September in Beauty: Superdrug on top, Sephora fastest growing

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Superdrug was the most in-demand beauty retailer in September, with nearly 17% market share of search.

Sephora managed to grow their market share by 1.6% last month, while key market players like MAC and Lush saw theirs shrink. This comes amidst collective beauty brand searches being down nearly 7% YoY in September.

In non-branded search, it was evident that UK consumers were feeling the change of season. Searches for lip balm saw the largest uplift, as did various fragrance-related searches—likely due to consumers searching for new scents to compliment the colder seasons. Halloween items like colour hair spray and kids’ makeup were also high on the list, pointing to a market-wide trend suggesting that anticipatory purchasing is becoming more extreme.

Top 10 <Market Share Winners>

[Brands with the biggest share of brand search demand in September]

• Superdrug: 16.86% (-0.28%)
• Lookfantastic: 8.05% (+0.71%)
• Sephora: 5.92% (+1.61)
• Charlotte Tilbury: 5.58% (+0.25%)
• Space NK: 4.55% (+1.34%)
• Bodyshop: 3.79% (-0.28%)
• The Perfume Shop: 3.09% (-0.01%)
• Cult Beauty: 2.75% (+0.31%)
• Chanel: 2.74% (-0.36%)
• Drunk Elephant: 2.41% (-4.43%)

Figures in brackets represent YoY growth

Top 10 <Fastest-Growing Beauty Brands>

[Fastest-growing beauty brands in September, according to brand search demand]

• Sephora: +1.61% (+37.37%)
• Space NK: +1.34% (+41.70%)
• Lookfantastic: +0.71% (+9.72%)
• Huda Beauty: +0.57% (+123.37%)
• Rituals: +0.48% (+36.39%)
• L’occitane: +0.35% (+54.47%)
• Cult Beauty: +0.31% (+12.57%)
• Diptyque: +0.30% (+49.18%)
• Charlotte Tilbury: +0.25% (+4.73%)
• Beauty Pie: +0.21% (+18.22%)

Figures in brackets represent market share % change

Top 10 <Non-Branded Beauty Products>

[Beauty buys with the biggest year-on-year search increase]

• Lip balm: +49.66%
• Perfume: +6.77%
• Mens perfume: +12.70%
• Spray color hair: +112.56%
• Hair color spray: +91.35%
• Eyebrow piercing: +90.16%
• Kids makeup: +52.88%
• Vanilla perfume: +79.49%
• Makeup bag: +5.79%
• Lip liner: +41.17 %

How we get the data

The data above comes from the ‘Share of Search’ tool on our proprietary market data tracker, Metis – it’s what we, and our clients, use to deliver unprecedented growth and unlock actionable opportunities 4x faster than the competition.

Share of brand search is a powerful metric for diagnosing brand health and contextualising market performance – providing a view of where your brands sit in relation to your unique competitor set and the industry at large.

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