Dive Brief:
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Stockholm-based H&M launched its beauty products lines on Thursday, a massive collection of 700 products in 900 stores worldwide.
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The move comes after the company found success in the hot category at its & Other Stories stores.
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Competition in the beauty and skin care products segment is fierce, with specialty stores like Sephora, Ulta, Birchbox scrambling for sales, drugstores carving out nicer displays, and department stores increasingly fighting to win back customers those retailers have lured away.
Dive Insight:
Fast-fashion has roiled the retail apparel market, and now it’s taking on beauty.
It’s a logical step, considering the popularity of beauty products. Shoppers have found all kinds of new ways to try and buy beauty products, from subscription services like those at Birchbox and Sephora to customer service from Sephora and department stores. As a result they have ample opportunity to compare product attributes and prices.
The entry of such an extensive line from H&M will only further disrupt the space, putting pressure on prices.
But it’s not yet clear how cheaper products will fly with consumers who apparently do care about the ingredients they use on their face, hair, and bodies.
A majority—some 60% of U.S. women—read beauty product ingredient labels before they buy, while nearly 40% say they’ll be buying more all-natural products in the next two years, and that they’re disappointed in the number of offerings of natural products at department stores, according to a Green Beauty Barometer Survey released in August by natural-beauty retailer Kari Gran.