TRENDS
By Elena Sullivan
PL B EAU T Y C AR E In 2020, when the pandemic hit, we had to quickly adapt to a lot, including our beauty care regimens. While on one hand, dressing up and putting on make-up seemed trivial in the early days of quarantine, beauty care that encompasses selfcare routines became even more important. The beauty care market trends illustrate the shift in consumer preferences and spending over the past several months particular to a change in lifestyle due to the pandemic. The beauty care industry as a whole generates globally about $500 billion in sales yearly and while the pandemic has pushed sales down in some segments, there are opportunities to grow as retailers change their approach to fit consumers’ needs. The major shifts we are seeing are what products consumers are purchasing and the way people are shopping.
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The Shopping Experience: The beauty care space is always evolving, especially with the growth of online shopping and social media providing consumers a wealth of information about products and limitless product choices. Beauty care shopping has also always been a sensory experience and when consumers were encouraged to stay home and not visit stores, retailers had to reimagine how to enable consumers to, for example, try on make-up, test a scent, or feel a lotion. The pandemic only accelerated the shift from in-person shopping to virtual shopping. There are so many brands and purchasing platforms; therefore, retailers have to put a lot of effort into making their products unique. Many shoppers want to have a sensory experience with beauty care when choosing products. During the past year, the ability to offer a sensory experience became a major obstacle due to extra safe measures including social distancing, masks and hand sanitizers. Some retailers are now offering individualized testing kits, such as beauty retailer, Sephora, which allows consumers to test products via augmented reality mirrors. This strategy helps shoppers try on products without having to actually physically touch the products. In order to make in-store experiences more personal, some retailers such as drug chain retailer, CVS, offer in-store beauty consultants to give expert advice to shoppers.
