Health and personal care have never been so important to consumers who are choosing to invest more of their money into items from supplements to SPF that form part of their daily routines. Driven by consumer demand, the popularity of certain products has reached ‘cult’ status with items selling out in minutes both in store and online, causing sales surges for retailers to accurately manage in order to keep consumers happy. Many of these cult products are used by consumers to create social media content for their personal accounts - the ‘get ready with me’ tag now has over 16 billion views on TikTok alone (May 2023).
The personal care segment reached online sales of almost $120bn globally in 2022, an increase from $79.4bn in 2019. Elsewhere, the vitamins and minerals category is now the fourth biggest sub-segment of the healthcare market after cold and cough remedies and analgesics, while eCommerce channels in the supplement sector are growing at 10 times the rate of bricks and mortar, with sales growing 61.4% in 2020 alone.[1]
The increase in consumer demand across all categories, coupled with the growth of omnichannel sales streams, has created an extremely competitive marketplace for health and beauty brands to capture the interest of savvy shoppers looking for a positive shopping experience.
fulfilmentcrowd is an international fulfilment services provider that works with over 400 independent retailers to optimise and personalise the purchase journey to deliver a more memorable and positive customer experience through seamless integration of marketing, purchasing, returns and customer service.
Between March 2022 – March 2023, order volumes from its customers across the health, beauty and personal care sector increased on average by 13%, and the business has helped a number of independent retailers to outsource their specific 3PL requirements as part of an omnichannel strategy to drive revenue growth and deliver a positive consumer experience.
Packaged to perfection
MeAmora is the UK direct-to-consumer beauty brand of KISS USA, a global leader in beauty care, specialising in professional lash and nail products. MeAmora partnered with fulfilmentcrowd to fulfil a custom order brief, ensuring each order is picked, packed, and shipped to perfection, maintaining brand standards and delighting thousands of customers across the UK.
The business required custom process engineering and integration with group IT systems, kitting and ‘white glove’ handling of product, as well as follow-on access to EU centres for distribution. The brand wanted outer packaging to be fully recyclable, while the boxes have been designed to encourage customers to re-use to reduce waste. As well as having strong environmental credentials, MeAmora’s packaging ticks the box for consumer personalisation – the brand encourages their stylists to share their unboxing process on social media to incentivise potential customers.
In partnership with fulfilmentcrowd’s experienced onboarding team, external IT representatives, operations, packaging suppliers and freight handlers, the brand was successfully launched to an expectant audience at the Salon International show in October 2022, where over 100,000 units were kitted and packed in specially made presentation boxes, packaged to perfection and delivered successfully on time.
Love is in the air
With ambitious growth plans for her health and supplement brand, actor turned entrepreneur and Sunday Times best-seller Davinia Taylor, founder of WillPowders, was looking for a fulfilment partner that could meet growing consumer demand.
Offering a range of natural health and wellness supplements that combine the best that science and nature have to offer, the range includes products for energy, relaxation, immunity, digestion, mental clarity and more. With plans to expand into Europe, WillPowders needed a trusted fulfilment partner that could support the brand’s global growth while optimising the customer experience.
Social media is one of WillPowders’ key sales-driving channels and with social and influencer activity comes unprecedented peaks and troughs in order volumes. Having operational processes in place to ensure influxes in order volumes are picked, packed and dispatched to SLA is key to maintaining service levels and consumer satisfaction, however, the right tech can make the same processes even more seamless.
The fulfilmentcrowd platform automates the connection between consumer orders and fulfilmentcrowd’s proprietary WMS (warehouse management system) used across the fulfilmentcrowd network, seamlessly processing orders for pick, pack and dispatch as soon as they have been placed on the brand website or eCommerce store.
fulfilmentcrowd began working with WillPowders in early 2023 and within two weeks was able to demonstrate its capabilities and expertise in account and surge condition management, when a same-day promotion was launched on Valentine’s Day. Order volumes increased by 98% on the day, and by 47% for the week following and fulfilmentcrowd delivered in-line with the SLA and fulfilled all orders on time.
WillPowders is able to track and manage stock inventory levels and forecast demand through its integration with the fulfilmentcrowd platform. By providing real-time visibility into order volumes and stock levels, the fulfilmentcrowd platform enables WillPowders to respond quickly to changes in demand and stay on top of its stock levels - especially when there’s been a spike in sales - ensuring their consumers receive their orders on time and in excellent condition. For health and beauty retailers to succeed in a competitive marketplace, having the right partners on board to support at every step of the purchase journey – from sales channel integration to picking, packing and shipping – is critical.
For more information about how fulfilmentcrowd could help your business reach its full potential, visit fulfilmentcrowd.com.
[1] Statista Digital Market Insights
