Locked In: The New Norm For Beauty Shopping

Beauty shopping used to be a 4D experience. 

A beautiful, sensory affair of swatching, spritzing, and testing before committing to a purchase. Yet, that experience is rapidly heading out the window in the post-pandemic retail landscape. 

The reason? Theft.

Since COVID-19, the rate of stolen beauty goods has skyrocketed. It’s no longer just individual shoppers sneaking lipstick into their bags; the rise of organised retail crime has turned theft into an operation. Groups are sweeping through stores, clearing shelves in minutes, and leaving retailers scrambling for solutions. 

The solution they’ve landed on? Locking it all up. 

Drugstore beauty aisles, once a playground of affordable discovery, are now encased in glass, requiring staff assistance to access even the most basic items. A 10-second pop into the store has morphed into a 10-minute ordeal, with shoppers waiting for an employee to free their chosen product from behind bars. 

While this may protect inventory, it’s completely reshaping how consumers interact with beauty – and, unexpectedly, elevating a new type of influencer in the process.

THE NEW REALITY FOR BEAUTY SHOPPING

Have you ever bought a foundation without trying it first? It never ends well. 

In this era of beauty shopping, consumers can no longer test products before purchasing. No swatches, no texture tests, no side-by-side comparisons. Instead, they’re left guessing, relying heavily on the only available source of insight: the store employees.

These employees have become influencers in their own right, a source of valuable experience and beauty product recommendations for confused shoppers. 

With consumers unable to trial products, they turn to the people who see, touch, and talk about these items every day. Employees are suddenly beauty gurus, offering genuine, unfiltered recommendations based on personal experience rather than brand incentives.

High-end retailers like Sephora have long trained their staff to be product experts, but this shift is hitting drugstores in an entirely new way. Employees aren’t just reciting brand talking points – they’re giving real opinions, sharing which formulas they swear by and which ones they wouldn’t touch. 

It’s a level of authenticity that traditional influencers, who often face scepticism about undisclosed sponsorships, can struggle to maintain; and it is hitting beauty shopping hard. Shoppers are far more likely to purchase an item based on the recommendation of a friend, and these employee-influencer hybrids are just that. 

THE EXPERIENTIAL VOID: BEAUTY SHOPPING WITHOUT TOUCH

Whilst in-store beauty advisors may be stepping into the influencer role, the overall beauty shopping experience is suffering. 

Sensory engagement is an essential feature of the beauty industry. Shade matching, texture testing, and spontaneous discovery are core parts of the consumer journey. Yet, they’re all being erased in the name of security.

For shoppers, this means a frustrating lack of control. Even with AI-powered shade-matching tools on beauty websites, nothing replaces seeing a foundation in person. The inability to swatch shades or feel a formula in beauty retail stores means that purchasing a new product is now a gamble.

For brands, this shift presents a new challenge: loss of in-store brand identity. Drugstore displays have long been an extension of a brand’s marketing, carefully designed to entice shoppers and reflect a product’s aesthetic. 

Now, all of that is hidden behind glass, reducing brands to uniform, inaccessible boxes. Worse, brands are losing control over how consumers engage with their products. Instead of carefully crafted campaigns dictating the experience, purchasing decisions are being guided by an unpredictable factor: employee opinions.

A NEW ERA FOR BEAUTY RETAIL

The retail world is in flux, and beauty shopping is getting caught in the crossfire. As theft-driven security measures reshape the drugstore experience, consumers and brands alike are left navigating a system that prioritises inventory protection over engagement.

Will this new reality stick? Or will backlash from both brands and consumers force retailers to rethink their approach? 

One thing is certain – beauty shopping will never be the same.

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