Beauty and personal care e-commerce in Italy - statistics & facts
In 2023, nearly one in three Italian shoppers put beauty products in their online shopping carts, making this B2C e-commerce segment worth roughly 1.3 billion euros that year. The beauty category attracts mainly consumers from the millennial generation, with a striking gap between the two genders in favor of female consumers.
Until retailers and brands provide a satisfactory purchase experience by optimizing the mentioned touchpoints, e-commerce might lag in terms of checkout volumes. Looking at envisioned tech launches in Italian e-commerce, companies in the beauty sector are planning strategically, with investment in artificial intelligence and virtual or extended reality projects.
Cosmetics are getting big
In the beauty segment, the growth of cosmetics products has been remarkable. In Italy, the online consumer base had a fourfold increase since 2015 and neared 13 million online shoppers in 2023. Over the same year, e-commerce was the second fastest growing sales channel of cosmetics products, outperformed only by beauty stores and surpassing mass market channels. Since 2015, the hierarchy of sale channels has not changed in the cosmetics market. However, e-commerce share of the total consumption value experienced a stable growth from 1.8 to 8.9 percent, leaving mass market, beauty stores, and pharmacies to minimal fluctuations.Buy on marketplaces, engage with brands
Although the marketplace Notino and retail giant Sephora are the most visited marketplaces for health and beauty products, Amazon generates the biggest revenue in the personal care segment. The generalist marketplace surpassed the two competitors, as well as Shein, which entered the Italian beauty market only in 2023. In Italy, Amazon generates 350 billion euros in sales from beauty products and the search volumes from its platform are a reliable source on the latest trends in the beauty industry. However, the rankings of the most engaging brands on social media give insight into other popular brands. Both on Instagram and TikTok, the Italian KIKO Milano is the most engaging brand, surpassing haircare brand ghd.The shopping experience at the center
Beauty shoppers are driven by an entertaining and engaging shopping experience – something up to 22 percent of consumers miss when shopping online. The reasons to prefer brick-and-mortar over online stores also include shipping costs or product assortment, while 14 percent of Italian consumers combine beauty shopping with the purchase of other products in supermarkets or mass market stores.Until retailers and brands provide a satisfactory purchase experience by optimizing the mentioned touchpoints, e-commerce might lag in terms of checkout volumes. Looking at envisioned tech launches in Italian e-commerce, companies in the beauty sector are planning strategically, with investment in artificial intelligence and virtual or extended reality projects.
