“惊喜礼盒”热潮来袭

    或许浓缩的都是精华，而小礼盒里面放的通常也确实都是最好的物品。如今，消费者可以在网上获得想要的几乎任何东西。在这样的一个时代里，一些小型新创公司正在通过寄送神秘的精选礼盒来给消费者送上一份惊喜，而不是严格按照消费者的订单寄送商品，而这项服务也因此越来越受到欢迎。

    月购化妆品公司Birchbox、月购音乐及相关产品公司Merchbox、月购健康零售公司NatureBox、月购宠物食品公司BarkBox都在利用这种惊喜所带来的奇迹。即便在公司名称里没有“box”这个词，Quarterly.co以及在一定程度上的月购剃须刀公司Dollar Shave Club同样在利用这种惊喜所带来的奇迹。

    这个模式的在某些方面与大型主流电商网站的运营方式相类似：消费者可以下订单，确切地看到自己将会收到的商品，而且也知道什么时候会收到这些商品。但与亚马逊（Amazon）或eBay截然不同的是，对于这些公司（且让我们把它们称为“寄送礼盒型订付”服务）而言，在大多数情况下，注册订付服务的过程本身就是客户参与选择产品的整个过程。然后，他们每月或每隔几个月（每家公司的情况都不同）都会收到一个邮寄礼盒，里面装满了各种“神秘”的相关产品，从鲜为人知的黑胶唱片（Merchbox）到化妆品样品（Birchbox）到狗粮和玩具（BarkBox）等，应有尽有。

    这些企业的创始人都希望，订户收到礼盒时的那种纯真的喜悦能让让业务持续增长下去。米奇•洛是网飞（Netflix）联合创始人，也是Quarterly.co的首席执行官，Quarterly.co雇请诸如歌手法瑞尔•威廉姆斯和作家蒂莫西•费里斯等有影响力的人物，让他们精选自己喜欢的一些东西（Quarterly.co给予这些影响力人物一定比例的营收分成），然后把装有这些东西的神秘礼盒寄发给订户。正如米奇•洛在接受《财富》采访时所述：“当我第一次看到用户在邮件中收到网飞的红色小盒子时，他们脸上流露出来的神情让我想到了圣诞节。”

    “寄送礼盒型订付”模式是否会成功呢？这有点难以估计。社交媒体的影响范围往往模糊不清，而且由于这些公司开始营业活动才几个月，销售数据大多尚未公开，而且数据总量还不足。然而，他们的用户增长情况很有吸引力。创立于2011年11月的Quarterly.co表示，它的规模每半年都能扩大一倍。自从2012年1月份推出以来，NatureBox的用户人数每月增长50-100％。BarkBox的订户人数在一年内从1,500人增长至55,000人后，寄送剃须刀片、剃须霜和擦屁股用湿纸巾（butt wipe）的Dollar Shave Club已经拥有超过25万订户。

    用于小狗的礼盒、用于脸的礼盒、音乐礼盒、化妆品礼盒——在这个领域的初期阶段，看来几乎任何人都可以面向一个利基市场并且取得成功。这样就引出了下面两个问题：是什么促使“寄送礼盒型订付”模式的业务增长？随着跟风效仿者开始出现，这个模式是否可以保持独创性？每个人给出的回答各不相同，即便执掌这些公司的高管对这两个问题的回答也各不相同。

    NatureBox联合创始人兼CEO高塔姆•古普塔认为，这个领域的爆炸性增长显示，互联网市场正在不断变化。他说：“电子商务的第一波浪潮主要集中于消费者可以在亚马逊网站等任何地方都能买到的产品。然而我意识到，电子商务的第二波浪潮将集中于你无法在其他地方买到的产品。”

    Maybe the best things do come in small packages. In an age when consumers can get nearly everything they want online, a number of small new companies are gaining traction not by sending consumers precisely what they've ordered, but by surprising them with curated boxes.

    Birchbox, Merchbox, NatureBox, and BarkBox all make use of the marvel of surprise. Even without "box" in the name, Quarterly.co and, to an extent, Dollar Shave Club, do the same.

    One part of the process is similar to how the big mainstream e-tailers function: People can place orders and see precisely what they'll get and when. But in contrast to an Amazon (AMZN) or eBay (EBAY), with these companies -- call them "send-a-box" services -- signing up is, in most cases, the full extent of the customer's participation in selecting products. Then they receive a package in the mail every month or few months (varying by company) filled with anything from little-known vinyl records (Merchbox) to makeup samples (Birchbox) to dog treats and toys (BarkBox).

    The founders of these businesses are hoping that the pure joy of getting a package will sustain growth. As Mitch Lowe, a Netflix co-founder and CEO of Quarterly.co -- which employs influential people such as musician Pharrell Williams and author Timothy Ferriss to curate collections of their favorite things (influencers are offered a percentage of revenue) and ships them to subscribers -- tells Fortune, "When I first saw people receiving [Netflix's] little red boxes in the mail, the looks on their faces reminded me of Christmas."

    The success of the send-a-box model is somewhat hard to calculate. Social media reach tends to be ambiguous, and sales are mostly undisclosed and insufficient due to only a few months of operational activity. Their subscriber growth, however, is compelling. Quarterly.co, which launched in November of 2011, says it doubles in size every six months. NatureBox's subscriber base has grown by 50-100% every month since it launched in January 2012. BarkBox has gone from 1,500 to 55,000 subscribers in one year. And after launching in March 2012, Dollar Shave Club -- which sends out razorblades, shaving cream and butt wipes -- already maintains upwards of 250,000 subscribers.

    Boxes for your dog, boxes for your face, boxes of music, boxes of makeup -- in the early stages of this space, it almost seems anyone can target a niche and succeed. That begs the question of what is fueling the growth in the send-a-box model, and whether it can stay fresh as copycats begin to appear. Answers vary, even among the men and women at the helms of these companies.

    Gautam Gupta, co-founder and CEO of NatureBox, believes the explosion in the space is reflective of a shifting web market. "Whereas the first wave of e-commerce was very much centered on products you could buy anywhere, with sites like Amazon," he says, "I realized the second wave of e-commerce would be centered on products you couldn't buy elsewhere."