What will 2023 bring to the Amazon ecosystem? Market Defense is ready for all of it.
Amazon & Beauty (Vanessa Kuykendall, COO)
- Over 33 billion TikTok videos include the #Amazonfinds tag. In 2023, Amazon will lean into influencers and social feeds to create more shoppable content as they look to emulate Tik Tok and harness the power of social shopping. Is an official Tik Tok and Amazon collaboration far behind?
- As clean beauty crackdowns like the Sephora clean beauty lawsuit and FTC greenwashing crackdown indicate, consumers and the industry at large are concerned about clean beauty claims. Just as they have established clear criteria for their Climate Pledge Business badge, may be forced to review what claims beauty brands are making about being “clean.”
- 50% of consumers on Amazon make a purchase in 15 minutes or less. Amazon knows that video is best to quickly tell the story and have been leaning in significantly to video over the last couple of years, including moving videos to the top of search results on mobile and launching tools in 2022 that enable video creation through ready-to-use templates. What’s next in 2023? Expect more functionality, ease to production and maybe some new partners to get into the mix to get videos to the PDP page faster, easier and with richer content.
Beauty & China (Brandon Pemberton, President)
- Purchase Decisions are Becoming More Intentional: We are seeing a major shift in how Chinese consumers are making purchase decisions, increasingly paying greater attention to product ingredients and benefits. Consumers are now researching purchases and are keenly aware of authoritative testimonials. Historically, beauty buying decisions in China were more driven by emotion and impacted by non-expert influencers. In 2023, beauty brands will shift marketing efforts to promote objective product benefits. This will not only impact marketing content, but also the platforms used for promotion and sales with a strong shift to platforms that support detailed product education.
- Arbitrage Across Channels. China’s most savvy consumers look across a broad array of buying platforms to find the lowest price on offer once they have decided to buy a product. As this arbitrage trend continues through 2023, brands and retail platforms will work for greater price parity and more consistency in discounting, shifting platform preferences away from price and towards consumer experience.
- Demand for Health Enhancing Benefits. Chinese consumers have been severely impacted by Zero Covid Policies and hold a widespread belief that Covid is here to stay and will spread. They are actively looking for immune system reinforcing food supplements and for anything ingredients in beauty and wellness products that could provide additional virus resistance. In 2023, products with ingredients and benefits that may directly or indirectly boost immune systems or reduce the perceived threat of virus spread will be in high demand with the Chinese consumer.
Beauty Trends (Vanessa Hansen, VP of Business Development)
- Scalp Care continues to be a focus: Hair Fanatics continue to focus on caring for the skin on their head as much as they care for the skin on their face. In the year ahead we’ll see the continued expansion of serum, oils, masks and scrubs. Early predictors of consumer focus gathered by Pinterest highlight increases in consumer searches: Clean scalp searches are up 55%, Scalp treatment for dry scalp searches are up 70%,Clean scalp build up searches are up 45%.
- Say Goodbye to a Full Coverage look: What’s in for 2023? Light-weight, naturally glowy skin. Coverage is coming in all forms, whether it’s tinted moisturizer or a tinted SPF, it’s all about coverage with a natural esthetic.
- Lashes, Lashes and even BIGGER Lashes: 2023 will focus on the bigger the better when it comes to lashes. Mascara is key in achieving the Doe Eye Look with Google searches increasing by 122% YOY on how to achieve the look.