1Beauty and the E-Commerce Beast 2017 2016/2017 Edition Beauty and the E-Commerce Beast As online sales of beauty and personal care products rise, loyalty becomes elusive, creating new challenges for beauty sellers. 1Beauty and the E-Commerce Beast 2017 A Trifecta of Trends Transforming the Industry A perfect storm of demographics, social media, and radical change in consumer attitudes toward shopping is forcing the beauty and personal care industry to play by a new set of rules. In 2015, the industry that built its historic success on providing consumers with the in-store opportunity to touch, smell, and sample products saw $6.2 billion, or almost 8 percent, of its sales take place online. This is a full 1 percent higher than in 2013. A.T. Kearney’s latest study of online beauty and personal care shoppers—our third since 2012— found that consumers are unwilling to accept the beauty business as usual and are increasingly attracted to digital alternatives (see sidebar: About the Study). This isn’t automatically good news. We found that while online sales are on the rise, they aren’t necessarily accompanied by commensurate levels of loyalty. In fact, in our 2016 survey,67 percent of the respondents reported using four or more websites to fulfill their beauty and personal care browsing and shopping needs. 67 percent of our survey respondents report using four or more websites to fulfill their beauty and personal care shopping needs. The industry’s role as an unchallengeable authority as information source is also under attack from “Influencers”—the typically young, digitally plugged-in beauty connoisseurs who are attracting a significant number of social media followers (see sidebar on page 10: Girl Power:
The Rise of Beauty Influencers). Thirty-seven percent of respondents say they learn about new products from social media or peer reviews. With an expected increase in online channel penetration, category observers are asking tough questions. Will online’s convenient delivery, wider product selection, competitive pricing, and access to information complement the in-store experience or cripple traditional retailers’ sales and margins How can online retailers build loyalty And what should brands and retailers do today and tomorrow to protect their market share To answer these questions, let’s explore how the multichannel landscape for beauty and personal care has changed. About the Study Following its initial study in 2012, A.T. Kearney conducts a study every two years of the impact of e-commerce on the beauty and personal care categories. We probe the underlying consumer behaviors, motivations, and attitudes that drive the fast- growing online channel. These studies reveal a growing level of comfort with purchasing beauty and personal care products online and suggest a clear road map for thinking about the volatile and sometimes surprising online beauty and personal care shopper. The results of our October 2016 study are based on an online survey of 800 women who indicated they had shopped for beauty products online at least once in the past 12 months. Respondents, who are represen- tative of the US Census, were polled about their shopping behaviors, motivations, key attributes, and preferred online shopping destinations.
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