Douglas is an international success story selling a wide mix of health and beauty items across cosmetics, skincare, haircare and perfume in multiple countries in Europe. It operates via a network of 1,840 bricks-and-mortar stores as well as online.
Today we take a look at the Douglas Healthy & Beauty marketplace, in an extract from our RetailX 2023 Beauty & Cosmetics report which you can download in full here. Further company profiles show ways in which retailers are engaging with consumers and how leading players are changing the industry. In addition to the Douglas health & beauty marketplace, Amorepacific, Charlotte Tilbury, L’Occitane, L’Oréal and Sephora all feature in these profiles
Douglas is a digital-first business and is at the forefront of merchandising beauty products in ways that resonate with consumers. Content such as videos and live streaming inspire and teach customers about different beauty brands, applications and techniques as well as giving the retailer an opportunity to interact with customers in real-time.
Shoppers can enter competitions and claim discounts against different products and brands while taking part in the livestreams. They also provide a number of commercial opportunities for health and beauty brands, including Honest Beauty and Clarins which have participated to date, to give away product.
On its mobile app, customers can analyse their skin and try on makeup virtually. AI tools combine data from an uploaded image with information that the consumer enters manually to determine skin type, level of hydration, oiliness and wrinkles to give tailored product recommendations. Another tool on the app helps consumers find the perfect fragrance.
In 2019, Douglas became the first beauty retailer in Europe to incorporate a marketplace solution into its ecommerce platform, pioneering the move by this sector to enable third parties to sell on their ecommerce sites. Today, the retailer works with more than 200 partners, 3,000 brands and offers more than 200,000 SKUs. It also offers marketing services to brands enabling them to maximise the opportunity of the Douglas partner programme, as it calls its marketplace.
We see it as an added value for our customers, as they benefit from the partner programme by being able to choose from an even larger assortment and – along with it – a much higher availability of products.
– Steffen Maschke, Head of Partner Programme at Douglas
Online sales are now more than double what they were before the pandemic, with Douglas reporting ecommerce sales of €1.2 billion in its latest full financial year.
