Three of the top four online retail websites for apparel shopping are mass merchants. Amazon, Walmart and Target draw a large portion of online apparel sales. More specifically, four in 10 apparel buyers purchase 26% or more of their purchases on Amazon.

Mass merchants draw beauty sales

Overall, mass merchants dominate online beauty purchasing. Amazon, specifically, drew 59% of beauty-product purchases between October 2022 and March 2023, according to a Digital Commerce 360 and Bizrate Insights survey. 52% of respondents shopped with other mass merchants in the same time frame. Meanwhile, no other kinds of retailers had a 50% penetration of sales. The next largest penetration of beauty-product sales was with drug stores, at 36%. And 29% of respondents shopped with specialty beauty retailers, in particular, for such products.

Just over a third of surveyed online beauty shoppers go directly to brands for their loyalty program perks and money savings. 26% said they go directly to a brand because brands are more likely to offer free shipping, and 23% cite trust as a key factor.

Same-day delivery and flexible returns with mass merchants

38% of surveyed online shoppers ordered online from a web-only retailer for same-day delivery in the six-month period from September 2022 through February 2023. Meanwhile, 31% ordered online from a physical store for same-day delivery.

On the flip side, 24% returned an Amazon order to another retailer (such as Kohl’s) for processing back to Amazon. That compares with 19% who returned an Amazon order to an Amazon return center.

And when it came to in-store and curbside pickup, more than half of shoppers went to Walmart (63%) or Target (52%). Meanwhile, 37% of surveyed online shoppers used such services for hardware/home improvement purchases, and 34% for consumer electronics.

Amazon buying frequency

The online buying frequency among Amazon shoppers is fundamental to their success.

27% of survey respondents in September 2022 said they purchased from Amazon a few times a month. 18% said they purchase from Amazon a few times a week. Meanwhile, 3% said they purchase from it daily, and 6% said they do so multiple times a day.

Almost half of online shoppers surveyed purchased more apparel, home goods and health/beauty products on Amazon than elsewhere in 2022.

And when shoppers aren’t purchasing on Amazon, they tend to shop online at Walmart (54%), Target (36%) and specialty retailers (36%). Department stores and other marketplaces take the next largest shares of sales.

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data with this quick survey and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post The Shopper Speaks: Mass merchants control the online narrative appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

More than half (52%) of respondents said they prefer that a retailer personalize the shopping experience for groups of similar customers. 48% said they preferred that a retailer personalize the shopping experience to each individual.

Most customers (58%) said they believe data sharing is necessary for brands to provide a personalized experience. 87% of respondents want to be asked for their permission to collect personal data first. Only 13% said it was not important to them to be asked.

A significant portion (42%) of respondents said they do not believe sharing their personal information, whether intentionally or without permission, is necessary for a retailer to personalize their shopping experience.

CI&T, a software and digital consultancy company, surveyed 542 U.S. consumers in March 2023. Respondents were selected to be representative of the demographics of the U.S. population.

Consumers don’t want to share much information about themselves

Consumers are reluctant to share information beyond:

• Gender: 14%
• What city they live in: 14%
• How much they are willing to spend on an item: 11%
• Age: 11%
• Who they are shopping for: 10%

Only 8% said they’d be OK with a retailer knowing their shopping history at the retailer’s physical store, or their browsing history on the retailer’s digital channels such as a mobile app or website (7%).

Topping the list of what information consumers do not want retailers to know:

• Annual household income: 19%
• How large the household is: 12%
• Browsing history at this retailer’s physical stores: 11%
• Race: 11%

Consumers are more likely to share information related to what products they want to buy. When asked which of the following consumers wish retailers knew about them when shopping with the retailer:

• The sizes I usually fit in best: 17%
• The styles I prefer to wear: 16%
• The price point that is most aligned with how I spend: 15%
• What I’ve bought from them in the past: 13%
• The color scheme/schemes I prefer: 11%

According to survey author Melissa Minkow, director, retail strategy, “while there is sufficient demand for personalization, achieving it in the most-privacy-respecting way possible is imperative,” she wrote in the report.

While survey respondents said they wanted personalization geared toward similar groups of consumers rather than individual shoppers, 22% said they would share personal information in exchange for a product type, color or style developed just for them with the exact specifications they’d want. 21% said a search process that is quick and oriented to precisely what they are looking for would be an incentive to share data. And 20% cited a personalized price point.

