Glossier Makes ‘Difficult But Necessary’ Layoffs

Following its recent round of $80 million Series E funding round, direct-to-consumer (DTC) beauty brand, Glossier, has laid off one-third of its corporate employees. The layoffs were announced in an email from CEO Emily Weiss.

In her email, Weiss noted that the company made “some mistakes,” which ultimately led to the dismissal of 80 employees, mainly, but not exclusive, to the technology team.

“We prioritized certain strategic projects that distracted us from the laser-focus we needed to have on our core business: scaling our beauty brand,” she said in the email.

Weiss admitted that the beauty brand, in fact, got ahead of itself when it came to hiring and is now shifting its strategy to leveraging outside sources.

“[We] are shifting our technology strategy to leverage external partners for parts of our platform that we’re currently maintaining internally,” Weiss said.

During the height of the pandemic, Glossier laid off all of its retail employees and shuttered its store locations in London, Los Angeles and New York. More recently, the company witnessed a 22% dip in sales this holiday season in comparison to 2020.

Now with fresh capital under its belt, the beauty brand is looking to take a “city-by-city” approach to building its retail network. It has opened retail locations in Seattle, Los Angeles, and London — and reportedly has plans to expand even further.

While Glossier has witnessed online growth across all of its categories (skincare, makeup, fragrance and body), it has certainly not been the most straightforward path to success.

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