An ugly ending for beautysleuth

Published on Saturday 5 April 2008 16:02

AN ONLINE cosmetics business that attracted a blaze of publicity after achieving sales of more than £4m in its first year has gone into liquidation.

Edinburgh-based beautysleuth.co.uk claimed to be the fastest-growing online hair and beauty products retailer in the UK.

The firm, which at one stage employed 30 out of a warehouse in Fountainbridge, was set up in 2004 with an initial investment of just 250.

Glasgow-born Fiona Miller, who at the time was running a beauty salon in Edinburgh's Gorgie road, created the internet retailer after her boyfriend, Craig McDonald, a web designer, suggested she launched an online venture.

Initially, beautysleuth sold 150 products online, but the range grew tenfold as sales took off. At one stage it commanded a UK-wide customer base of 70,000.

In 2005 McDonald and his business partner at the time, Bob Thomson, joined forces with Miller as managing director and technical director respectively.

It is understood that Thomson left the company shortly before the firm was wound up.

Last night Miller, who only two years ago was dubbed Scotland's answer to Martha Lane Fox, refused to comment, only to confirm that the company had gone into liquidation.

But sources close to the company said there were a number of operational difficulties and it was "virtually impossible to go on" after Thomson had left.

In an interview last year 29-year-old Miller, who had no business training – she studied aquatic bioscience at Glasgow University – admitted that her biggest challenge so far was dealing with a period of hyper-growth where sales went from a few hundred thousand in one year to suddenly being in a position where sales were as much as 1m per month.

She said: "With hindsight I'd have preferred to do it in a slightly controlled fashion, to enable us to put systems and processes in place first, as we ended up having to spend a lot more money than we wanted bringing the business up to a point where we could cope with the level of sales we were generating.

"However, things are now really well set to capitalise on what we have created here."

It is understood that the firm's second venture, Handsome Devil, an male grooming website, has also closed.