Sustainable Business Practices for Beauty Brands: Estée Lauder & More

(Updated on April 6th, 2022)

It is now a common fact that corporations have added 'sustainability' into one of their main business strategies. Due to shifting consumer demands, it is now a principle for many brands to revolutionize the operational process by reducing damage to the environment. 

What are Sustainable Practices?

Harvard Business Review Defined Sustainable Practices as: 1) at minimum do not harm people or the planet and at best create value for stakeholders, 2) focus on improving environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance in the areas in which the company or brand has a material environmental or social impact.

But how can the beauty industry help society? 

Mainstream beauty brands have been working on sophisticated, sustainability-based practices. Due to the tremendous impact of customers' behaviors cause by Covid-19, customers are less willing to physically try on sample products. In this case, how can brands accelerate the digital transformation and also keep sustainability in mind? Reducing physical samples can be a good start. 

Now, physical samples are becoming almost obsolete due to the changing needs of consumers and novel tech advancements.

From providing virtual makeup try-ons to digital customer engagement, cosmetic brands are now revisiting every touchpoint including products, marketing, delivery mediums.

Question is: How?

Sustainable Business Practices in 2022: When E-Commerce & Beauty Converge

‘Try before you buy’ was the go-to retailing strategy for beauty and cosmetics only a year ago, and the prospects looked promising.

It improved sales potential because customers were better able to understand beauty products in terms of color, texture, and scent. This traditional approach simplified purchasing decisions and saved time.

But over time, consumer needs change due to personal preferences or external factors, which means beauty brands need to adapt to these changes quickly with new digital beauty experiences, such as virtual makeup try-on, foundation shade finder, hair color try-on, and online skin diagnostic:

Beauty Brands That Have Applied Virtual Try-On:

• Virtual lipstick try-on by Estée Lauder
• Smart foundation shade finder by Make Up For Ever
• Virtual hair color try-on by Aveda
• Online skin diagnostic by La Roche Posay

In this coming year, many brands found themselves suspending makeovers and demonstrations, and instead of using virtual means to offer these experiences to their consumers. Read more on that in our latest post here.

Companies were quick to capitalize on leveraging technologies from software vendors that redefine how consumers buy, use, and experience beauty products, as more beauty brands turned their efforts and resources to the Internet.

It’s not surprising the e-Commerce niche currently represents a significant source of revenues in the global $532 billion worth beauty industry.

After all, the future of beauty will be about technology. Whether it is related to the formulation process, quality assurance, digitalization, personalization, or responding to customer needs, brands are operating in a fascinating new world.

We explore this further below.

How To Employ Sustainable Business Practices To Deliver a Comfortable Shopping Experience

What remains the same at the heart of digital acceleration is the customer with a deep sense of how they want to look and feel. This essentially means beauty products remain important, even throughout the pandemic.

And with retailers now being unable to use in-store makeup testers, for instance, beauty brands are turning to better, cost-efficient means.

Virtual makeup try-on is an ideal example of that.

Sustainability, Health and personal well-being are vital reasons why trying on beauty products through virtual means is a safer option than buying them in-store.

AR-powered virtual makeup software removes the need for physical samples and addresses hygiene, health, and environmental concerns. Customers remain in the comfort of their homes and do not expose themselves or others to the risk of virus spread by instead using a fun, exciting alternative.

Consumers can sample makeup products, nail polishes, hair colors, and other items seamlessly and safely with zero rush, zero mess, and zero traveling.

All that is needed is usually a mobile device with a camera and an Internet connection.

In the YouCam Makeup app for instance, (try it free here, you’ll love it as much as we do!), beauty fanatics can virtually try on any makeup or hairstyle looks they come across, get on-demand professional advice from a beauty guru right within the app, and even purchase chosen items without exiting the software.

Moreover, virtual try-on technologies are a great source of innovation.

Sustainable Business Practices Example: Estée Lauder

Estée Lauder’s iMatch Virtual Shade Expert can be considered as an ideal example.

The beauty giant has recently partnered with Perfect Corp to roll out a virtual try-on tool to allow its consumers to identify their ideal foundation shade.

Both the interface and the experience are simple and intuitive. Powered by AI deep learning, the digital experience accurately detects and compares the user’s skin tone against its extensive knowledge base of 89,969 skin tones.

We can expect other brands to further combine digital technologies with personalized product curation and deliver an even more engaging online shopping experience.

The Benefits of Sustainable Practices: Reduce the Cost of Distributing Physical Samples

Distributing physical product samples might have some benefits to it, but the process is nevertheless costly and unscalable.

Some of the advantages of physical sample production and distribution include higher customer engagement rates due to, for instance, allowing prospects to personally experience the merits of makeup items before the purchase.

As an example, a beauty brand might send physical samples of its new mascara to customers so they can discover the product and fall in love with it.

However, production and distribution expenses are too significant to ignore. Manufacturing, packing, inventory quality control, and logistics costs - the list could go on.

The expenses equally apply to both makeup testers used in stores, as well as physical samples that are offered as part of promotional deals.

The demand for physical samples is also very difficult to predict. What if consumers urgently need certain samples and a retailer loses out on potential sales because of a stock-out?

There is the added worry of planning and considering every aspect in advance, as beauty brands devise the best action plans. But with virtual makeovers, this concern, in addition to many more, is completely eliminated.

How Can AI Help with Delivering Sustainable Business Practices

By going digital, companies can follow hygiene and safety measures by integrating virtual makeup technology into their customer-facing in-store devices (think AR smart mirrors or similar).

Some in-store virtual try-on incorporates intelligent gesture-controlled features that enable customers to seamlessly navigate the experience without having to touch a screen.

They can draw relevant data about products they have tried on by simply taking photos and using their phones to scan the QR codes. Voice activation capabilities allow consumers to input commands and keywords to browse product categories.

All these dynamic features are safer and more affordable than distributing actual samples for consumers to try on.

Brands can achieve economies of scale and prevent themselves from incurring extra costs even if they operate online. This is possible because AR beauty experiences are already proven, and brands can get started in no time.

Contactless Virtual Try-On Features

Contactless virtual try-on has been more and more popular on the market.

From virtually trying on matte or glossy lipsticks and choosing from a variety of foundation finishes, to highly-personalized and customized tutorials - there are a plethora of options for users to pursue as they navigate through AR-powered software tools.

For instance, consumers are able to try on an unlimited amount of shades through a live device built-in camera use, selecting a model’s image, or uploading selfies.

Going Digital - An Intelligent Way of Realizing Sustainable Business Practices

Customers have perfectly valid sustainable or health concerns as reasons to choose virtual makeup try-on and other online beauty services.

Even without the COVID-19 pandemic and physical samples becoming obsolete, digital virtual makeovers are a superior alternative to physical testers, due to cost-efficiency, better consumer engagement, and higher retention rates, among many other advantages.

All in all, investing in Beauty Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence guarantees profitability in the long run during this day and age.

The world can expect AR-driven shopping experiences to be among the most revenue-generating sources for worldwide beauty brands in the coming years.

Get expert advice from Perfect Corp. and be part of the beauty tech trend. Contact us for details on beauty tech solutions trusted by 400+ brands globally.

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