Trends

• It is predicted that there will be an increase in social shopping as more consumers will look to buy directly from social media sites.
•  Personalization will continue to be important.
•  Establishing communities as part of the purchasing journey. Statistics show that customers who interact with each other are 400% more likely to make a purchase.
•  Embracing browsing rather than always pushing for conversions.
• Demand for subscriptions continues to grow and brands can use them for both sampling and sales.
• The use of augmented reality to let consumers virtually try products which may eliminate some barriers that currently keep consumers from making a purchase.

Emerging Innovation

• Boutiqaat's platform allows influencers to create virtual boutiques that they can add their favorite products to and then promote to their followers.
•  Sephora has been at the forefront of innovation in beauty ecommerce with tools such as Colour Match which uses AI to find the right makeup shade for customers, and a Facebook Messenger bot that allowed consumers to book make-up appointments that were powered by AI. These appointments led to an increase in sales.

Ecommerce Metrics

• Metrilo, a company that works with brands on improving their ecommerce results, provided detailed ecommerce benchmarks on various sectors of the beauty industry. For hair care, the average benchmarks were as follows: 13.2% retention rate, $56 lifetime value, 1.3 orders per customer, 93 days time between orders, and 4.6% conversion rate.
• Although not specific to beauty, statistics show that the conversion rate on mobile devices is less than half the rate on desktop devices.