and Influencer Summit with BeautyX Dallas’ retail curriculum. “Indie Beauty Expo has done a remarkable job for beginning entrepreneurs in the beauty space as well as seasoned founders who continue to pioneer the quickly growing frontier of indie beauty,” says Prange. “I founded Au Naturale six years ago and am still learning a great deal from BeautyX. The education in L.A. deepened my knowledge of press and tastemakers. I look forward to Dallas for on-point information about buyers, and how they want to both curate and market indie beauty.”

After BeautyX Dallas, Au Naturale will join IBE Dallas as a returning exhibitor. Naeymi-Rad stresses the importance of exhibiting brands attending BeautyX. “For brand founders — especially those exhibiting at IBE Dallas — BeautyX Retail is a unique opportunity to meet over 20 influential buyers and merchants at top retail organizations and to make personal connections that can then be leveraged directly afterward at IBE Dallas”.

BeautyX Summit will close out its year with the third and final edition of the series, BeautyX Capital, focusing on funding, revenue generation and cash flow in New York City on Aug. 20 and 21, the Monday and Tuesday before IBE New York.