Shoppers aren’t taking risks when it comes to their beauty routines in quarantine.

Bluecore recently released its Retail Data Dashboard to provide retailers with regular insights into consumer behavior since the onset of COVID-19. The report monitors the performance trends of a representative sampling of shopper data from more than 400 brands across sub-verticals, like beauty, and business models on a bi-weekly basis.

As beauty retailers look to prioritize strategies and investments that focus on driving repeat purchases and retention, here are three consumer behaviors they should consider:

1. Consumers are sticking with beauty brands or retailers they’ve bought from in the past.

Beauty averaged a 127% increase in online sales in June (as compared to June last year), but very few of those sales have been from first and second-time buyers.

In fact, while beauty has seen the largest increase in sales compared to other retail categories, it saw the largest decline in first-time buyers (-67% YoY) and second-time buyers (-69% YoY). If consumers are trying new products at all, they’re buying them from the stores they trust.

While there are likely obvious products you would like to push, there may also be a few ‘Hidden Gems’ – those products that are high-converting but have low visibility. Find those products and drive relevant recommendations to customers that have an affinity for them, based on purchase history and product preference, to drive incremental sales.

2. More time at home means more time to research beauty products.

Consumers may not be purchasing from new brands or retailers, but this doesn’t mean they’re not curious about them.

Consumers are viewing beauty products 297% more in one week than usual and adding them to their cart 324% more often than the same time last year.

Communications should be individualized based on consumer behavior and the products they interact with. For example, if a shopper has an affinity for discounts, it might be worth offering a coupon code.

Knowing consumers and what influences them to purchase will help turn those browsers into shoppers.

3. New beauty trends are emerging as a result of COVID.

With summer vacations cancelled and people not leaving their house as much as they would normally during the summer, consumers have been getting their sun-kissed glow from a bottle.

Shoppers have purchased 3.2x more products with the word ‘glow’ in them from March-June this year, than they did the same time last year.

This is likely because they were particularly conscious of having a summertime glow on Zoom meetings, yet less likely to be outside than usual. Make sure you’re aware of these microtrends consumers are hopping on (many without even knowing it) so your communications efficiently align.

The Bottom Line

Understanding — and immediately acting upon — ever-changing consumer behavior will drive loyalty among customers and significant results for beauty retailers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Cascone is director of marketing, Bluecore.