“Consumers will gladly welcome ‘good’ prices,” Minkow said in the report.

Consumers want options

Respondents also said they do not want to miss out on options should they opt for a personalized shopping experience. 47% said they’d like to see the “same web page everyone sees, and then allow me to navigate to the type of item I’m looking for after I select a few filters,” such as price or color.

Only 15% said they’d want to see a retailer’s homepage with personalized options.

Categories that consumers said they would prefer to have a personalized experience:

• Apparel and accessories: 17%
• Personal care (body wash, razors, hair brushes): 13%
• Beauty (cosmetics): 12%
• Electronics: 12%
• Grocery: 12%

Human interaction vs. chatbot

Overall, consumers slightly preferred interacting with humans over artificial intelligence when it came to:

• Apparel/accessories: Fit and sizing experience.
• Electronics: Differences between brands.
• Grocery: Recipes and brands, or finding the least expensive ingredients.

Categories where consumers were comfortable interacting with a chatbot as much or nearly as much as a human:

• Household goods: Explanations of chemicals used in manufacturing.
• Furniture and appliances: Interior design consultations.
• Personal care consultations: Ingredient explanations and suggestions.
• Beauty consultations: Color match appointments for foundation and concealers recommendations, or makeup lessons.
• Pet supply consultants: Suggesting the right food or toys.

What retailers can do to entice shoppers to share information

Retailers can incentivize providing data by building exclusive content, creating limited product ranges, offering unique services, and launching early drops for shoppers who share more personal information, Minkow said.

“Right now, the best examples I’ve seen are Nike and Levi’s,” she said. Levi’s Red Tab loyalty program prompts shoppers to answer a few questions for Levi’s to suggest relevant products.

Levi’s engages with consumers through its Red Tab loyalty program by asking questions to tailor the shopping experience.

“The more consumers engage with these brands by giving up more information about them through their loyalty programs [as well as outside loyalty programs], the more tailored and interactive the shopping experience,” Minkow said.

Consumers want options. Minkow warns retailers to be careful not to suggest that the customer bypass certain products “because consumers seem to worry that personalization may lead to shortcuts that omit products they would want to see,” she said.

Instead, when asking for data, retailers could explain the benefits such as “this will allow us to show you more items you might be interested in.”

Or, for omnichannel shoppers interested in buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS), “if you’re solely open to picking up in store today, sharing your location with us will ensure we only show you items in stock at the stores within the amount of miles from you that you’ll accept.”

Using AI to personalize the shopping experience

Survey respondents are open to interacting with AI chat bots. Minkow said pricing models offering personalized discounts are another example of how technology can power the type of personalization consumers want.

“Sizing suggestions and styling recommendations leverage technology to facilitate personalization as well,” she said.

She warns that once a problem arises that cannot be easily resolved by a chatbot, the conversation should be handed to a customer service agent immediately.

“Too much friction can be created when a problem is handled by technology for longer than it should be, which would result in an abandoned shopping cart and/or not returning post-purchase to the retailer,” she said. “There should be an automatic threshold wherein if a customer has been interacting with technology for a certain amount of time, a service agent is automatically triggered to step in.”

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data with this quick survey and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post New personalization survey shows consumers are reluctant to share much with retailers appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The value of retail purchases rose 0.4% after an upwardly revised 0.7% decrease in March, Commerce Department data showed May 16. Excluding autos and gasoline, sales increased 0.6%. The figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.

Nonstore retailers, which include ecommerce merchants as well as other categories such as vending machines and mail order, were up 8.0%.

While the overall figure came in below the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists, the gain in sales excluding autos and gasoline topped expectations.

Consumer spending

Seven out of 13 retail categories rose last month, including advances at auto dealers, general merchandise outlets and online merchants. The advance in April sales suggests low unemployment and steady wage growth are supporting demand for merchandise.

“The bottom line is that consumers still have the means to spend,” Tim Quinlan and Shannon Seery, economists at Wells Fargo & Co., said in a note. “Whereas in the early days of the pandemic excess savings afforded households the ability to splurge on goods, today a sturdy jobs market and steady real income gains are supporting consumption.”

The report does not provide a detailed breakout of ecommerce numbers. One financial firm said their data suggested a less-than-positive showing in April for online retailers.

