Portsmouth Business School
Business students link-up with international makeup trader
Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:00:00 BST
Business School students in England and Bulgaria have teamed up with an international professional makeup tools and accessories business to examine how business relationships develop between firms.
The University of Portsmouth Business School and the International University College (ICU) in Sofia are working with Thepromakeupshop.com, an online shop and industry trade supplier. The second-year students are using the business as a case study for their ‘managing business relationships’ module.
The IUC in Bulgaria delivers University of Portsmouth degrees to its students, following a partnership agreement between the two institutions 16 years ago.
Thepromakeupshop.com is an international online trade retailer that supplies disposable make-up brushes and professional beauty tools to a range of business-to-business market sectors. The firm supplies a range of high quality disposable mascara wands and make-up brushes as well as hygiene tools and accessories for professional and organizational buyers.
Sarah Turnbull, Human Resource and Marketing Management lecturer, said: Thepromakeupshop.com is an innovative business with unusual products.
“The idea of studying a real business is to help students to think about real business issues. For this particular case study students explored the value of relationships with other businesses and had to identify who was likely to be making the buying decisions.
“They were also asked to think about the challenges an online business-to-business firm faces when developing relationships with potential and existing buyers and had to recommend ways in which Thepromakeupshop.com could overcome these challenges.”
Thepromakeupshop.com was founded in 2008 by Antonia Hawke. She identified a gap in the market for an online industry supplier whilst training at one of London’s top make-up schools to become a professional make-up artist. Within weeks of the online retailer going ‘live’ Thepromakeupshop.com was receiving orders from all over the world.
Antonia, said: “Thepromakeupshop.com prides itself on the collaborative relationships built with all its business partners. We work hard to maintain these links and develop new ones so it is exciting to be working in partnership with a University’s Business School. Undergraduates today are very familiar with new media, but perhaps are not aware of just how important personal relationships with customers of an internet distribution business are. Launching a new business in deep recession is risky so ensuring the products, pricing and distribution channels work to serve our customers’ needs is our number one priority. The internet has provided a worldwide platform for sales, but relationships help build the brand and the business.”