In the beauty industry, many purchase journeys are brief and habitual. Yet, research tells us that, even for routine beauty purchases, there is often a “double-check” moment. Every double-check introduces an element of risk to brand loyalty as consumers wonder if there is a better option they might be missing out on. This presents many leverage opportunities for brand teams.

To be successful in this new “double-check” world, brands must reassess the investment mix between at-shelf and key digital touchpoints prior to store, particularly as emerging methods such as click-and-collect becomes mainstream.

Published on Beauty Packaging, our senior manager decision journey mapping, Alex Zhu and senior analyst, Julia Lang shared with us five new realities that are defining the CPG decision journey in the digital age.

Five new realities in the beauty purchase journey

“In this “always on” digital age, brands must constantly challenge dominant assumptions and adjust their strategy to account for these five new market realities:

  1. Omni-channel is pervasive, and digital resources have a large influence on purchase decisions,
  2. Amazon is the new Google,
  3. Digital resources are influential for both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar decision journeys, but there are different patterns,
  4. Switching (disruption) happens often, and active loyalty is low in many CPG categories,
  5. The routine purchasing journey and the switching/disrupted journey have different post-purchase engagement…”

Are you still relying on outdated, pre-omnichannel customer journey assumptions?