[Ed. Note: In the following article, Jay Hack, CEO and co-founder of AI-powered marketplace, Mira Beauty, details online shopping in general—and the platform’s specific advantages. The company has raised $9 million from investment rounds co-led by Unilever Ventures and 14W.]

E-commerce has always been an afterthought for beauty companies. We’ve seen penetration rates historically hover at just around 11%, as reflected in big beauty’s substantial investment in elevating the in-store experience, while largely neglecting their e-commerce presence.

With the advent of Covid-19, however, consumer behaviors have suddenly shifted: People purchase online and are demanding that the lofty, experiential qualities of purchasing cosmetics in-store are replicated online. And there’s a big distinction between the Instagram buy button and shopping IRL [in real life].

Here is how you can make your brand pandemic-proof, and simply, growth-ready for 2021. After all, Covid-19 only accelerated the inevitable shift towards online-first.

Become e-commerce ready. For real.

With physical and travel retail being limited in the U.S., beauty brands are finding themselves in uncharted territories: How can I drive volume and profit through e-commerce?

The first step is to invest in making the online shopping experience fun. Just like Glossier founder Emily Weiss said, Amazon solved buying, but killed shopping.

The fun of shopping is being in control of your shopping experience. Every consumer is idiosyncratic and, increasingly, they are demanding products that meet their unique needs and preferences.

In order to deliver on the promise of personalization, however, you need a solid understanding of the consumer’s preferences and attributes—that is, you need the right data, and you need to know how to process it.

As a result, there needs to be a symbiotic approach to AI and e-commerce distribution to match intent, lifestyles, and products in real time.

This is where Mira Beauty comes into play. Our platform is a seamless, online informational resource that is built around both the personal wisdom of beauty consumers and the collective perspective of digital communities these individuals belong to. This includes a comprehensive CRM including user shopping behaviors, content preferences, skin attributes and beyond. Think Netflix of Beauty. Mira Beauty helps roll out all you want to see about a product in a clear, digest web experience.

If you don’t have a system in place that’s capable of representing your customers as full, unique individuals, your personalization efforts will feel contrived and your funnel will perform poorly. The good news is that through Mira Beauty’s AI-powered marketplace, a brand can benefit from our personalization stack immediately, and access honest customer insights in return.

Own all of your data.

With this shift to e-commerce first, brands are asking for more attribution from third party sources. This means brands can no longer approach Facebook Analytics, Tribe Dynamics, and Google Analytics separately. This also means Sephora and Ulta can no longer hold on to behavioral data.

These holes in the consumer journey reduce our ability to understand specific needs and buying patterns. Nobody can make good decisions without comprehensive information, which is why that data is woven into the very fabric of our business.

Mira Beauty has aggregated information from across the web that indicates, for instance, which ingredients for which SKU consumers are most excited about. Brands can integrate knowledge of these trends into their product development roadmap, their social media messaging and what they choose to highlight in their marketing.

Let’s be honest: Instagram analytics are not giving you the full picture, nor is NPD. Traditional e-commerce forecast reports are notoriously incomplete and defective.

Mira Beauty can provide a full-funnel picture across e-commerce sales—from DTC stores and e-retailers to pure-players. That is how we help brands identify opportunities to win online. And because the worldwide web of beauty lies within our platform, Mira Beauty is best positioned to provide an accurate and truthful input on what is actually going on online.

Put your product in the hands of the right audience.

In the age of Covid-19, people’s digital consumption skyrocketed. If you have an ample marketing budget, chances are you’re able to bring your content to the right audience online... but probably not to the extent that you were before, so you are pouring colossal budgets into digital advertising and influencer engagement.

This is not only killing your CAC, but putting your business at risk. The 2020 breakup between Morphe and Jeffree Star shows how risky the reliance on influencers has become.

Ultimately, what’s important is to bring your product in the hands of the right audience. People need to be able to experience your product freely, just like they used to in-store. There’s actually a better way: predictive analytics.

Mira Beauty’s intelligent sampling is a fantastic program to get closer to the right consumer in a way that feels organic. Unlike Influenster, our sampling program isn’t based on monetary exchange for positive feedback. Unlike SoPost or PowerReviews, there’s no targeting and advertising costs incurred.

We match a customer’s interests, values, and behaviors with products they can align with, ensuring enthusiasm and visibility for the brand as their core demographic amplifies their message.

Lead with honesty and integrity.

The spurge in beauty e-commerce coincides with a decline in online trust. Fake reviews have killed our ability to find the truth online, with Google, Amazon, Sephora and more boasting thousands of paid reviews and endorsements. We would be lying to ourselves to think beauty shoppers can’t see through what’s real or not. So resist the sirens of paid reviews.

And resist removing negative reviews from your site. It dramatically backfired on Sunday Riley and Kylie Cosmetics. By leaving the good and the bad, you will allow online buyers to see you as a genuine entity that is helping them make a better-informed decision. Plus, there’s so much to learn from honest reviews - that is how you can improve.

For transparency, Mira Beauty removed all Influenster reviews from our website. On our site, product benefits and ratings are actually generated by people, through natural language processing, from over tens of millions of real videos, reviews, social posts, blogs and online content. We provide a rational perspective on what to expect.

What’s your digital niche?

Tula bet on a probiotic skincare routine. CeraVe on ceramides. Beauty brands need to continue and find their niche to grow in 2021. Traditionally, it’s been category-driven, value-driven, or price-driven.

Of course, it’s smart to listen to the market and re-focus on lower priced skin care and hair care products these days. That said, it’s a new world order. Your niche can be about a group of people, speaking to underrepresented or oppressed demographics. Fenty Beauty bet on complexion shades at a time where no other makeup brands would focus on people of color.

Who else is going to love/can’t live without your product? There’s more value in a defined, yet highly engaged community, versus 10 million Instagram followers who turn on your back every other month.

Niches can also be driven by the way you market. Is social media truly sustainable and showing e-commerce ROI?

To drive growth in 2021, you will need to pick a lane. Will you bet on content, virality, or performance marketing?

Your niche is your competitive advantage - but you will always need the data to increase distribution.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jay Hack is CEO and co-founder at AI-powered marketplace, Mira Beauty, ‘the universal e-commerce site and content library for makeup and skincare products.’