Tabs Analytics has released its Third Annual Beauty Study, which reveals insight into what types of beauty products consumers are buying, where products are purchased, and what social media channels are influencing beauty consumers. For this study, 1,000 geographically and demographically diverse female consumers between the ages of 18 to 75 were surveyed. The report analyzed the importance of the various shopping channels, including department stores, specialty cosmetic and beauty stores, drug stores, and grocery stores. It also compared Internet and in-home purchases with those of traditional mass-market retailers. The report’s findings revealed that Millennial and Hispanic women are the largest group buying cosmetic and skincare products in this $25 billion dollar market.
The Millennial women accounted for about 33 percent of the user base for cosmetics and skincare and almost 50 percent of recurring buyers of both categories. The Hispanic women accounted for 15 percent of all category buyers, 24 percent of all frequent buyers of cosmetics, and 20 percent of continual skincare buyers. “Millennial and Hispanic women are the clear drivers in the beauty market and account for almost 60 percent of all sales,” says founder and CEO Kurt Jetta, Ph.D. “The beauty and consumer packaged goods industries need to take note of these buyers, including the changes in the brands they are buying and how they are being influenced.”
Here are some key findings from the study:
1. YouTube, beauty bloggers, Facebook, and Instagram are top influencers for recurring beauty buyers. The Tabs study found that social media was important to 52 percent of frequent buyers of cosmetics. This is a 22 percent increase from 2015. Also, YouTube drove much of this growth and was the most popular social media popular channel with 35 percent of buyers reporting it was an influential channel for them.
2. Online sales bounced back. Online sales reversed their decline from last year and now represent nine percent of all beauty transactions and more than 10 percent of dollar sales, which amounts to approximately $2.5 billion annually.
3. Newer brands are gaining in awareness and picking up growth. Although the top brands, including Clinique, Cover Girl, L’Oréal, Maybelline, Neutrogena, and Revlon maintained their predominance in key awareness, constant use, and favorability metrics, a number of newer niche brands are breaking through in consumer popularity. Newer brands such as E.l.f., Jordana, Milani, NYX, and Urban Decay all had double-digit growth in awareness compared to last year.
“The beauty category has maintained healthy growth in 2016, but that growth decelerated somewhat from our last study,” says Jetta. “If these studies tell us anything, it is that there is still an insatiable demand for these younger users to directly engage with the products in terms of active research and trial of new products as well as new brands. Unlike most categories where we tend to see a shakeout of smaller brands, the pie of brands seems to be getting much bigger in beauty.”