Dive Brief:
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Amazon has reprised its “holiday beauty haul” for a fourth year. The two-week event runs Oct. 21 through Nov. 3, with discounts of between 10% and 50% off.
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The e-commerce giant will offer “thousands of curated deals, coupons, and gift sets on beauty products,” including brands like BareMinerals, Clinique, Kiehl’s, Lancôme, Maybelline, Moroccanoil, Revlon, Smashbox and Sol de Janeiro, among others.
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Some deals are already available and others will drop during the sale, per a company blog post. Amazon also held a beauty event in the spring, Prime Day in the summer and an autumn Prime sale earlier this month, with many rivals falling in line to compete.
Dive Insight:
Even as consumers remain careful about the money they spend on discretionary items, the beauty category has been resilient, with many splurging on premium labels and products.
Circana found that, in the first half of the year, U.S. prestige beauty sales rose 8% year over year to $15.3 billion, with the strongest growth in fragrance. Sales of mass market products fared worse, with fragrance down 1%, makeup down 4%, hair care up 2% and skin care up just 1%.
Several retailers offering the same brands featured in Amazon’s sale will be jostling for beauty consumers’ attention as the season takes off. Along with players like department stores and specialty retailers like Sephora and Ulta, which have traditionally offered beauty products and services, mass merchants like Target and Walmart have expanded their beauty shelf space. Target continues to add Ulta spaces to its stores, and Walmart’s marketplace recently added premium beauty.
This year, the presidential election will also take up some oxygen as Amazon’s beauty event unfolds. According to PwC, political advertising is expected to dominate various channels in the run-up to the Nov. 5 election, and some marketing may quiet down somewhat until voting is over.
Still, there’s pressure to ramp up seasonal marketing early, given the condensed shopping period due to a late Thanksgiving this year. About a third of shoppers say they’ll start working on their holiday lists before November, according to Gartner.
