Sign up to receive the Vogue Business newsletter for the latest luxury news and insights, plus exclusive membership discounts.
Personalisation is quickly becoming a driving force in the success of beauty brands. With beauty’s status as one of the most dynamic and fragmented industries, competition remains tough as new brands constantly look to break into what’s a rapidly evolving market. More than 25 per cent of all brands launched within the fast-moving consumer goods sector are rooted in beauty or personal care, per Euromonitor. Therefore brands are in persistent need of innovation and development, for both means of differentiation and to cater to changing preferences across consumer loyalty, product and discovery.
The role of social media in consumers’ discovery pathways is a contributor to some of the behavioural changes spurring the fight between beauty competitors. According to the Vogue Business Beauty Index, while traditional modes of discovery such as word of mouth (34 per cent), department stores (20 per cent) and traditional media (20 per cent) remain important, social media leads for beauty discovery with 39 per cent of consumers citing this as their preferred path to purchase. However, the power of social media in exposing consumers to the ever-broadening range of beauty brands and products, is incentivising the shift away from loyalty when it comes to brand, formulation and ingredient.
What’s more, 40 per cent of brands featured in the Vogue Business Beauty Index were founded in the past decade, highlighting an industry that has evolved during — and benefitted from — the digital revolution. As a result, competition within these digital environments is fierce and staying front of mind continues to pose a challenge for brands. Maghan McDowell, Vogue Business’s senior innovation editor, emphasises the importance of personalisation in building a successful digital strategy. “People are overwhelmed when they go online to shop, so the only way to really break through is personalisation,” she says.
Eighty-three per cent of beauty consumers shop for over half of their beauty purchases online, per the Vogue Business Beauty Index, and yet much of beauty e-commerce is siloed, either operating through direct-to-consumer sites or multi-brand e-tailers. The traditionally siloed system means brands and retailers may only see part of a consumer’s purchasing experience, rather than the whole nine yards. By understanding how beauty customers shop across brands and product types, retailers such as Amazon Beauty are able to tailor the experience throughout the customer shopping journey. “It’s such an incredible feeling when I can tell that a site recognises who I am and remembers what I like, and so I’m naturally inclined to stick around,” says McDowell on the pros of tailored experiences.
Catering to consumers in flux
Amazon Beauty has profiled three types of beauty consumers: replenishers, who value efficiency, speed and convenience; brand loyalists, who are well-informed researchers on the brands and products they love; and explorers, who are most interested in variety, excitement and discovery. These customers demonstrate different habits depending on the type of beauty product they are shopping for, meaning the same customer may be a replenisher when purchasing skincare, but an explorer when shopping for colour cosmetics. For brands, this level of detail ensures the recommendation of each unique product is reaching the right customer at the right point of their purchase journey, with every customer that visits Amazon Beauty having a different experience catered to their individual habits and preferences. Melis del Rey, general manager of beauty, baby and beauty technology at Amazon US Stores, touched on the strategy in her opening remarks at the Vogue Business x Amazon Beauty dinner in Soho House New York. “We are focused on making sure product recommendations are reaching the right customers at the right time in their shopping journey — from homepage to checkout,” she told fellow attendees.
Programmes such as Subscribe and Save and Amazon Prime ensure replenishers enjoy the ease and convenience they desire, while events such as the Amazon Holiday Beauty Haul allow them to stock up on the products they love at a lower cost. Meanwhile, for brand loyalists, Amazon Beauty storefronts provide a means for discovery and engagement. These storefronts allow brands to maintain their branding on Amazon, building loyalty and increasing association while enabling a seamless, cross-brand experience for consumers themselves.
Clinique launched in the US Amazon Premium Beauty store in March 2024, shortly before other brands within the Estée Lauder portfolio — including Too Faced, Dr Jart+ and Smashbox — followed suit. “Being in the US Amazon Premium Beauty store provides greater accessibility and discoverability of Clinique and its iconic products,” says Christie Sclater, SVP of global product marketing at Clinique. “Our hero products quickly rose as top sellers, which was very exciting to see. But at the same time, Amazon customers discovered other products like the All About Eyes Serum — now an Amazon bestseller.”
Amazon Beauty taps into the explorer’s desire for variety, with a selection of over 100,000 beauty brands in the US, including the likes of Clinique, Kiehl’s and Dolce Gabbana Fragrance. But a vast product range alone isn’t enough. Retailers must focus on thoughtful brand curation to deliver the kind of online experience that today’s shoppers expect. For Amazon Beauty, brand collaboration is key. “Listening has been paramount so that we can really understand the brands’ requirements,” explains del Rey. “We mutually have a better understanding of each other’s objectives, which has helped us to find technological and operational solutions that help us all.”
Three of the top five brands within the Vogue Business Beauty Index have a thriving business in the Amazon Beauty store — Kiehl’s, La Roche-Posay and Cerave — which can be credited to the retailer’s thoughtful onboarding strategy. “We have a well-honed brand launch programme at Amazon that we’ve developed to ensure as much impact as possible,” says del Rey. Though as for any brand, it’s trial and error that has allowed the retail giant to finesse its approach, which can be adopted beyond beauty. “This is based on learnings from every launch, not just beauty but across categories.”
Tapping tech to fill the gap
The Vogue Business Beauty Index is our annual study tracking the performance of 30 editorially selected brands within the industry. While Amazon Beauty has continued to align itself with this from a product assortment perspective, it is also addressing consumer needs identified within the report to deepen the brand-consumer connection. Demand for personalisation services is high, according to the Vogue Business Beauty Index. Seventy per cent of consumers want skin diagnostics and/or colour matching when shopping online, while just 30 per cent of brands offer this. For those that do offer it, it sits within a brand-owned website, not corresponding with the multi-brand approach consumers often take to shopping.
Clinique created its Skin Analysis Tool to coincide with the launch of its Amazon Premium Beauty storefront. Developed with Clinique’s guiding dermatologists, the interactive, online questionnaire seeks to custom-fit a skincare regime for Clinique customers, ensuring a simplified and tailored skincare journey through recommended products available for instant purchase. While mostly appealing to brand loyalists, keen to learn more about the brands they love, tools such as these tap into the needs of explorers looking for new routes of discovery, as well as replenishers, who are looking to streamline the shopping process.
The Estée Lauder-owned beauty brand has further looked to bridge the gap between the in-store and online experience through offering Amazon customers the unique ability to consult one-to-one, in real time, with a Clinique ambassador through their Amazon Beauty storefront. “Amazon is helping Clinique recruit new and incremental consumers, in part, through the storytelling opportunities the Premium Beauty store offers,” says Sclater. “We love how Amazon enables consumers to discover more about Clinique whenever, wherever they want to learn about our dermatologist-guided, allergy tested and 100 per cent fragrance-free solutions from skincare to makeup.”
Even more recently, Estée Lauder launched into the US Amazon Premium Beauty store on 22 October. For launch, the brand debuted an exclusive Virtual Foundation Tool that allows Amazon customers to find their preferred shade of its cult Double Wear foundation.
Moving forward, brands that embrace personalisation will not only stand out in this crowded market, but will foster long-lasting loyalty among their customers. In this evolving landscape, personalisation is no longer a luxury but a necessity for long-term success.
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
