Thought the high street was ‘dead’ and online was the future? Think again. In-person beauty shopping is back with a bang and it’s had quite the upgrade.
Shopping for beauty products online is convenient – and the speed is seductive too. With the click of a button, you can have your favourite moisturiser delivered to your door; buy a new mascara in your lunch break (without leaving the office); and browse haircare products while on your commute, straight off a social media recommendation.
Unsurprisingly then, post-pandemic (where digital retail saw a necessary if unprecedented boom) many predicted a permanent shift to online-only beauty purchases.
But, five years on momentum is building in the opposite direction. After years of swiping, scrolling, and next-day delivery, beauty shopping is having a physical comeback – and it’s more exciting than ever.
Why is in-person beauty shopping making a comeback?
For all its ease, online beauty shopping can lack a certain magic. It can’t replicate the thrill of walking into a beautifully lit hall with exciting new beauty products arranged perfectly on shelves; it doesn’t allow you to smell a new fragrance before you buy it; and it doesn’t assist you in getting the perfect shade of foundation. I think we can all agree that the virtual try-on services that currently rely on ‘selfies’ are not (yet) a real substitute for the expert eye of an on-counter expert.
Stop to think about it: is it really that convenient to have half a dozen once-used foundations gathering dust because you chose the wrong colour from a picture? Or, to spend a lot of money on what you hope is your next signature scent, just to discover it doesn’t smell that nice on your skin?
But if you are going to battle the potential crowds and get out of your bed to buy beauty, in-store shopping has to feel exciting. And for years the high street has felt, it has to be said, a little sad: you were more likely to see boarded-up shops on your local shopping street than the potential of a beauty playground.
Thankfully, that’s changing.
The rise of experiential beauty
At the heart of the in-person revival is our desire to get more physically ‘hands-on’ before purchasing new products; a process, we hope, that will lead to better decisions and a more enjoyable experience. Beauty brands and retailers are pivoting to meet that demand, designing innovative concept stores and interactive spaces that people actually want to visit – because they can’t be replicated on a screen.
Pop-ups are a great example of this – turning everyday shopping opportunities into must-visit experiences that focus as much on having fun (and exclusivity) as they do on encouraging purchasing decisions. For brands it helps too, of course, that they often go viral on social media – leading to increased brand awareness.
Covent Garden in London has become a particular pop-up hub in the UK, playing host to Prada’s beauty picnic, Laneige’s Glaze Craze Tinted Lip Serum event, and Chanel’s Rouge Coco Playground this year alone. Even digital-only brands, such as Cult Beauty, have caught the bug. The retailer hosted a floral-inspired experience in April, allowing customers to try the leading brands it stocks all together in one (very Instagrammable) space for the first time.
Events, masterclasses and wellness activations in existing beauty stores are becoming much more common too. One example is Space NK’s store in Battersea Power Station (an increasingly hot-spot for beauty lovers in its own right), which hosts in-store facials, panel talks, and brand residencies, so that beauty becomes about lifestyle as much as the products. In essence, in-person beauty is no longer just about browsing – it’s about giving us experiences that go beyond just clicking ‘add to basket’.
It’s not just about semi-permanent in-person experiences either. Many of beauty’s biggest names are making a more permanent commitment to in-person beauty shopping with new and updated flagships and cross-country outposts. Take Sephora’s ambitious plan to open 20 new UK stores by 2027, including the latest Oxford store that’s coming this autumn. Plus the planned remodelling of the retailer’s existing stores worldwide to keep them future-proof: think Color iQ shade-matching stations to help you get the perfect match; AI-powered skincare tools for personalised recommendations; and mobile checkout systems so that your shopping experience is faster and more intuitive.
In a similar vein, last year, John Lewis unveiled its revamped Oxford Street beauty hall, having made it 25 per cent bigger and home to an impressive 175 brands, in a bid to secure a larger stake in the competitive beauty market. Meanwhile, Harrods is continuing its expansion across the UK, via its H Beauty outposts. Emphasising the importance the iconic retailer now places on its bricks-and-mortar influence, these spaces are home to diagnostic tools offering 3D skin analysis and hair profiling, guiding discerning customers towards treatments and products with clear precision.
The perfect place for personalisation
For quite some time, the digital realm has been seen as the leader in technology, with in-store shopping the ‘old-fashioned’ way of making a purchase. But that’s not necessarily true nowadays. In fact, AI and augmented reality are increasingly powering (and improving) your in-person shopping experiences. AR mirrors, like those found in Charlotte Tilbury’s Covent Garden flagship, let you try on 20 lipsticks in under a minute, and advanced skin scanners, on the beauty counters of Shiseido, No7, and more, allow you to look under your skin’s surface to find the best way to treat concerns, including wrinkles and dark spots.
In the future, that will be taken one step further. L’Oreal Group has just announced Cell Bioprint; a cutting-edge on-counter innovation that is set to provide personalised skin diagnosis in just five minutes. All it takes is a quick skin swab, which – with the help of a special machine – can reveal your key biomarkers for biological ageing. You can expect to see it on Lancome counters soon (the skincare brand is part of the L’Oreal Group).
All this technology is designed to make in-person beauty shopping more personalised, allowing you to get the tailored advice you need, in an environment that cuts through the noise of social media and product marketing. That’s good news for inclusivity too, with in-person spaces increasingly more welcoming, more representative, and more empowering, by putting each individual at the heart of their purchasing experiences.
Capturing new audiences
You might also think that in-store experiences are for the pre-social media generations, aka anyone who didn’t grow up with beauty products at their fingertips via their phones.
However, just as millennials may have socialised with their friends around Mac and Bobbi Brown counters, Gen Z and even Gen Alpha are flocking to beauty stores now too. Why? It’s not only a way to gather ‘in real life’ with their peers. These “Sephora kids” – as they have been dubbed – are more educated and engaged with beauty than ever, taking what they learn from glossy TikTok routines and viral skincare trends to the shops in droves. It isn’t just to get their hands on the latest items either. After all, they could do that online. But, with limited budgets, what better place to window shop and have the chance to experiment with certain products via testers, without having to fork out for them themselves?
Importantly, their enthusiasm does need to be managed (after a concerning rise in reports of children as young as eight showing an interest in anti-ageing retinoids), but brands, including Sephora, are responding to the demand. From kid-friendly counters and special events, including beauty-themed birthday parties for tweens, there’s an opportunity to build connections (and educate) the future generation about beauty in-person not just online.
The future of beauty shopping is personal
Ultimately, today’s in-store experiences are no longer about simply browsing or queuing for a makeover. Powered by skin-analysing technology, in-person-only pop-ups, and, yes, social media-ready spaces – in-person beauty shopping is no longer just a transaction, it’s a full experience. In many ways, this return to physical retail also re-humanises the beauty experience. It’s about rediscovering the playfulness and possibility that drew us to beauty in the first place – and then helping us get better results through personalised suggestions. So, after years of digital-first beauty shopping, the in-person experience is not only back – it’s better, bolder, and more sensorial than ever.
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