Best marketplaces for Health & Beauty brands
Sales within the e-commerce Health, Beauty and Personal Care sector are predicted to grow 12.1% CAGR until 2026 (Ascential Edge). With this in mind, it’s essential that brands develop their e-commerce strategies to take advantage of this growth. Since the pandemic, the Health, Beauty and Personal Care category has experienced exceptional growth as a result of more people spending time at home, devoting more time to things such as skincare routines and general beauty self-care regimes. In line with spending more time at home, consumers have gravitated further to the convenience of online retail for their health and beauty needs, emphasising the need for brands to ensure they are developing e-commerce strategies in line with this shift.
With the Health & Beauty category previously driven by in-store experiences supporting product discovery, brands are challenged with bringing these elements to light when selling online. To support this shift, marketplaces are taking steps to ensure sites offer functionality that provides a more engaging shopping experience for customers. US based marketplace Target recently launched a virtual beauty concierge, allowing customers to directly message for insight and direction into products they may like. With 43% of shoppers stating they now feel more positive about shopping online and almost 40% of consumers feeling more comfortable with digital technology (Acesential Edge), Health & Beauty brands can be confident in adapting to this shift by leveraging marketplaces. According to Insider Intelligence, US marketplace ecommerce sales are expected to hit $357.26 billion in 2022, making up 34.6% of all online sales, clearly illustrating the potential growth opportunities for brands.
It can be daunting to know where to start and what to prioritise, however, the opportunity needs to be leveraged with knowledge, less you miss out. That is where we help, whether you are looking to grow or are new to marketplaces, we’ve pulled together some of the best opportunities for Health & Beauty brands across the US and Europe – some broader options, and some entirely Health & Beauty sites.
Feelunique
The UK based beauty retailer was founded in 2005 and is one of the fastest growing e-tailers in the world now standing as one of Europe’s leading online beauty marketplaces. The e-commerce player claims 1.3 million active customers ,stocks over 45,000 cosmetic and fragrance products from 1400 brands and ships to more than 120 countries worldwide, with a strong focus on the UK market. It has built seller features using the Mirakl platform which has been a key part of its growth.
- Web traffic per month global rank – 13.381
- UK Rank – 667
- 3.8m visitors (all visitors for the last month)
- Top Brands - Nars, Elemis, Charlotte Tilbury, Chanel, Huda Beauty, The Ordinary
Debenhams
With aspirations of becoming the UK’s number one online department store, Debenhams recently launched its marketplace. Having positioned itself as the number two retailer of skincare products in the UK, there’s an established high level of traffic from Health & Beauty customers for brands to present in front of. Again, as enabled by Mirakl, there are all the needed seller controls and features built in for successful D2C models. More so, with 300 million UK website visits per year, the marketplace is set to become the UK’s biggest online department store offering thousands of fashion, beauty and sportswear products. Early adopters can carve out some great space on this emerging marketplace which will have all the name recognition needed to grow naturally in the UK market.
- Global Rank – 6357
- UK Rank – 234
- 7.1m visitors (all visitors for the last month)
Ulta
Previously ranked as the second leading Health & Beauty retailer in the US, Ulta sells almost 25,000 products across six main categories- cosmetics; hair care products and styling tools; skincare; fragrance and bath. Ulta has been focusing on improving its omnichannel experience, launching brands that are able to provide same-day delivery in store.
- Beauty Category Rank in US – 2
- Global Rank – 1446
- US Rank – 279
- 30.8m visitors (all visitors for the last month)
Farfetch
The renowned luxury high end fashion platform recently launched beauty as a category earlier this year, starting out with over 100 brands including Tom Ford and Charlotte Tilbury along with a selection of smaller independent brands. The marketplace is attempting to stand out from competition through offering customers a more engaging shopping experience through the ‘Beauty Global Collective’ platform. The platform is becoming a place where customers can share beauty tips and inspirations via tutorials, photos, and reviews. Users are also eligible for community track points which turn into various benefits and discounts.
