Which UK beauty brands are set to win online?

10-Oct-2016 - Last updated on 11-Oct-2016 at 11:50 GMT

A new market report on the online beauty industry in the UK has revealed that despite minimal growth being seen in the UK’s saturated in-store beauty market, online sales are up.

The report from Clavis has used the company’s ‘Insight Index’ to pick out the market leaders for online beauty in the UK, with Tom Ford the number one brand across two of the three segments considered.

The report looks at lipstick, mascara and nail varnish as its three focus categories, and Tom Ford beat big market players like Maybelline, Clinique and Urban Decay to come out at the top of both the lipstick and nail category rankings. In mascara, Maybelline won the top spot.

What is the Clavis Insight Index?

The company measured brands against five key performance indicators to rank them for their online retail store presence and performance.

These are:

Availability: Is the product in-stock and available for sale?
Image Presence: Does the online product listing include a key brand image?
Content Integrity: Is key product information present and correct on product landing pages?
Search Rank: Can shoppers find your products based on category keywords?
Portfolio: Do I have a broad (breadth and depth) portfolio offering across key online retailers?

“Just as in physical stores, brands need to ensure their products’ representation is fully optimized in online retail stores in order to drive sales,” Clavis analysts explain.

“In the offline world brands focus on metrics such as Distribution, Assortment, Packaging, and Shelf Placement. Online – where there is no shelf layout to draw the eye, no physical product to hold and no packs to touch, feel and read – success is determined by different KPIs, such as those above, more appropriate to the eCommerce environment.”

The key findings

In lipstick, the top three places went to Tom Ford, Maybelline and BarryM, with Clavis analysts noting that the top players in this category were particularly successful in the areas of content integrity, availability and search.

Smaller players are making the most of the online space, according to Clavis, noting that aside from four of the top five UK cosmetics market leaders feature in its top 20 for lipstick, smaller brands like Urban Decay and Laura Mercier are dominating.

In mascara, the top three spots went to Maybelline, L’Oréal and Dior, with Clavis point out they have strong breadth of distribution, along with content and availability.

Nail varnish was led again by Tom Ford, with Jessica and BarryM taking second and third place. 16 of the top 20 brands in this category are operating at an impressive 100% for availability online.