“While the data shows an increase in overall consumer spending across April, our data shows less of a rosy picture for the online retail sector, in which spending was down in all sectors. Based on our data, online sales of food and drink products saw the most sizeable decrease at 6%, with the beauty & fitness and home & garden segments the next two sectors showing the most significant slowdown at 5% and 3% respectively,”Jack Pierse, president and co-founder of Wayflyer, said in a written statement. Wayflyer provides funding to ecommerce merchants. “Overall, we are optimistic about ecommerce as we move into the busier second half of the year and the peak sales period. However, what’s clear is that many online retailers and their customers will continue to feel the pressure of inflated costs in the coming months.”

Discretionary spending

Still, Americans continue to shift more of their discretionary purchases to services. There are also some signs consumers are overextending themselves. Sales fell at furniture retailers, sporting goods and other hobby stores, and at appliances and electronics outlets.

Receipts at restaurants and bars — the only service-sector category in the report — climbed 0.6%.

“Retail sales saw a modest rebound in April, with spending at restaurants and bars — the main proxy for services in the report — painting a picture of consumers still willing to spend. However, a flat reading for real retail sales tempers the optimism,” said Eliza Winger, an economist with Bloomberg. “Overall, the report suggests consumers are becoming more discerning in their spending as the economy slows toward an expected recession later this year.”

Recent data show credit-card balances continue to grow and are carrying higher financing rates. That indicates further momentum in consumer spending may prove difficult. Federal Reserve policymakers are expected to pause their tightening campaign next month after raising interest rates by 5 percentage points since early 2022 to combat an inflation surge.

Impact on GDP

Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of GDP and more complete inflation-adjusted picture of April outlays including services will surface later this month.

The retail sales report will help shape economists’ estimates for personal spending and gross domestic product in the second quarter. Before the figures, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecast expected a 1.8% annualized increase in personal consumption and a 2.7% gain in GDP.

So-called control group sales — which are used to calculate GDP and exclude food services, auto dealers, building materials stores and gasoline stations — increased 0.7% in April, the most since the start of the year.

Because the retail sales data aren’t adjusted for changing prices and only include one service-sector category, it can be difficult to draw concrete conclusions about the spending environment.

A separate May 16 report showed production at U.S. factories rebounded in April, led by the biggest increase in motor vehicle output since late 2021.

Despite an increase in prices at the gas pump on average in April, the value of retail sales at service stations declined for a sixth-straight month.

Data last week showed inflation rising at the slowest pace since 2021. Despite the slowdown, prices are still running about double the Fed’s target rate and weighing on consumers’ purchasing power.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post US retail sales rise in sign of steady consumer spending appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

However, large retailers that struggle to create a great experience around curbside pickup should stop offering it.  

“It’s not worth creating bad experiences,” she says. “And it’s not worth pulling resources away from in-store experiences if that’s the choice.” 

Kohl’s discontinued curbside pickup, and more retailers are considering canceling the omnichannel service. Retailers scrambled to launch curbside pickup during the pandemic. But now that many consumers resumed in-store shopping, retailers must determine if offering curbside is still worth it.

She offers six steps to retailers to create an effective curbside pickup experience.

Pfeiffer’s 6 steps to make curbside pickup effective

1. Communicate curbside as an option as early and clearly as possible during the shopping process online. 
2. Allow consumers to filter products by fulfillment options. 
3. Let consumers add items to cart by fulfillment option — for curbside, for in-store, for shipping — so that all the way through the shopping experience, the customer is in control and knows exactly what to expect.  
4. Make it abundantly clear in the cart what the various fulfillment methods are. Make it really obvious, especially if there are multiple. 
5. Communicate very well via text or email or apps. Have options, and make sure the customer can say they’re on their way. They can check in. They can describe their vehicle.  
6. When the customer arrives at the store, it should be extremely clear where to go. When they arrive, make it obvious where they should park, what they should do, and what the status is.  

Pfeiffer says if retailers struggle to staff enough employees for curbside pickup but still want to offer the service, they can try making pickup only available at certain times of day when shopper data shows a store will be less busy. 

This expert quick take is part of a larger story on retailers deciding whether to commit to curbside pickup.

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data with this quick survey and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update!

The post Expert quick take: Keeping curbside pickup effective appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The post Committing to curbside pickup — or breaking up with it appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

This willingness, however, drops quickly the more days a shopper has to wait, with only 45% waiting at least two days, and 15.6% waiting three days or more, according to the survey.

