Despite revenue in the cosmetics and beauty industry amounting to US $87000M this year, there has been a 3.1% dip as compared to last year’s revenue.
This is because many merchants have had to shutter physical stores, which have been crucial sales touchpoints where shoppers can easily test their cosmetics and beauty products and choose products that suit their preferences and appearance.
However, eCommerce platforms like Shopify have made it easier for cosmetics and beauty stores to launch their business online and provide shopping experiences similar to what shoppers have within physical stores.
But, is online selling as effective as selling in physical stores for cosmetics and beauty brands?
Why You Need to Take Your Cosmetics and Beauty Stores Online on Shopify or Shopify Plus
In the past few years, prominent and leading cosmetics brands like Kylie Cosmetics, Huda Beauty, and even Fenty Beauty, have been able to find breakout success online. Their million-dollar success, despite not having a physical location when they initially launched, has proven the effectiveness of eCommerce.
The beauty and personal care online share is predicted to surge to 48% in the United States by 2023.
What’s more, when selling online, these beauty brands aren't confined to one specific location. They could instead acquire and sell to customers globally, allowing them to capture more customers than if they only had a physical store.
Also read: Shopify Store Design Breakdown: How Melrose Skincare Stands Out in the Skincare Industry
If you haven’t set up your online cosmetics store yet, you can avail Shopify’s 14-day trial to set up and launch your services online.
Step by Step Guide to Start an Online Store on Shopify For Your Cosmetics and Beauty Brand
1. Pick your theme
Before you start selling your cosmetics products on Shopify, you need to set up a store design that reflects your brand and helps you showcase your products. Through the Shopify Theme Store, you can pick up beauty and cosmetics Shopify themes you can set up and customize for your brand. Here are 3 beauty and cosmetics Shopify themes you can explore:
1. Prestige
One of the best Shopify themes for beauty and cosmetics store, Prestige comes with some of the most flexible and beautiful page layouts to put your products up, front and centre with high-quality visuals.
2. Broadcast
Another one of the best Shopify themes for beauty and cosmetics store, is Broadcast. If you're looking for a visual-driven, minimal design style for your storefront, we recommend going for this theme. Their blog page layout is equally minimal and easy on the eyes.
3. Sense
Sense is a free theme by Shopify themselves, if you're thinking of starting lean. It's an energizing theme featuring extensive product detail layouts and is well suited for brands with a small catalog. It gives you the right mix of visual and storytelling to entice online shoppers.
These are pre-set themes that allow you to take your business online in no time. However, if you want a custom design for your beauty brand, you can work with our team of Shopify website designers to set up your website with the design and branding of your choice.
2. Add high-quality images of your products
When sharing images of your product, ensure that shoppers get a shot of the product packaging, a microscopic picture of the product’s texture, as well as how it looks on a model’s skin. This allows them to understand the consistency of the product and how to use it better.
Here’s how Melrose Skincare shows the texture of its products.
3. Give a detailed description of each product, along with uses and ingredients
When setting up your product page, you need to inform your shoppers about your products better so they can make more informed choices.
Here are some tips when writing your product descriptions:
- Templatize the format of your product description so that shoppers can predict the information you will be providing.
- List the ingredients within the product.
- Describe the best way that shoppers should use the product.
- Define the best case scenario when shoppers use it, whether it clears pimples or adds a shine to your user's cheeks.
4. Use brand colors
It's crucial to stick to your brand colors and fonts so that you stay consistent with your visual identity. This consistency can help you stay memorable in your customer's mind.
Use the colors within your brand's logo or from your website to maintain your visual identity. This is very important for Shopify and Shopify Plus beauty and cosmetics brands.
5. Add videos of how to use the product
With videos, you can boost your conversion rate by up to 80%. Many beauty shoppers love seeing how to use the products you sell as well as ideas for skincare and beauty routines. Through videos, you can show shoppers
Video apps like Typito allow you to create your videos through their easy drag-and-drop video maker. You can put your product footage together, add text, music, and effects, and publish these videos to your website in no time!
6. Add product labels for social proof
A large number of your online shoppers may be new. You need to make these shoppers feel more confident about buying your products, showing them why your brand is worth investing in.
