Rakesh Aggarwal

Rakesh Aggarwal, (born 1975), is a British businessman and founder of the internet cosmetics retailer Escentual.com, which was described as the “Amazon of online beauty” by MoneyWeek. ^[1] Escentual is one of the UK’s biggest online retailers of beauty and grooming products. In 2011, it posted sales of more than £10million and won the Beauty, Perfume & Cosmetics category at the Online Retail Awards. ^[2] Speaking of his ambitions for the business, Aggarwal told The Sunday Times: “We want to be as well known as Asos but in the beauty market.” ^[3]

Early Life

Malvern College

Rakesh Aggarwal is the son of Raj K Aggarwal OBE DL – Wales’s honorary consul to India – and Mrs Usha Aggarwal. He grew up in Cardiff and attended the Cathedral School Llandaff and then Malvern College as a boarder. According to a profile in The Sunday Times, Aggarwal did not plan to go into the beauty sector. Instead, writer Kiki Loizou notes, he had expected to be a pharmacist like his father, who had emigrated from Kenya in the 1960s and ran a chemists in Cardiff. ^[4] In fact, after A-levels at Malvern, he studied pharmacy at King's College London but his plans came to a halt in the second year of his degree. He told The Sunday Times: “I realised I had made a default decision and didn’t really enjoy pharmacy. I was in limbo but knew I wanted to go into business so figured I should go back to education and study for an MBA.” Accordingly, Aggarwal left in 1995 and moved back to Wales to live with his parents. ^[5]

After leaving King's, Aggarwal enrolled on Cardiff University's MBA course, graduating with a distinction in 1999. He wanted to explore ways of taking premium beauty products, at the time mostly available through department stores only, to new customers through the internet. In 2000, Aggarwal spent £5,000 on the site and took an e-commerce course before launching Escentual.com, which was originally based in his parents’ garage in Cardiff. ^[6] That gave him a platform to sell his business idea to the brands he wanted to work with, such as Christian Dior and Clarins.

The first order went out around two days after the site went live in November 2000, and for the first six years the business grew slowly until Aggarwal was able to invest in a dedicated fulfilment centre. He told MoneyWeek magazine he took on two credit cards to pay for online advertising for his fledgling business. He said: "The good thing was that we didn't have much competition so we came up high in the search results." ^[7]

Current Business

As of December 2012, Escentual employs 16 full-timers as well as part-time picking and packing staff.

The business is still based in Cardiff. In 2010 Aggarwal told the Western Mail the Welsh capital was key to his company's success. "We find the environment here in Cardiff conducive to and supportive of business with the university on hand to produce some great graduates to recruit from. Without these we couldn't do what we do." ^[8]

As with successful entrepreneurs such as Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s Jack C. Taylor, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Pret A Manger’s Sinclair Beecham and Julian Metcalfe, Aggarwal insists customer service is the guiding principle of his business philosophy. He told Internet Retailing.net that he follows advice from his grandfather, who was a prominent businessman in Kenya. “The adage my grandfather used to tell me was: quality, service and satisfaction. Make sure everything you do is of highest quality and offer customer service that makes sure the customer is satisfied. I’m a real believer in customer satisfaction.”

Aggarwal also remains a staunch believer in new technology. In the future, he believes, augmented reality will be a big part of e-commerce with Apps that can emulate department store service. Escentual.com have pioneered social media as a way of keeping in touch with customers. In an interview with Direct Commerce magazine, Aggarwal credited social media with helping customers interact with his company and keep abreast of developments.^[9]

British celebrity Alexandra 'Binky' Felstead from the augmented reality TV show Made in Chelsea is a beauty ambassador and blogger on behalf of Escentual.com.

Polling

Escentual.com has carried out extensive polling of customers. In August 2012, The Daily Mail reported on an Escentual poll that revealed 34% of men use their partners’ beauty products. Aggarwal told the reporter: “The results are in line with the trend towards metrosexual grooming habits that we have seen in recent years.” ^[10] In June 2012, The Daily Mail’s Deborah Arthurs revealed the results of what appeared to be intriguing research into celebrity scents, quoting Aggarwal, who said: “We have noticed big trends in the market in the UK. Northerners love celebrity scents and can't get enough of cheaper brands like Christina Aguilera. People in the south actually spend more on perfume than northerners but celebrity scents are far less popular.” ^[11]

Personal life

Aggarwal lives in Old St Mellons, Cardiff, with his wife Caroline and their two young children. His father, Cardiff businessman Raj K Aggarwal, became the first Honorary Consul for India in Wales in September 2012.^[12]

References

External links

• Official website
• Rakesh Aggarwal on Twitter