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Even in a recession, the amount of direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales completed via ecommerce continues to grow, with 24% of retail sales expected to come from online channels by 2026.
One of the fastest growing sectors in ecommerce is the health & beauty sector, which is expected to grow by 77% between 2021 and 2026, and projected to reach $358.4 billion in revenue by 2026. In our own retrospective analysis of 2023 metrics from Triple Whale customers, the Health & Beauty industry had an increase of 37.63% in revenue per store, and this indicates that this industry remains adaptable even in times of economic uncertainty.
There’s been a rise in customers purchasing directly from DTC sites rather than going into department stores (or stores at all). Customers want quick shipping, efficient refills of their favorite products, and a seamless experience from first click to picking the package up from their doorstep.
With the increased competition in this space, brands need to ensure they are creating memorable shopping experiences that keep their customers coming back. In this article, we’ll discuss why brands in the Health & Beauty sector need to make shipping fulfillment a priority as they scale their business from zero to multi-million dollar revenue, and how ShipBob and Triple Whale can help get them there.
Here are a few reasons why Health & Beauty brands are especially well-suited for a fulfillment partner to assist with their unique needs:
As mentioned, Health & Beauty products like cosmetics, skincare, and supplements (to name a few) have sensitive needs. We need to treat them with kid gloves and kindness to ensure the quality of the product is maintained while in a warehouse and through the shipping process.
There’s also the added factor of expiration dates for Health & Beauty products, which isn’t a factor for most other industries. For example, the clothing industry can let products sit on the shelves for several months (or years) without huge issues. By contrast, Health & Beauty products need to have expiration dates closely monitored with lot tracking inventory management and storage.
Many Health & Beauty products are regulated under federal laws; in the USA, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) mandates safe labeling and ingredient requirements to be sold within the country, and other countries have similar regulations to follow. With a shipping fulfillment partner, a brand is able to work with experts who can assist with ensuring products are stored in FDA-registered warehouses and labelled under FDA regulations.
In today’s economy, 2-day shipping is basically an expectation. With a network of fulfillment centers across the country, a Health & Beauty brand’s products can be strategically split across locations to get products into customers’ hands both quicker and more affordably. Having a storage facility closer to customers reduces shipping zones and costs associated with shipping orders to destinations that are further away.
If a Health & Beauty brand hopes to go global with their products, using a shipping fulfillment provider is the easiest way to test new markets. A shipping fulfillment provider can ensure cost effective delivery in international markets, so customers can shop without extra surprise duty charges.
Besides all of the above reasons related to location of fulfillment centers and ease of shipping products, ShipBob also allows a brand to:
Maintain end-to-end control of the fulfilment process: With full control of the process, a brand can be on top of their customers’ order status, track packages, and ensure customers are receiving products in a timely manner.
Manage orders: Brands can filter their orders by status, search for specific orders, see a quick timeline of where an order is in the process, manage subscriptions, make changes to orders post-purchase, and share tracking information with customers.
Track inventory: With their store(s) connected to the ShipBob’s dashboard, a brand is able to see real-time inventory levels, set reorder point notifications to replenish in time with suppliers, manage bundles with ease, and even manage lot products and use FIFO to stay on top of expiration dates.
Distribute inventory: A brand is better able to ensure the product gets to the right place at the right time by distributing inventory across the most strategically-located fulfillment centers — both in the US and across Canada, Australia, and Europe.
Have fast, reliable shipping: It’s what the customer expects at this point: fast, efficient shipping. ShipBob enables merchants to offer 2-day shipping across the continental USA, regardless of the store or marketplace it’s sold on.
Monitor analytics and reports: A Health & Beauty brand can investigate performance data to get a better idea of which fulfillment centers they should stock, days of inventory left before they run out, the impact of promotions on stock levels, and AOV, cart value, shipping costs, fulfillment cost per order, storage cost per unit, and many more metrics to efficiently manage the business.
Manage the customer experience: The unboxing experience is as important to the customer as the product itself. An aesthetically-pleasing experience can increase the perceived value of a product, and make a customer more likely to purchase again. ShipBob offers packaging options to match your Health & Beauty Brand’s needs, like the use of branded boxes, poly mailers, custom gift notes, and inserts to delight your customers.
With the ShipBob integration for Triple Whale, it is much easier for Health & Beauty brands to get a view of the fulfillment metrics that matter directly in the Triple Whale Dashboard:
In addition to the fulfillment metrics that are so important for Health & Beauty brands, Triple Whale’s features enable a brand to build a sustainable business that can scale to the next level:
One of the hottest trends in Health & Beauty is influencer marketing on TikTok, with several millions of dollars in revenue generated through beauty influencers on the platform. But, you can’t just ship your product to an influencer and hope for the best - you need to track how their promotions are working (or not). In Triple Whale, we have an Affluencer Hub which tracks the ROI for every Influencer and Affiliate (hence, “Affluencer”). Triple Whale tracks an influencer’s direct impact by combining exclusive discount codes, dedicated UTM tracking, and post-purchase surveys to get a clear picture of how much business a said influencer is driving for a Health & Beauty brand.
Although it’s true for most industries that customers complete research before making a purchase, in the Health & Beauty industry it’s even more common. According to Google, 66% of Beauty consumers research information online before making a purchase. It’s important to build marketing efforts around the knowledge that customers are completing research before purchasing, and meet the customers at each stage of the journey. Triple Whale’s Customer Journeys tool allows brands to see up to 10 touchpoints that lead to purchase, so brands can identify the most effective marketing channels and campaigns for their specific efforts.
Triple Whale has a robust array of real-time KPIs for every product, right down to the variant level. This is especially helpful for cosmetics brands, in some products might perform exceptionally well for certain shades or colors, but not others. The Product Analytics tool helps Health & Beauty brands identify the most profitable (hero) products, so the brand can promote the most profitable products to new and existing customers.
Health & Beauty brands are often robust and far reaching, and they’re likely to have several integrations, from shipping and fulfillment to multiple commerce channels. Luckily, Triple Whale allows a brand to integrate seamlessly to all marketing channels like Facebook, Google Ads, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, and more, so all of the important data is available in one dashboard. The Summary Page aggregates all of the important data in one place, with blended metrics across all advertising that provide a better picture for how the business is performing.
Third-party data can’t be trusted any longer - first-party data is essential for Health & Beauty brands to have a clear picture of how customers are interacting with the website. The Pixel builds a unique, anonymous identity for each visitor and tracks their events during each session on the site, in addition to the ad the customer clicked on to bring them to the online store. This data is loaded into our proprietary attribution modeling software, where a choice of seven attribution models make it easy to understand the total impact of a brand’s marketing efforts.
While many quality businesses start in a garage, not many Health & Beauty brands can scale efficiently without a shipping fulfillment solution. ShipBob enables brands to outsource the part of the business they’re not experts at, so they can continue to excel in areas they are. In a similar way, Triple Whale takes the excessive amount of data collected through various integrations, sales channels, and advertising streams to present a comprehensive, blended view of how a Health & Beauty brand is performing. By adding both ShipBob and Triple Whale to a Health & Beauty brand’s toolkit, you’ll be scaling to the moon in no time (watch out, Kylie).
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