Toothpaste giant Colgate has reportedly bought a minority shareholding in contact lens subscription start-up, Hubble, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) says. It says the move is the latest experiment by a big household-products maker to cut out traditional retailers as sales shift online.

New York-based Hubble started up two years ago, and once a user is signed up, provides an online service delivering a monthly package of contact lenses for a small, fixed fee until the user ends the subscription. Its offering is currently available in the US, Canada, the UK and some European countries. WSJ also reported that according to its sources, Colgate and Hubble will jointly develop a subscription service for some Colgate products, beginning with teeth whitening possibly as early as later this year, while it’s not known if the the FMCG giant will also apply the model to some of its other lines, such as pet food.

Although the WSJ said financial terms couldn’t be learned, it said the two companies will share revenue from the venture.