The Body Shop UAE Sees up to 50% Increase in Basket Size after Incorporating Perfect Corp.'s AI Skin Analysis, Elevating Skincare Experience and Driving Growth

Situation: Navigating a Competitive Skincare Landscape

The Body Shop UAE, a global beauty brand renowned for its commitment to ethical and sustainable practices, has revolutionized its in-store customer experience and significantly boosted its skincare business through the strategic adoption of Perfect Corp.'s advanced Skincare Pro (Premium) AI skin analysis service. Faced with intense market competition and a strategic imperative to expand its skincare category, The Body Shop UAE leveraged cutting-edge AI technology to deliver personalized solutions, deepen customer engagement, and cultivate new avenues for growth.

Founded in 1976 in Brighton, England, by the visionary Dame Anita Roddick, The Body Shop stands as a pioneering force in the global beauty industry. As a certified B Corp™, the brand's core mission extends beyond providing high-quality, naturally-inspired skincare, body care, haircare, and make-up; it is deeply rooted in making a positive difference in the world through ethical and sustainable production. This changemaking ethos, which championed the philosophy that business can be a force for good, continues to drive The Body Shop's operations across approximately 2,500 retail locations in more than 80 countries, including a robust presence of 49 stores in the UAE.

In a dynamic and fiercely competitive beauty market, The Body Shop UAE identified a critical strategic objective: to not only maintain its existing skincare business share but also to accelerate growth within this vital category. The primary challenges revolved around effectively engaging a diverse customer base—both existing loyal patrons and potential new customers—to explore and embrace The Body Shop's extensive skincare portfolio. The brand recognized the need for an innovative, efficient, and trustworthy tool that could:

• Personalize the customer journey: Provide individualized skincare insights that resonate with each customer's unique needs.
• Enhance advisor credibility: Equip in-store staff with data-driven recommendations to complement their product knowledge.
• Break through market noise: Offer a compelling, value-added experience that differentiates The Body Shop in a crowded market.

The impact of these challenges manifested as a continuous need to innovate customer interaction methods and drive deeper connections that would lead to sustained growth and expanded brand loyalty.

Solution: Embracing AI-Powered Precision with Skincare Pro

To strategically address these multifaceted challenges, The Body Shop UAE proudly adopted Perfect Corp.'s Skincare Pro (Premium) AI skin analysis service. This state-of-the-art solution transformed the in-store experience, making complex skin analysis accessible, rapid, and highly personalized.

The Skincare Pro App emerged as the optimal tool to deliver immediate and actionable  skincare health analytics to customers. Its implementation enabled The Body Shop UAE to:

• Provide Instant, Personalized Diagnostics: Customers receive rapid, data-driven assessments of their skin health, identifying concerns such as hydration levels, redness, spots, wrinkles, and more.
• Generate Tailored Product Recommendations: Based on the AI analysis, the app seamlessly provides personalized product recommendations, creating bespoke day and night skincare regimes. This level of customization pairs individual skin concerns with specific TBS products, and their benefits.
• Empower Store Advisors: The app acts as a powerful enhancer to the expertise of The Body Shop's store advisors. By offering validated analytics and clear product solutions, it adds significant value and authentication to their knowledge and communication, fostering greater trust and engagement with customers.
• Streamline the Customer Journey: In a fast-paced world, the Skincare Pro App delivers a swift yet comprehensive solution, streamlining the consultation process and making it highly efficient for both customers and staff.

Transformative Results and Measurable Benefits 

The integration of Perfect Corp.'s Skincare Pro has yielded substantial positive outcomes for The Body Shop UAE, reinforcing its market position and driving notable business growth:

• Maintained and Grew Skincare Business Share: Despite intensified competition, The Body Shop UAE successfully maintained and grew its skincare business, demonstrating the solution's effectiveness in securing customer loyalty and driving repeat purchases.
• Enhanced Brand Awareness and New Customer Acquisition: The engaging and innovative nature of the AI skin analysis service significantly increased brand awareness. Notably, it contributed to the acquisition of new customers, including successful cross-category enrollments and a marked increase in engagement from male customers, who now make up 22% of the brand’s customer base, thereby broadening their reach and engaging new consumers.
  
• Up to 50% Increase in Basket Size: Personalized recommendations and in-store offers led to customers purchasing a wider array of products tailored to their needs, resulting in a measurable improvement in average basket size and overall value growth per transaction.
• Consistent Increase in Skin Analysis: The appealing and interactive nature of the AI-powered experience led to a sustained month-over-month increase in the number of skin analyses conducted in stores, with monthly volumes at times surpassing 1,000 scans, indicating strong customer adoption and interest.
• Emergence of New Skincare Hero Products: The app's precise recommendations highlighted specific "hero" skincare products, driving their popularity and sales, further supported by proactive product education from in-store teams.
• Significant Database Growth: A remarkable 50% of customers who underwent a skin analysis opted to download their personalized reports. This feature proved invaluable for database expansion, enabling The Body Shop UAE to foster long-term customer relationships and personalize future communications. 

Key Features and Exceptional Support

The most impactful features of the Perfect Corp. Skincare Pro solution, according to The Body Shop UAE, are its ability to provide accurate analytics and personalized recommendations that translate into tailored day/night routines using the brand's products. These features were crucial for their business as they directly contributed to enhanced customer understanding, satisfaction, and ultimately, sales conversion.

The successful implementation and continued smooth operation of the Skincare Pro App were significantly supported by Perfect Corp.'s dedicated customer service team. The Body Shop UAE extended commendations to several members of Perfect Corp.’s team acknowledging their consistent and exceptional support throughout both the implementation journey and post-implementation phases. Their proactive assistance ensured a seamless integration and effective utilization of the product.

Overall Experience and Future Outlook

The Body Shop UAE characterizes its overall experience with Perfect Corp.'s Skincare Pro as "a quick, exciting tool for our staff to create an engaging experience for our customers: where analytics are accurate and recommendations personalized with the Brands products." The brand expresses strong satisfaction with the solution's impact.

Looking ahead, The Body Shop UAE intends to further explore Perfect Corp.'s innovative product portfolio. There is clear interest in extending the use of Perfect Corp.'s solutions to other categories, specifically for makeup and hair care, signaling a continued commitment to leveraging advanced beauty tech for enhanced customer experiences and business expansion. 

Illuminating Success 

“The successful implementation of Perfect Corp.’s Skincare Pro marks a significant step forward in The Body Shop’s digital innovation journey. By offering personalized, AI-powered skin diagnostics in-store, we’ve been able to create an engaging, fun, and educational skincare experience for both existing and new customers. This seamless fusion of technology and human expertise on skincare has not only elevated customer satisfaction but has also driven deeper brand loyalty by empowering individuals to better understand their skin needs and discover tailored product solutions — all in real time.”

Iftekhar Siddique, Marketing, Activations & Training Manager, The Body Shop (UAE)

About Perfect Corp. 

Perfect Corp. is the leading SaaS AI and AR beauty and fashion tech solutions provider, dedicated to transforming shopping experiences through empowering brands to embrace the digital-first world. 

By partnering with the largest names in the industry, Perfect Corp.’s suite of enterprise solutions delivers synergistic, technology-driven experiences that facilitate sustainable, ultra-personalized, and engaging shopping journeys, as well as equipping brands with next generation of consumer goods.

Perfect Corp. offers a complementary suite of mobile apps, including YouCam Makeup and YouCam Perfect, to provide a consumer platform to virtually try-on new products, perform skin diagnoses, edit photos, and share experiences with the YouCam Community. 

To learn more, please visit PerfectCorp.com.