Sephora launched a digital collaboration with Instagram, merging beauty inspiration with shopping in one seamless experience for the @sephora community of 20 million followers. This new digital storefront allows for the purchase of the available product with checkout right from the feed or Stories at the moment of inspiration.
Sephora has brought more than 80 of its brands onto Instagram Checkout, making client shopping faster, easier, and more convenient. This will allow brands to scale their business on Instagram while providing a connected beauty-buying experience across different Instagram accounts.
“Sephora is thrilled to work with Instagram on this unique social shopping experience,” said Carolyn Bojanowski, SVP and GM of eCommerce for Sephora. “Our clients engage with social media in so many ways, like drawing inspiration from the community, getting tips from experts or learning about new beauty trends so we’re always looking for new ways to enhance that beauty journey. We’re excited to deliver Instagram checkout, a new, seamless, direct, and secure way to shop across our brands’ accounts, while still getting the perks of being a Sephora client.”
The Details:
“Beauty lovers come to @sephora every day to discover products and connect with brands,” said Eva Chen, VP of Fashion Partnerships for Instagram. “Together with Sephora, we want to make shopping inspiring and seamless for this community. So you can see a product you love and buy it in just a few taps with Instagram checkout.”
Expert Insight:
According to Deutsche Bank research, where 500 Instagram users were surveyed, 43% of respondents said they were either “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to purchase products on Instagram using Checkout, and 83% said they would become repeat shoppers, purchasing something in the app within the subsequent six months.
“Sephora is notorious for throwing its weight around. They’re saying, ‘You want to be in our stores? Well you have to be on our e-commerce site, and now you have to be in our Instagram Shop.’ Smaller brands are confined to their rules, because they know the pros of growing their business with Sephora probably outweigh the cons of doing it on their own,” said Claude Zdanow, founder and CEO of marketing agency Stadiumred Group, told Glossy.
To further emphasize this power dynamic, the brands Sephora is featuring likely won’t have access to their own sales and traffic data via Instagram (as is the case with online Sephora sales). “This is their way to continue to own the beauty customer, so they can better understand how social campaigns and influencers are driving to their site,” said Zdanow. “Buying digital ads don’t do anything unless you can understand the sales funnel and effectiveness of each channel. Sephora will continue to get more data.”
“Facebook and Instagram want to become players in e-commerce, and for beauty, especially, that content is already on Instagram,” Andre Artacho, Managing Director of Two Nil, an agency that specializes in DTC businesses told Glossy. According to Deutsche Bank, Instagram Checkout could add $10 billion of revenue for Facebook in 2021.
“It will be a fight for convenience,” said Artacho. “But not just with Amazon, all retailers in beauty—a customer can decide if they want go to a store and find a product they saw on Instagram, or they can just let content direct them to buying in the app.”