Add product labels to your products to bind social proof around them. You can set up social proof labels like "Bestseller", "Award-Winning", and "Top-Rated". You can set up product labels on your beauty brand's website using ModeMagic.
7. Categorize your products by skin type and part of the body
When adding collections and categorizing your products, you can make it easier for your customers to find products by putting them within categories for different skin types and/or body parts.
So, for instance, you can categorize different moisturizers under "Face" or "Body" depending on how you've created it.
8. Set up a pop-up at exit intent
Avoid losing your customers by showing a pop-up at exit intent. Exit-intent pop-ups allow you to capture shopper information before they drop-off so that you can later market to these shoppers.
You can set up a pop-up with Privy, letting shoppers know about your exciting offers or what you have in store for them if they subscribe.
9. Set up specific pages about your cosmetics and beauty store
Your website isn’t complete without a few crucial pages that inform customers about who you are, what you do, and how you function. Here are 4 pages you need to set up to ensure customers have all the details they need about your beauty brand:
- Our Story: Give background about your beauty brand, including how it started, why you set it up, and the team behind the brand. You can also share why you started your product line.
- Hygiene Standards: Inform consumers about the safety measures taken when manufacturing, packaging, and delivering your products.
- Refund Policy: Inform customers about your refund policy, what reasons they will be eligible for refunds, and the procedure they need to follow.
Best Practices for Shopify and Shopify Plus Cosmetics and Beauty Stores
1. Create combos packs for different skin types
Shoppers love a good bundle! And since beauty products are usually grouped by skin type, you can offer bundles on your Shopify store.
Create bundles or combo packs for different skin types so that shoppers can easily pick out a combo for their skin rather than browse your entire catalog to curate a complete beauty or skincare routine.
This shortens the time that shoppers would spend finding products and is sure to help you increase the AOV on your store.
You can set up such skin type bundles using the Bold Bundles app.
2. Install virtual try-on so that shoppers
One of the reasons many shoppers go to a store to buy a lipstick or a beauty product is because of how easy it is to try the product before buying it.
However, with virtual try-ons, you can provide this trial experience on your Shopify store as well. Set up the Magic Mirror app to let shoppers try your products and test different shades to find one that suits them best.
3. Show different colored product variants as swatches
Instead of showing the names of the product variants, you can show the exact color of the variant. This can give shoppers a more accurate understanding of the shade rather than naming the color.
You can set up these product color swatches by installing the Swatches app.
4. Prioritize visual social apps like Instagram and Pinterest
As an eCommerce brand online, marketing is key in helping you acquire new customers and sell more easily.
Visual social media apps like Instagram and Pinterest are perfect marketing channels for beauty brands. You can upload images of your products being used in different ways and even put up short videos to show how to use them. With a large audience keen to view beauty-related topics on both channels, you can successfully acquire customers and grow followers on both Instagram and Pinterest.
5. Plan live events to announce your store launch
Your store launch is a great opportunity to easily build hype around your brand and attract new traffic. One tactic that is a success for many beauty brands is hosting live events during their store launch.
Many beauty and cosmetics brands host live events featuring influencers and beauty gurus, talking about beauty tips and giving away a few of their products. Such events can help you bring in sales during the first few days of your store launch.
6. Tap into user-generated content to show how much consumers love your brand
User-generated content allows you to build more credibility into your brand and provide social proof to new customers. Research shows that companies that incorporated UGC into their websites see an 18% increase in revenue.
You can share user-generated content within your Instagram and embed your Instagram feed within your Shopify store using the Instafeed app. This way, new store visitors would see other customers just like them using your products and feel more confident about using it too. You can even make this feed shoppable with the Cameo app.
Set up your Shopify cosmetics and beauty stores on Shopify and starting generating revenue
We hope this guide helps you set up your beauty and cosmetics brand on Shopify and increase orders. If you are still figuring out how to set up your online presence for your business, our team of design experts is here to help.
With our years of expertise in setting up Shopify stores, we will work with you to set up an online cosmetics and beauty brand to make it easier to receive orders and retain your customers.
Reach out to us at info@xgentech.net to set up your Shopify cosmetics and beauty store!
Learn more about our Shopify experts for beauty and cosmetics brands here.
