Sephora.com has purchased assets of the defunct Eve.com for an undisclosed sum said to be in the “high six-figures,” a source close to negotiations told The Post.
Jim Wiggett, CEO of Sephora.com, said the purchase involved three elements of Eve.com’s assets – two-time access to Eve.com’s customer base; its URL and the Eve.com name. He refused to divulge the terms of the deal but admitted, “there was more than one bidder.”
Sephora.com’s first contact with the 460,000 former Eve.com customers and registered users is planned for today, and will come from the co-founders of Eve.com, Varsha Rao and Mariam Naficy.
“In the future, we would recommend that you visit Sephora.com,” it reads, “A company for whom we have a good deal of respect and who we believe will serve your beauty needs well.”
The second e-mail will be sent “within the next 20 days,” in time for holiday shopping, Wiggett said, and will include a one-time electronic discount for the former Eve.com users’ first purchases at Sephora.com.
Sephora.com currently has no plans for the Eve.com name but will consider it for future business opportunities. “It’s an available resource,” said Wiggett, “Another asset for future use.”
Eve.com launched as an e-tailer of cosmetics and accessories in June 1999 with backing from idealab!, an incubator for Internet companies.
Idealab! pulled the plug on Oct. 20, with Rao and Naficy each pocketing a reported $17.5 million upon departure. The company cited product supply problems as the reason the company would not reach “acceptable levels of profitable growth in cosmetics alone.”
Sephora.com is the online arm of the Sephora retail stores and has been in operation since October 1999. Sephora is a division of luxury mogul Bernard Arnault’s LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton.