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In 2023, consumers around the world are continuing to shift their beauty and personal care spending online. Euromonitor’s new Passport: E-Commerce system – which tracks online sales performance across 15 of the largest retail e-commerce markets in the world – provides a comprehensive view of the categories, brands and retailers that are driving digital sales growth in the beauty and personal care (BPC) industry in 2023 so far.
Lip products and denture care products are the fastest growing BPC categories online
Other lip products recorded the highest online sales growth of any BPC category across the markets covered by the Passport: E-Commerce system over the first three quarters of 2023, with sales more than doubling compared to the same period of 2022 – especially in the US, where digital consumers flocked to lip serums, tinted lip oils, and other products designed to enhance their lip features. This momentum is part of wider colour cosmetics innovation in the US, where an emphasis on products that straddle the line between skin care and colour cosmetics picked up momentum during the pandemic years.
Denture fixtures was the second fastest growing category in BPC e-commerce over the first nine months of 2023. Growth in denture fixtures is building from a relatively small base; in general, online sales of oral care remain underpenetrated relative to other BPC categories like skin care or colour cosmetics. Still, sales of oral care are moving online at a rapid pace.
Globally, e-commerce accounted for only 4% of oral care sales in 2014, but the channel’s share jumped to 11% in 2019 and now stands at 18% in 2023, as the largest brands continue to expand online
Source: Euromonitor International
In terms of the fastest growing BPC brands in e-commerce, the US leads the way
Looking at the fastest growing major BPC e-commerce brands across the markets covered by the Passport: E-Commerce system highlights the importance of the US; six of the top 10 brands over the first nine months of 2023 are based in the country. The success of brands that offer simple and safe ingredients and vegan/anti-cruelty bona fides – such as Native, Rare Beauty or Dr. Squatch – indicates that US consumers’ interests in transparency and environmentally-conscious lifestyles are on the rise and powering online sales growth.
The remaining four brands are all based in Asia Pacific. All recorded triple-digit year-on-year sales growth in the first three quarters of 2023 by leveraging innovative digital marketing strategies to capture the attention of digitally savvy young consumers. For example, COSRX’s sleek new packaging gives the brand a more sophisticated feel and highlights its high concentration of active ingredients; KanS rebranded itself in 2021, targeting younger generations with its anti-ageing products that it assiduously promotes on Douyin, a social media platform, through a number of streaming accounts and influencers.
Douyin is the fastest growing retailer in BPC e-commerce
Douyin, which serves as the Chinese analogue to TikTok, plays an outsized role. (Both Douyin and TikTok are operated by digital tech company, ByteDance Ltd.) The short-form videos that are Douyin’s stock-in-trade allow content creators and other influencers to easily share product recommendations with their followers across China. Indeed, representatives of Kanebo, a beauty brand owned by Japan-based KAO, recently described Douyin as the “best platform” to raise brand awareness.
Douyin also operates as a retailer in its own right. It is leading the social commerce revolution in China, where it is a key online shopping platform for brands and influencers alike thanks to its 700 million monthly active users.
Douyin, as well as Amazon, are driving much of the growth in online BPC sales in 2023; the two e-commerce giants were the first and third fastest growing retailers, respectively, in the digital BPC space over the first three quarters of the year
Source: Euromonitor International
Meanwhile, US-based Il Makiage is the second fastest growing BPC e-commerce retailer. The beauty brand is posting phenomenal online sales growth in 2023 due to its use of AI in providing customised product recommendations and beauty solutions.
Note: The Passport: E-Commerce system tracks online sales in fmcg categories across the following 15 markets: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, South Korea, Spain, the UK and the US.
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