- Global Rank – 1785 (traffic)
- US Rank – 1546
- 27.1m (all visitors for the last month)
- Global Net Sales Rank (2021) - 427 place
Zalando
With almost 49 million active users, the German online retailer which holds a strong fashion presence has recently seen their Health & Beauty category accelerate since its launch in 2018. As it stands, Health & Beauty is only active in specific markets; Germany, Austria, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Netherlands. With more than 25,000 Beauty products online, Zalando is on course to become one of the top 3 players by 2025. This offers great potential for brands to be part of a platform investing heavily in elevating their value proposition.
- Global Rank (domain .de) – 946
- DE Rank – 44
- 30.3m visitors (all visitors for the last month)
Amazon
A dominant global player for marketplaces, being referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world". Revenue for Amazon’s Beauty & Personal Care category grew 58% year-over-year (YoY), bringing in $2 billion more than the previous year as of July 2021 (Similar Web). There are also lots of tools available to benefit brands, like A+ Content, Stories. PPC and Stores.
- Global Rank – 11
- US Rank – 4
- 2.4bn visitors (all visitors for the last month)
Superdrug
The UK Health & Beauty retailer recently announced the launch of their new marketplace, with this expected to go live from September 2022 onwards in the UK. The retailer is aiming to widen their offering to customers by focusing on listing brands that align with their customer’s core values such as female owned brands and gender neutral products along with supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs. The retailer has already signed over 200 brands to launch with and this is expected to grow.
- Global Rank – 5640
- UK Rank – 222
- 9m visitors (all visitors for the last month)
OnBuy
Having launched in 2016, OnBuy now stands as the fourth largest marketplace in the UK. The marketplace offers sellers dedicated support, competitive selling fees and PayPal seller protection. OnBuy now attracts more than 11,000 retailers, listing over 36 million products.
- Global Rank – 17303
- UK Rank – 676
- 4m visitors (all visitors for the last month)
- Top Brands: Bumble and bumble, La Mer, Azzaro, Ecover, Joop!, Rodial Beauty, Joico
Fruugo
Founded in 2012, Fruugo reported sales of just over £30 million last year. Previously ranked in Deloitte’s Tech Fast 50 in 2018, the growing marketplace works with 1,800 small retailers, selling in 42 different countries. With 85% of all sales on Fruugo coming from cross border, this is a great marketplace for brands with international ambitions. Fruugo prides itself on making international growth easy for Brands. With technology that manages translation, currency conversion, sales tax management and local marketing, Fruugo is an easy route for brands wanting to access a pool of customers that brands otherwise would struggle to do directly.
- Global Rank (domain .uk) – 39505
- UK Rank – 2522
- 1.1m visitors (all visitors for the last month)
- 1,806,236 - Health & Beauty products
Walmart
Walmart.com has long been an extension of the popular brick-and-mortar Walmart stores, but it wasn’t until 2009 that the Walmart Marketplace launched. With thousands of sellers the marketplace is continuing to grow and recently announced how they were looking to onboard more UK sellers. With just over 120 million dedicated shoppers, there’s a high level of traffic and an emerging opportunity for brands to get in front of an established audience and open up to a whole new customer base. According to IBD 65% of Walmart’s business is on replenishable products such as Groceries and Health & Beauty, highlighting the opportunity to be presented in front of a strong customer base of returning customers. Walmart also recently announced their collaboration with British Beauty retailer SpaceNK, bringing premium products in store via their ‘BEAUTY SPACE NK’.
- Global Rank (domain .us) – 67
- US Rank – 20
- 443.3m visitors (all visitors for the last month)
- 446,612 - Health & Beauty products
- Top Brands: KINLO by Naomi Osaka, UOMA by Sharon C, Dossier, Versed Skin, BHS Haircare, MADAM by Madam CJ Walker, Dove, Find your happy place, Billie, Body by TPH, Equate, Rainbow Beauty
Blog Comments