Zoom beauty boom: Video meetings drive demand for beauty products during lockdown

Looking good for Zoom meetings while working from home seems to be the hot trend of the moment, and it’s driving considerable sales of beauty products, ecommerce experts at Emarsys find today.

A large number of beauty products have seen triple-digit growth online this month compared with the same time last year. Online sales of lipstick are up 287%, as are sales for mascara (up 275%), eyelash extensions (up 195%), make-up brushes (up 188%) and nail polish (up 128%).

Many people are going even further to look good on Zoom, with the likes of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer using professional lighting within his own home for video conferences.

These trends were identified by Covid-19 Commerce Insight, a joint project between leading customer engagement platform provider Emarsys and data analytics provider GoodData showing the impact the impact of Covid-19 on consumer confidence.

Alex Timlin, senior vice president of verticals at Emarsys, who has been analysing the data said: “At the moment, it’s all ‘va va Zoom’ as consumer demand for beauty products is showing extraordinary growth online.

“We can also, perhaps, put this demand down to the ‘lipstick effect’, where in times of hardship and crisis, consumers purchase low-value luxury items to help them get through the situation. And at the moment, the only way they can buy is online.”

The tool used by Emarsys to identify these trends draws on more than a billion engagements and 400 million transactions in 120 countries, providing a global and regional picture of ecommerce activity and trends — a key indicator of overall economic conditions in these unprecedented times.

Key insights from Covid-19 Commerce Insight include how the pandemic is affecting the number of online consumer transactions, order numbers, the average order value, types of items purchased and more — in any industry and region in the world — in context of the extraordinary measures taken by governments globally.