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Lipstick. Blush. Eyeliner. On its “face,” cosmetics would seem to be one of the last businesses one would expect to move onto the internet with any speed. Yet that is exactly what is happening. Consumers increasingly look for beauty products online. According to a 2013 survey by the L2 Think Tank across 85 beauty brands, most were expecting an average of 30% yearly growth in their ecommerce channel

The cosmetics channel is changing. With increasing frequency, consumers browse and shop for cosmetic products on mobile phones and tablets, a new challenge for brands to hoping to create high quality digital experiences across these platforms.

As one of the largest health and beauty companies in the world, this global cosmetics manufacturer is home to some of the cosmetics world’s most iconic brands. Luxury brands are well represented with the likes of Lancome, YSL or Giorgio Armani while consumer-friendly brands Garnier and Maybelline are robust on the long tail. With innovative, up-and-coming companies—such as Urban Decay and EM Cosmetics—this global cosmetics manufacturer covers the entire spectrum of the consumer cosmetics industry.

This manufacturer expects 12% of its business will be digital by 2018, an expectation set by watching industry and consumer digital behavior accelerate over the last five years. To take advantage of the ever-changing market, the company plans to move aggressively across its businesses. With revenue for 2013 at 22.9 billion, that number is poised to be enormous. Handling that kind of growth isn’t easy, but for this global cosmetics manufacturer, it is all about innovation and experimentation.

Challenges Rajvir Madan is right in the center of the manfucturer ’s innovation. As Vice President of Digital IT, he supports technology solutions across 26 brands. He is directly responsible for driving technology innovation through ecommerce, CRM and technology architecture.

CASE STUDYC O M PA N YInternational Cosmetics Company

I N D U S T R Y Retail

T E S T I N G T Y P E SFunctional

A P P T Y P E SMobile | Web

C H A L L E N G E SJuggling a wide variety of vendors and partners working on their brand’s websites

Pulling employees out of day-today roles to take on the unfamiliar QA tasks Continually updating products and promotions on brand sites while ensuring web pages are active and delivering great customer experiences

R E S U LT SPreventing lost sales by discovering shopping cart malfunctions and missing merchandise on website through testing weekly Leveraging over 600 testers across 65 countries on a weekly basis to gain a much more diverse testing matrix and ensure site performance from all locations

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“We believe that the consumer is changing how they want to communicate with brands. Gone are the days where a brand can just do mass advertising over TV, print or radio and expect that consumers are going to flock to retail stores and their products,” Madan said. Madan understood that quality would be important to the organization going forward. This global cosmetics manufacturer target customer has high expectations for brand experiences—regardless of whether that occurs in one of 700 stores or online.

Rapid growth and high expectations—both internally and with their end consumers— means that launching high quality digital experiences has become an absolute necessity. The company also had some early experiences that taught them the importance of quality. Rajvir knew that solving quality would require innovation. That is when he turned to Applause.

solution

Madan was intrigued by Applauses crowdsourced testing model. “What was appealing to us was this notion that they [Applause] have a network of testers spread across the world. It gave us the diversity that were not getting previously. I also found the compensation structure for their testers to be very interesting, with Applause paying testers by the number and quality of the issues they find. To me, that was a good story and so we decided to try them with one brand,” Madan said.

From there, Madan gradually rolled out Applause services across 10 of the 26 brands. The global cosmetics manufacturer also wanted its teams to focus on their core competencies, rather than quality and testing. “We don’t expect our brands to go in and perform rigorous testing. They’re supposed to in their jobs, coming up with marketing strategy and tactics.” By utilizing Applause, brand owners were able to focus on making their website successful while feeling confident that the websites would provide high quality digital experiences.

results

Sara Newton-Smith, Vice ecommerce for the professional beauty products line of the global cosmetics manufacturer, has enjoyed working with Applause.

“Our dedicated Applause lead became a virtual member of our team all the way through UAT and then through the roll out of our distribution centers. He was a very collaborative member of the team. I don’t know how we could have launched the site without him,” Newton-Smith said.

The professional beauty products line has unique challenges in testing its ecommerce application. Complex, state-level distribution rules meant that their app had to be exhaustively tested by people in specific geographies in order to be in compliance with their parent company’s distribution network. “For us the value in working with Applause is that they give us a high degree of confidence that we’re launching great website - especially now that we’re conducting weekly releases where it can be very difficult for members of my team to dedicate the time. As a result, we’ve been able to focus on enhancing the consumer experience.” 2

“WHAT WAS APPEALING TO US

WAS THIS NOTION THAT THEY

HAVE A NET WORK OF TESTERS

SPREAD ACROSS THE WORLD”

Rajvir MadanVice President of Digital IT

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The professional beauty products line continues to enhance its customer’s experience by focusing on education and brand experiences with video and other content, as well as new features to drive their business forward.

For the global cosmetics manufacturer, Applause provides scalability and flexibility, allowing it to scale its quality efforts across brands without increasing headcount. Overall, Applause provides the unique combination of cost savings and innovation in testing that keep the company on pace with consumers as they move online.

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about applause

Applause empowers companies of all sizes to deliver great digital experiences (DX) – across web, mobile and IoT as well as brick-and- mortar – spanning every customer touchpoint.

Applause delivers unmatched in-the-wild testing, user feedback and research solutions by utilizing its DX platform to manage communities around the world. This provides brands with the real-world insights they need to achieve omni-channel success across demographics, locations, devices and operating systems that match their user base.

Thousands of companies – including Google, FOX, Best Buy, BMW, PayPal and Runkeeper – rely on Applause to ensure great digital experiences for their customers. Learn more at www.applause.com.

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