Edge cases, single-brand house (Drunk Elephant only) vs full multi-brand skincare retailer?

Two very different architectures.

Single-brand house (e.g. Drunk Elephant, Sunday Riley, Tatcha, COSRX, Beauty of Joseon, all running their own DTC). Architecture priorities:

• One brand identity, one Magento website. No multi-website complexity.
• Quiz funnel highly tuned to your brand’s SKU range, not a generic skincare quiz.
• Subscription manager + replenishment central. 60%+ of revenue.
• International expansion via store-view per region (US / EU / UK / AU / Canada).
• Often direct partnership with Sephora / Ulta / Dermstore for retail distribution, Magento is the DTC channel, not the only channel.
• Budget: $15k, $50k typical build, 6-12 weeks.

Full multi-brand skincare retailer (e.g. Dermstore, Credo Beauty, BeautyBay, Asos Face + Body, Cult Beauty, niche US K-beauty resellers). Architecture priorities:

• Multi-website Magento (one storefront per featured brand) OR single storefront with strong brand taxonomy.
• Wholesale ingestion from brand suppliers via PIM (Akeneo, Pimcore, Plytix), ingredient data needs to be syndicated, not hand-typed.
• Ingredient + concern filter is non-negotiable, customer comes for the variety, needs the filter to navigate.
• Cert flags critical, COSMOS / EWG / Leaping Bunny become a filter that 30% of buyers use first.
• Subscription auto-ship only on house-brand SKUs typically (or with brand-partner agreement).
• Multi-region with different ingredient bans is the default, not the edge case.
• Budget: $50k, $200k typical build, 12-24 weeks. B2B layer for brand-supplier portals adds another $25k, $60k.

Both fit Magento. The retailer model is where Shopify falls over (multi-website, PIM, 30+ ingredient facets, multi-region bans) and Magento is the obvious choice. The single-brand model fits both, pick Magento when subscription share >40%, Rx-handoff is in the roadmap, or international expansion is on the 12-month plan.