The beauty industry is undergoing massive disruption at record-breaking speed. Social media, a major driver of disruption, is driving increasingly more revenue to the beauty industry through influencer marketing, shoppable posts, virtual apps and direct engagement with consumers. And yet, we know that many beauty brands still largely benefit from in-store experiences.
We conducted a survey of 3,134 women in the United States to get more insight into where they make their cosmetics purchases and why. We were curious how attitudes towards making online purchases in cosmetics differ among consumers who grew up in the digital era versus consumers who did not, so we segmented results by two very distinct age groups －ages 13-25 and ages 55+.
Click the image above to access our live interactive dashboard with the full results of our beauty survey, including reasons why younger versus older consumers prefer to purchase makeup products in-store.
The results show that across age groups, the ability to see the shades of makeup in person is the primary reason why consumers prefer to buy beauty products in-store. However, the secondary reasons for buying in-store then diverge by age group. Younger consumers enjoy the retail experience of trying on makeup and examining the products through touch, while older customers report that in-store shopping is more of a convenience for them.
This is not the first time that we see makeup purchasing behaviors diverging by age. By exploring the analytics of our beauty survey in the dashboard embedded in the above image, what other insights can you spot by age group?
