Tag: sephora

Sephora Partners With ModiFace To Break Down Makeup Looks In AR

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Sephora is betting big on augmented realities. The beauty retailer is working with AR technology provider ModiFace to perfect facial recognition technology for virtual makeup features in its mobile apps for customers to digitally try on products. According to Bridget Dolan, VP of the Sephora Innovation Lab, the technology can break down one virtual makeup application into a step-by-step layering process, while maintaining critical accuracy and reaching mass scale.

In its mobile app, Sephora has fleshed out its augmented reality offerings with a newly launched Virtual Artist tutorial feature that aims to drive purchases via virtual sampling and step-by-step tutorials. Once they are done with the AR-enabled tutorials, an “add to cart” button allows the testers to add products featured in the tutorials into their shopping carts.

What Beauty Brands Need To Do
Increasingly we are seeing beauty brands incorporating AR technologies into their products and services. L’Oreal’s Makeup Genius app and the BeautyU app from Covergirl are good examples of how beauty brands can leverage the advanced capabilities of smartphones to provide extra utility throughout the consumer journey. Beyond driving sales, those digital tutorials also help brands to collect behavioral data on individual user’s beauty needs and interests so as to better serve their customers with personalized offers.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience working with beauty clients to create and implement digitally enhanced retail experiences. The recently-opened NYX Cosmetics store at Union Square is a proud showcase of our team’s work in this space and elevated NYX as one of the most innovative digital beauty brands of 2016 named by WWD. If you’d like to learn more about how your brand can develop and implement digital-driven solutions to modernize your beauty retail experience, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Glossy

Sephora Expands “Beauty Workshop” Concept Stores

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Sephora is expanding its “Beauty TIP Workshop” concept store to Canada as the beauty and makeup retailer continues to push for an omnichannel approach. The new Sephora store in Toronto features an expanded Beauty Studio, which offers complimentary makeovers and product recommendations via Sephora + Pantone Color IQ touchscreens. It also has tablets running Sephora’s “Fragrance IQ” to let shoppers browse and learn more about the perfumes.

What Brands Need To Do
Those digital integrations are designed to make the physical store part of the omnichannel experiences that also includes online, mobile, and social channels in order to appeal to customers across platforms. Previously, Sephora also inked a partnership with messaging app Kik to reach mobile customers with a chatbot and support for in-app purchases.

The Lab has extensive experience working with beauty and fashion brands to reach shoppers on digital channels. Our recent work with NYX Cosmetics that includes a digital beauty bar that innovatively incorporates social and mobile elements into the sampling experience. If you’d like to learn more about developing a mobile strategy to reach connected shoppers, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: GeoMarketing

 

Burberry Partners With Sephora For Buyable, Personalized Pinterest Board

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Burberry is venturing into social commerce as it teams up with cosmetics retailer Sephora and Pinterest to promote its new mascara line to beauty shoppers. The luxury brand is leveraging Pinterest’s API to create dynamic “beauty boards” that display personalized product suggestions and makeup tips based on the cosmetic preferences users indicate in a Burberry-sponsored questionnaire. The products featured on the beauty board are also buyable on Sephora’s website via clickthrough. To raise awareness for the campaign, Burberry is cross-promoting with Sephora on social media and bought “Promoted Pins” to reach more Pinterest users.

What Brands Need To Do
By offering beauty shoppers a personalized product discovery experience, Burberry is adding a hook to this social commerce campaign to reel in intrigued customers. Besides Burberry, fashion brands such as J.Crew and Madewell have started experimenting with flash sales on Instagram. As more and more brands experiment with selling directly to customers via social channels, brands can take a cue from Burberry’s approach and create personalized and interactive user experiences for their social commerce efforts.

 

Source: Glossy

Sephora Improves Mobile Shopping With Tinder-Inspired Feature

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Beauty retailer Sephora took a cue from popular dating app Tinder to design a new shopping feature on its mobile site. Dubbed “”swipe it, shop it,” this feature borrows Tinder’s famous swiping mechanism to guide shoppers through a series of looks. Each look resembles a Tinder card that users can either swipe left to dismiss or swipe right to add to their shopping cart. To promote the feature, Sephora will also use Tinder’s polling feature to give out free makeup samples on the dating app in September, making it the first beauty brand to buy ads on Tinder.

What Brands Need To Do
By adopting the swiping mechanism, this fun feature shows Sephora is tuned into an interface experience that today’s consumers have grown accustomed to on mobile. Other brands developing features for their ecommerce portals, be they websites or apps, should take note and learn to design it in a mobile-friendly way that presents a user experience that matches with consumer behavior. The Tinder ad buy is a complementary move for this campaign, showing that Sephora is willing to try out new platforms to reach mobile consumers. More brands should start looking into native ads in popular apps to bypass ad blockers and connect with consumers.

The Lab has extensive experience working with beauty and fashion brands to reach shoppers on digital channels. Our recent work with NYX Cosmetics that includes a digital beauty bar that innovatively incorporates social and mobile elements into the sampling experience. If you’d like to learn more about developing a mobile strategy to reach connected shoppers, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: AdWeek

 

Ralph Lauren And Sephora Testing Interactive Retail Experiences

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
In a bid to lure more customers into their stores, some retailers have been experimenting with new technologies to make their in-store experiences more fun and interactive. Ralph Lauren will soon start testing interactive fitting rooms at its Polo flagship store in New York City. Equipped with smart mirrors created by Oak Labs, these fitting rooms will be able to recognize the clothing items that shoppers brought in via RFID tags and display them on a large touchscreen. Shoppers can use it to request different sizes and colors of items to try on without leaving the fitting rooms.

Similarly, Sephora also added some interactivity to its new retail store in San Francisco. The new store features a “Beauty Workshop,” where customers can watch makeup tutorial videos, take a class with a Sephora sales member, and share their makeup results online. Sephora also set up a digital “Beauty Board” in store, which displays user-generated content from social media that coincides with current beauty trends on a shoppable screen.

What Retailers Need To Do
Studies show that millennial consumers value experiences over ownership, creating the so-called “experience economy” as a result. Brick-and-mortar retailers should tap into this consumer trend by offering unique in-store experiences in order to better compete with online retailers. In this regard, both Ralph Lauren and Sephora serve as good examples in incorporating digital technologies to create engaging in-store shopping experiences that ultimately drive in-store purchases.

 

Source: Engadget and Digiday

Sephora’s Effective Mobile Strategy

Posted on by Lab Team

For an example of effective mobile strategy, check out beauty supply store, Sephora. Less than three years after first launching a mobile application, Sephora has created two tailored mobile experiences, apps for iPhone and iPad, with different features and  content, to encourage purchases.  The iPhone app incorporates barcode scanning for in-store product research, while the tablet version features articles and branded content paired with product recommendations and purchase links.  The tailoring of the experiences has been highly effective, increasing mobile traffic, orders, and loyalty subscribers dramatically.