Miora, a recently launched beauty marketplace Website and app, aims to establish itself in Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Peru as it expands across the region.
"[Miora] is a platform where all the users or clients that need beauty services can make a reservation,” Jorge Villabona, Miora co-founder and marketing director, recently told Latin Business Daily.
“In the case of beauty salons, they can get a business flow through a channel that is only starting to be explored," Villabona said. "For beauty service providers, the service offers some automatization and a place where clients can leave opinions."
The company founders recently received $4.2 million in capital from investment funds, including two from Latin America. That money will come in handy as Miora looks to expand to other countries including all of the Americas in 2016.
“The intention is to be as intelligent and as fast as possible,” Villabona said.
Miora models itself off of the innovation happening in Europe in the beauty industry.
“This model of intermediation already exists in Europe so it has already been proven and is very profitable,” Villabona said.
Villabona pointed out that there are a few key differences between the beauty industries in Europe and Latin America: while Europeans embraced technology sooner, Latin American women, particularly in Colombia, use beauty salons much more than European women.
“It has to a lot to do with a culture, where women like to look beautiful,” Villabona said.
In addition, more teenage girls, as young as 14, are making use of beauty services.
With Miora, beauty salons can publish their services and products as well as advertise any discounts they offer, all for free.
“The business is activated when people make a reservation or use a service,” Villabona said.
Once that occurs, the business pays a commission to Miora.
“After the few months in activity, we are already in 500 salons," Villabona said of Miora's aggressive growth. "In Mexico, we are over 200. The objective is to reach 1,000 saloons by December; and this could mean some 400 in Mexico, 300 in Bogota, and the rest between Peru and Chile. There are a potential number of 700,000 salons in those four countries."
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