TABS Group looks at state of the beauty business

Millennials are the heaviest beauty cosmetic buyers, according to the latest data from TABS Group. About 44% of women ages 18 to 24 years were heavy buyers, defined as women who purchased many different types of cosmetics.

The number of heavy buyers decreased with age, according to the TABS Group data. Women ages 25 to 34 years included 40% of heavy buyers, while those 35 to 44 years were 31% and women 45 to 54 years were 23%.  Only 16% of women ages 55 to 64 years were heavy buyers. Income was a far less determining factor. Women earning less than $25,000 were only 20% as the heavy buyers, but every other income group hovered around 30%, with heavy buyers peaking at 39% in women who earned more than $125,000.

The number of transactions in cosmetics pretty much remained flat from 2014 to 2015. However, there were some significant shifts in the types of cosmetics being bought. Eye cosmetics — eye shadow, eye liner and mascara — saw a significant jump in transactions. Lip products also saw significant gains. Face products, such as foundation, had far less transactions than last year. Nail product transactions also dipped.

The study also looked at beauty brands. TABS Group divided 30 brands across six groups. The first four categories — ethnic, value, mid-range and premium — were primarily made up of mass market brands that could be found in the food and drug channel. These brands included Wet n Wild and ELF in the value category, with Revlon and L’Oréal being considered premium. The last two groups — super-premium old and new — covered the brands that you would expect to see in specialty channels like Ulta and Sephora. The old super-premium brands were those with established presence in the market like Clinique and Estee Lauder. The new super-premium brands were those that did not have quite the same level of brand awareness, such as MAC, Urban Decay and Bobbi Brown.

In the study, the mid-range brands fared the best across all measurements. Such brands as Maybelline and Cover Girl had some of the highest numbers in terms of loyalty (regular buyers), brand awareness and the number of people who know about the brand actually buying the brand. However, the premium and super-premium brands had just as much customer loyalty as the lower-end general market brands, and just as much success with conversion in terms of consumers who know about the brand actually buying the brand.

The study also had some revealing findings in terms of the impact of the Internet. The study found that while social media was having a significant impact on the market, online buying was not. In fact, online buying in cosmetics was shown to have decreased, while transactions in the specialty channels — Ulta and Sephora in particular — showed huge gains. Social media, however, is a growing factor in purchasing decisions among consumers, and with heavy buyers in particular. In 2015, 47% of heavy buyers considered social media in their purchasing decisions.

TABS Group conducted several online surveys for 2015 of 1,000 women ages 18 to 75 years to find out their habits as consumers of beauty in color cosmetics — what products did they buy, where did they buy them and how often.