The study finds that overall, consumers say they would do something some of the time to make their online order ship to them in a more eco-friendly way. 69% of consumers said sustainable shipping has influenced their past purchases. And 76% of shoppers say they would pay an extra 5% for more sustainable shipping.

This high share of shoppers taking into account sustainable shipping does not surprise Caleb Nelson, chief growth officer at Sifted.

“Consumers are demanding sustainability improvements across the board, so we didn’t find it surprising that there’s such a demand for it when it comes to shipping,” Nelson says. “Ecommerce saw unprecedented growth during the pandemic, and that shift made a lot more consumers think about the impacts of having products shipped to their doorsteps.”

Still, price is still the main consideration for shoppers to purchase, especially recently.

Sifted cites inflation as the main reason for the increase in priority of price and decrease in priority for sustainable shipping for making an online purchase.

56.8% of consumers in 2023 said sustainable packaging and shipping was important (33.8%) or very important (23%) when purchasing online. That compares with 2021, when 66% said sustainable shipping and packaging was important (32.6%) or very important (33.4%).

2022 Ecommerce Fulfillment Report

Analysis of the latest trends in ecommerce fulfillment. Includes over 30 charts, shipping policies of Top 1000 retailers, Amazon’s fulfillment practices, the state of the worldwide supply chain, and updates on in-warehouse automation and delivery robotics. 

View Details

According to the survey, shoppers seem to understand the shipping package makes a difference to sustainability. Overall, 76.6% of consumers say companies use excessive packaging when shipping products. 72% of consumers say the amount of packaging has a moderate to high impact on environmental sustainability and 70.4% say the type of packaging has a moderate to high impact on environmental sustainability.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post 80% of shoppers will wait for sustainable shipping appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

But manufacturers often struggle with increasing content requirements, more channels and touch points to manage, and rapidly changing customer needs, which require a company to be agile, says a new survey of 1,500 manufacturing companies by IDC.

Moreover, the importance manufacturing companies place on improving their online user experience does vary by industry and world region.

“The industry has historically been averse to changes in how businesses operate,” IDC says. “And while ecommerce is still a distant second for manufacturers as a whole, it is the revenue source expected to continue to grow the largest (with 63.7% expecting growth and only 11.5% expecting decrease).”

Expected changes for digital experiences

The average change manufacturers expected was a 23.8% increase in online sales over the next two years, with an additional 44.2% of respondents expecting growth higher than 25%, IDC says.

“There are variations in the average expected change by region (NA 31.1%, EMEA 18.9%, and APAC 10.9%) and by subsegment (F&B/CPG 30.3%, industrial manufacturing 25.4%, automotive 21.7%, electronics and semiconductors 20.5%, and chemicals 10.2%),” says IDC. “But no matter how the data is sliced, the overall movement in business is shifting toward ecommerce.”

More Charts & Data Stories

Check back soon for more Charts & Data Stories, like our weekly B2B infographics. We add new content regularly. 

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post Customer expectations for digital experiences keep rising appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Moreover, app users dwelled 50% longer on the Beekman 1802 site. The app also led to a double-digit boost in cart size. Beekman 1802 credits this to My Skin Biome being a “fun and educational tool to help consumers decide on the best skin care products.”

The tool, launched in summer 2022, “assesses skin attributes and then offers a custom skin care routine based on skin’s redness, wrinkles, dark spots, hydration, texture and skin microbiome scores, while teaching users all about the microbiome and why it is important to overall skin health,” Beekman 1802 said.

Consumers can access the My Skin Biome tool, which is a mobile web app, through Beekman1802.com and submit a selfie taken in the app using the mobile phone’s camera. It provides scores based on six different attributes:

• Skin biome
• Texture
• Dark spots
• Wrinkles
• Hydration
• Redness

Users then review their scores on the attributes and select the skin concern they would like to focus on. The app then generates products tailored toward the user’s needs and skin care goals, offering users the ability to add products to their carts.

Beekman 1802 provides a QR code on its desktop website that shoppers can scan to access the My Skin Biome tool on their phones.

My Skin Biome tool empowers Beekman 1802 web traffic, sales

Consumers who use the My Skin Biome tool convert 35% more than those who don’t, Baker said. Furthermore, the average order volume for consumers who use the app is 13% larger than those who don’t. Beekman 1802 saw a 150% increase in pages per session among shoppers who use the My Skin Biome tool, and a 15% reduction in bounce rate.

