Fashion and Beauty

If there is one sector where consumer behavior has naturally combined all digital capabilities into the user experience, a high percentage of professionals would cite Fashion, Beauty and Personal Hygiene. With the tremendous complexity of simplification, these are products about which the consumer already has a lot of information, knows perfectly well when he feels that he is given a personalized service so he wants to make the most of the time and therefore cost savings that digital channels give him for his purchase.

At Smartup we started working in this field many years ago, and we have been fortunate enough to work with brands such as Loreal, Esteé Lauder, Masqmai, Born Living Yoga or Essity among many others.

The combination of knowledge of the operations of the major brands together with innovation in channel optimization of emerging brands has given us a very powerful overview of the steps to be taken in defining growth strategies and taking advantage of current technological capabilities.

In no case does it escape us that the new super consumer, the new shopper, has what is called a liquid expectation, that is, she combines in her mind all the impacts around her that seem satisfactory to her and looks for them in the purchasing processes of her Fashion, Beauty or Hygiene products. He compares the shopping experience with the one he enjoys on Amazon, the browsing and comparison possibility offered by Netflix and the experience of using Spotify. All this forces us to combine omnichannel, personalization and brand values in the right proportion, as we are facing a buyer's journey that varies rapidly if the user finds competitors more suited to his current moment.

We are also facing a new type of user, the Z generation, where we have paid special attention at Smartup: to the approach outlined above we have to add the generation of channels to obtain feedback from this super group of consumers, both digitally and in physical stores, optimizing to the maximum the deadlines and eliminating frictions.

If we agree that these are the right approaches in such a competitive industry, what is the difference in our approach to such relevant brands?

First, we propose a detailed analysis of the different clusters of possible behaviors, depending on the distribution channels activated by each customer. It is important to understand which is the combination with the highest return for each moment of brand expansion. This analysis must include what we call the brand's influence map, which covers all the brand's exposure in networks, by users, influencers and media, whether earned or paid. From here we will establish the different user experiences with their corresponding user journeys (Buyer Journey) to identify the touch points where we can amplify the brand's influence.

At this point it is time to introduce one of the current drivers of business growth: process automation.

Many CRM tools include automation features that provide invaluable value in repetitive tasks, especially in a sector like this one where purchases are repeated on a regular basis. Regardless of whether they are custom-developed tools, cloud tools or RPA systems, the real value lies in identifying the processes where automation can begin.

Why is now, more than ever, the time to promote process automation? The reader probably intuits the answer: artificial intelligence. Even if we repeat ad nauseam that we are at a stage prior to its generalized implementation, there is no doubt that we are at the beginning of a new era. there is no that the combination of artificial intelligence's ability to drive automated processes will take the user to a new experiential stage with the brand.

In short, the sector is in a perfect moment to use the recurrence of the purchase of its products and the high level of engagement it has with its users, as well as the already very relevant importance of a generation such as the Z generation in its order book, to identify those new Buyer Journeyautomate the steps within them that generate a higher return in relation to the brand's strategy and take advantage of its competitors.

In conclusion, companies in the Fashion, Beauty and Hygiene sector are at the perfect moment to find the right combination between sales and knowledge of their customers' decision levers, as this is a sector where the user is open to share their tastes and experiences and where current monitoring and analysis tools, if well managed, have all the potential to prepare all these companies for the moment when artificial intelligence will be the perfect support to take the relationship to new possibilities of direct, predictive, community or mixed sales.