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The holiday season is upon us and it’s time for beauty brands to review their e-commerce strategies and optimize retail opportunities in order to drive sales this holiday shopping season. The digital transformation of the beauty industry is already in full swing and beauty brands need to adopt advanced AI & AR beauty technologies if they want to succeed and keep up with evolving consumer expectations. This article will provide essential holiday e-commerce tips, ideas, and strategies that will help beauty brands and retailers increase their sales with beauty tech.
Holiday Shopping 2024: E-commerce Is Here to Stay
The holiday shopping season is an important time for any brand and retailer. This year, experts are predicting there will be a record-breaking $207 billion in holiday e-commerce sales in just the United States alone, making this a crucial period for any serious online business (Meyer). When looking globally, that number spikes to a staggering $910 billion.
Being that it’s the second year of holiday shopping in a pandemic, these numbers aren’t too surprising. Online retail is continuing to grow even as life eases back to normal, meaning beauty brands need to come up with the right holiday e-commerce strategy to drive sales.
Taking into consideration the accelerated digitalization of the shopping experience, beauty brands need to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) beauty tech into their e-commerce framework in order to satisfy consumers and grow sales this holiday season. Perfect Corp.’s advanced AI & AR beauty tech solutions will help beauty brands and retailers achieve these goals.
Integrate Virtual Try-On Quickly and Easily for the Holiday Season
One way beauty brands can elevate shopping experience and help customers find the right products is through virtual try-on. Perfect Corp.’s YouCam for Web service for small and medium businesses can be integrated onto a brand’s website quickly and easily to drive sales and engagement this holiday season.
With this advanced and interactive solution, users can virtually try on products in real time to visualize the results before purchasing. The service is available for a versatile array of makeup products, including:
With all of these options, customers can give themselves a full makeover using the brand’s products and make sure they are purchasing the right items, thus decreasing buyer’s remorse. All these feature-rich benefits have a huge impact on a brand’s bottom line. Statistics show that integration of the YouCam for Web solution can result in up to a 29% increase in basket size and a 6% decrease in returns.
Brands can start their free trial now to drive sales increases as high as 2.5x just in time for the holiday rush.
Online Shopping Goes Social
Social media is an important channel for product discovery and shopping, especially during the holiday season. It’s where many people go to research products they’re interested in, especially younger generations. Facebook was the most popular platform for this purpose, accounting for 46% of users who used social media to find new products (Statista). However, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter were also popular.
Brands can take advantage of this phenomenon by integrating makeup virtual try-on for many product categories directly into their social media content to create personalized experiences and drive social e-commerce sales.
Perfect Corp.’s AR virtual try-on technology can seamlessly be integrated into brand social content across major social networking sites including:
With the integrated AR virtual try-on, consumers won’t have to leave their social media feed to play and experiment with a brand’s products. The AR shopping experience can be featured in a variety of spaces. Using Instagram as an example, it can be featured on Instagram Stories, Shops, Posts, Ads, and more.
Users can experiment in real-time using their phone’s front-facing camera to try on various types of makeup from a brand’s product SKUs. It’s an excellent way to reach customers wherever they are, and one of the most effective ways to boost social commerce sales this holiday season.
Adding Personal Touch via Online Consultations
Even when shopping online this holiday season, the human aspect and personal interactions still matter to a lot of consumers. Customers don’t want to be isolated and anonymous behind a screen — they want recommendations based on their specific needs and concerns. Perfect Corp. has an interactive Beauty Advisor 1-on-1 solution that addresses these consumer demands.
An Online Beauty Advisor service is a must-have for holiday e-commerce because it provides an engaging, personalized experience to help consumers find the right products. Users can connect one-on-one with a professional beauty consultant to get recommendations and ask any questions they may have about the brand and its products. Customers will get to feel like the VIPs they are, all without leaving the couch.
Focus on Personalization and Inclusivity
When devising an e-commerce holiday checklist, personalization and inclusivity need to be at the top of the list. Perfect Corp.’s beauty tech solutions will help consumers find the best products suitable just for them, thus preventing unnecessary purchases and increasing satisfaction. Finding the right products for their skin tone is a significant issue for modern women, as a survey found that 80% struggled to pick the right foundation shade (Payne). AI technology can greatly alleviate this issue. For example, Perfect Corp.’s AI Foundation Shade Finder solution offers advanced skin tone detection that helps consumers find their ideal foundation shade in mere seconds. Furthermore, an auto lighting detection algorithm notifies users of the optimal lighting conditions for the most precise results.
So, by making the selection and shopping process easier, brands are likely to see a significant increase in return customers. By following this formula, many of the brands Perfect Corp. works with have seen increased conversions and higher profits.
Tarte saw a 30% jump in add-to-cart using virtual try-on, while skincare brand Marianna Naturals boosted their website traffic by 300% and saw a 30% sales increase after adding a skin diagnostics tool by Perfect Corp. Another brand, Mineral Fusion, even saw a 40% boost in conversion after deploying virtual try-on.
Make Your Brand’s Holiday E-Commerce Season a Bright One
Get expert advice from Perfect Corp. and be part of the beauty tech trend. Contact us for details on beauty tech solutions trusted by 600+ brands globally.
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Works Cited
- Meyer, Anna. “Online Holiday Shopping to Reach Record $910 Billion in 2021.” Inc. 21 Oct. 2021, https://www.inc.com/anna-meyer/holiday-shopping-2021-e-commerce-adobe.html
- “Social media platforms used to find out about new products according to online consumers in the United States in 2019.” Statista. 28 Jan. 2021, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1130288/social-media-platforms-online-consumers-us-finding-new-products/.
- Payne, Teryn. “Makeup for Melanin Girls Isn’t Just Making Products for Women of Color. It’s Listening to Them.” Glamour. 24 Aug. 2018, https://www.glamour.com/story/makeup-for-melanin-girls-instagram.