“We were looking to have a diagnostic tool that would allow our neighbors — that’s what we call our consumers — to more actively take control over what is best for their skin care regimen and for us to provide them with personalized results,” Baker said. “The My Skin Biome app itself allows us to do that because it allows our neighbors to — really quickly with the use of the QR code — scan their face and deliver product recommendations based off of their particular needs.”

The My Skin Biome tool from Beekman 1802 and Perfect Corp. works directly from the website on a user’s mobile phone.

AR/AI in health and beauty

Augmented reality and artificial intelligence are becoming table stakes in the beauty industry, said Wayne Liu, chief growth officer at Perfect Corp., which creates augmented reality and artificial intelligence technology. Perfect Corp. developed the My Skin Biome tool with Beekman 1802.

“Skin care is less AR; it’s more AI because it’s machine learning,” Liu said. “It’s a diagnostics tool. Basically, we have the user scan their face, and then we’ll identify the ‘concern,’ which is the skin care problem from their photo. That’s a machine learning process.”

Extending to makeup, Liu said virtual try-on tools benefit beauty retailers because they save shoppers time and help them make decisions faster. Augmented reality helps shoppers decide what shades and products they like on themselves.

“The more you try, the more you purchase,” Liu said. “Traditionally, you probably can only try one or two colors and it will take probably 20 minutes. Right now, you can try 30 colors within like 30 seconds.”

Beekman 1802 has a physical store with its farm in Sharon Springs, New York, as well as in LaGuardia Airport. It’s also available via Ulta Beauty stores. Ulta is No. 51 in the Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000 database ranking North American online retailers by web sales.

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data with this quick survey and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Goat milk skin care retailer is on a mission to be the GOAT of beauty brands appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The post The Shopper Speaks: Health and beauty by the numbers appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

We looked beyond the aggregate numbers, and if you are like me, you will be surprised by some of the findings. Others might be in line with your expectations. Below are highlights of 9 key survey questions that put it all into perspective.

1. How often do you buy beauty products online?

This includes, for example, cosmetics, skincare, haircare, etc. Men are buying beauty products more frequently.

The male/female split is as follows:

• Weekly or more: 41%/21%
• Monthly: 35%/45%
• Yearly: 24%/34%

Younger shoppers are more frequent buyers

This is a category that lends itself to testing and replenishment, so frequent shoppers have favored status among retailers. When it comes to purchases for those 18-29, buying daily is seen among those 18-29 at 21% and is the highest of all age segments. Conversely, for their older counterparts (55+), only 1% buy daily. Looking at weekly and other patterns, 53% of those 18-29 shop at this rate while only 7% of those 55-64 and 5% of those 65+ have similar activity levels.

2. How would you describe your approach to beauty buying online?

Younger shoppers over-index for online experimentation and learning about new brands. Meanwhile, older shoppers tend to leverage online for replenishment purposes.

It’s likely that in our early years, we want to learn about a plethora of products. The web is well-suited for that as experimentation numbers show. It’s worth noting that younger shoppers buy across online and in-store channels once they make their choices. The convenience and time-savings that come with replenishment is appealing, too. Older shoppers are seasoned and know their needs and favored channels.

3. Which types of retailers have you purchased beauty products from in the past 6 months?

Younger shoppers favor more options, starting with mass merchants, drug stores, social media ads and specialty beauty retailers.

The ease of shopping via mass merchants and drug store chains — and the convenience of both — make them real time-saving opportunities for this audience.

Women gravitate to specialty beauty retailers and brands.

The gender factor is insightful for store selection, as women favor purchasing via brands and those specialty retailers that put an emphasis on a broad assortment of unique brands. The specialty brand stores seem to serve as a playground for the younger audience, so there, too, we see heightened interest. Social media ads are a natural extension of time spent on those sites.

4. Which of the following online features are important when selecting beauty products online?

Younger shoppers focus on the details, from ingredients to imagery.

They also appreciate ample product imagery, with those 18-29 (28%) and 30-39 (31%) favoring it versus those 55-64 (15%) and 14% for those 65+. One place where the older customer expresses greater interest is product availability. Those respective findings by age are: 55-64 (62%) and 65+ (68%) vs. 18-29 (47%) and 30-39 (54%), which all compare with the 57% average.

Lastly, web tools such as the ability to profile one’s beauty needs are almost twice as important to younger segments: 18-29 (24%) and 30-39 (30%) vs. 55-64 (14%) and 65+ (7%). With the state of the environment a great concern among younger audiences, product information assumes a heightened role. One example was vegan and cruelty-free callouts.

