Through Technology, Local Skin Care Products “Callista” Presents Personalization for Its Customers

Callista is a local skin care product brand that was released in 2016. It provides product variants such as serum, toner, mask, sunscreen, celansing and so forth. Besides Indonesia, they also have consumers from Malaysia, the Philippines and Hong Kong.

Compared to other similar product brands, there is something unique about Callista. They optimize technology platforms to accelerate business.

“We have a skin analysis service and personal beauty assistant which makes it easier for customers to get personalized product packages according to their problems and skin types,” explained Callista Co-Founder & CEO Ryan Narendra.

When initially starting a business, Callista only relied on social media Facebook and Instagram to market and sell products – otherwise known as social commerce—even then they didn't have their own selling site like they do now. The team also uses WhatsApp to connect with customers, providing skin care consulting assistance.

Along with the increasing number of customers, the social media platforms and messaging applications used are less efficient in providing services, because the process is very manual. Often beauty assistant –a team of designated maintenance specialists—overwhelmed, which can have implications for the loss of purchase prospects.

“From there, we created a Skin Analysis platform that is powered by AI so that consumers can get product recommendations directly, without waiting for a manual reply from the customer. beauty assistant. Currently this feature can be accessed via Callista official website, " explained Ryan.

Until now, with the help of their technology, they have managed to reach around 32 thousand consumers and manage about 150 thousand skin analysis data.

Technology for product personalization

It is known together, that there are many similar products produced by Callista on the market, even from brand world class big. Indonesia has tremendous market potential for care and beauty products. According to the data collected The report of Statista, in 2020 the profit from the business is projected to reach US$7,288 million and will continue to increase from year to year.

Realizing this, Ryan and his team decided on a personalization approach to attract users, one of which was the consulting service. The business model has been carried out since its inception, from manual to semi-automatic.

“To ensure the product has a good impact, usually every month beauty assistant we will do follow up through to see progress and optimize the next treatment package for each customer, "continued Ryan.

The development of Callista's product variants and business models will also continue. If in previous years they focused on product distribution online, this year will begin to strengthen the channel offline through "beauty ambassadors". It's as simple as a program reseller, opens up opportunities for micro-businesses to participate in selling their products. The management system still relies on digital platforms.

"Based on our experience, people will be more confident in buying skin care products if they are recommended by friends/family who have used it and get satisfactory results," said Ryan.

Get support from business acceleration program

In addition to Ryan, there is Shinta Priantika Sari who is also a co-founder Callista. He has a background in health studies at the University of Indonesia and has 8 years of experience in the skin care field. Ryan's own educational background is in the fields of technology and business, since graduating from Queensland University of Technology.

Since its inception, Callista has walked bootstrapped, until earlier this year they received funding pre seed from the accelerator program SCALE. Currently Callista is also joining a similar program initiated by Gojek, namely Xcelerate.