Their penetration numbers:

• 18-29 (31%)
• 30-39 (29%)
• 55-64 (15%)
• 65+ (11%)

5. Which of the following have you taken advantage of when attempting to make the right beauty product selection for you?

Men connect more with retailers and take advantage of tools, our survey data shows. Meanwhile, women enjoy color-matching tools and beauty subscription boxes more.

Connecting comes in many forms. First and foremost, it means sending an image to a retailer, with male/female penetration as follows (22%/8%). And then asking a question of a retailer reveals a 9% gap (23%/13%). Men also were twice as likely to take advantage of augmented reality/virtual reality (14%/7%), though the overall penetration is relatively low. Just as with profiling tools, women also have used color-match tools more (29%/40%). As shoppers experiment and learn about brands, ideally, it helps them make better beauty choices.

Younger shoppers try new tools and communicate more. The younger shopper enjoys trying some of the innovative tools and the latest products from the retailer’s bag of tricks. The age gaps of 20% or more are significant and instructive about the way these groups gather information and learn about products.

6. Which of the following are reasons that you choose to shop directly from a brand rather than purchasing from a retailer that sells multiple brands under one umbrella?

Younger shoppers embrace most of what brands deliver.

They have grown up in a world of belonging, and that is reflected in these numbers. The age gap also suggests their appreciation for being part of the brand community (16%). The feeling of receiving an authentic experience (14% gap) and the belief that this brand experience is more complete online, along with transparency, shines through (16% gap). Of course, it doesn’t hurt that they also believe they can get the products quicker.

7. Which of the following has influenced your selection of beauty products online?

Social media influences resonate with the young.

Males are more influenced by YouTube (41% vs. 24%), Instagram (34% vs. 24%) and Facebook (36% vs. 26%). When looking at those same three influences, the younger shopper reinforces its more significant role.

The one additional influence that young shoppers favored is TikTok, with an age gap of 47%. Younger shoppers can be significantly more influenced by media and online activities.

8. Which of the following are reasons you choose to visit a physical store when shopping for beauty products?

Women visit physical stores more to see and test products, and they hope to save money along the way.

Needing items quicker weighs heavily for women as the biggest gap (17%) against a 47% average. The hands-on nature of buying beauty products for women should not be understated. The gender gap of 14% starts with women seeing the products in person and was 16% for testing products. Money also talks for women, as one important reason for visiting the physical store is in-store sales/promotion (14%). Another is not wanting to pay for shipping (15%). Both buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) and curbside advances have made that choice even more desirable.

Older shoppers like to see and test products in person while also saving money in the process.

Older shopper behavior is more often about the money savings. Here, in-store sales and promotions had a 13% gap against a 39% average. Not wanting to pay for shipping also was on the minds of older shoppers at a 15% gap versus the 38% average. The in-store visit means getting a full sense of the brand experience (17%) and was consistent with the 16% age gap for seeing the product.

From the younger side of things, one aspect that may be most interesting was the trust of the product more when bought in person (15%). As these shoppers are newer to beauty buying, they just may have more to learn and appreciate doing it in the store.

9. Thinking about how a site presents itself online, which of the following are important to your beauty buying experience?

Men are more focused on the brand’s presentation, particularly those that are value-oriented.

To be honest, this surprised me, as I expected the results to be just the opposite. The findings from a gender gap point-of-view were impressive, starting with the brand’s diversity stance (6%) and extending to its views on social and political issues (10%), along with fair trade and charitable giving (8%).

Women also care more about accurate swatches that aren’t photoshopped. They are in keeping with earlier color match finding and use of tools to guide decision-making. For women, they also took a greater interest when it comes to the look and feel of the site (13%).

The youth numbers came in just as I would expect.

Youth care more about brand presentation. They are passionate in their point-of-view about how the brand behaves from its diversity stance (19% gap). Additionally, a number of brand presentation elements saw a 17% gap including sustainability practices, the brand’s story, charitable giving and its views on social and political issues. The swatches finding was consistent with prior research questions from this study, with this being more important to this younger audience.

Beauty is a category that has distinct behavior by age and by gender. Knowing your audience and the implications for merchandising and marketing are important when the audience style and activity is so different.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post The Shopper Speaks: Surprise findings about the online beauty buyer appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.