According to Circana, one-third of premium beauty customers in the U.S. are routinely shopping on Amazon — a stat Melis del Rey, GM of Beauty, Baby and Beauty Technology, Amazon U.S. Stores, shared at a CEW x Amazon virtual fireside chat on October 17 when asked why so many high-end beauty brands are launching with the retailer.

CEW x Amazon Fireside Chat October 17
CEW’s Andrea Nagel (left) and Amazon’s Melis del Rey at a webinar taping on October 17

“Of all the retailers out there, Amazon currently has the deepest premium beauty customer penetration of any U.S. retailer. I would think that’s one of the main factors driving these premium brands to Amazon. It’s where their customers are,” she said.

Amazon Beauty boasts a fantastic lineup of recent brand store launches, including Estée Lauder, itk Beauty, Prados Beauty, Bond No. 9 Fragrance, Vegamour, Luna Bronze, Lab Series, Smashbox, Dr. Jart+, Viktor&Rolf Fragrance, Bumble and Bumble, Hairitage by Mindy, Function of Beauty, Too Faced, Dolce & Gabbana Fragrance, Clinique, and Youth to the People. The retailer’s selection spans categories such as Climate Pledge Friendly beauty brands like True Botanicals, Kiehl’s, and Biossance; Black-owned brands like Topicals and Kreyol Essence, and celebrity-founded brands like Keys Soulcare from Alicia Keys, LOVED01 by John Legend, The Outset by Scarlett Johansson, and Flower Beauty by Drew Barrymore.

Of course, access to a broad and diverse set of customers is not the only reason premium brands are choosing to collaborate with Amazon. During last week’s event, viewed by more than 400 beauty industry insiders, del Rey outlined how brands in the Amazon Beauty store benefit from the retailer’s cutting-edge technology, promotional programming, and strategic support. Here, top takeaways from the talk:

Amazon helps brands tell their unique stories

“Creating a customized brand storefront is a foundational offering at Amazon,” said del Rey. And every beauty brand has access to tools to create a store environment that captures the brand’s positioning.

“When we work with brands, we really want to make sure that they can tell their stories in a unique, elevated, and inspirational way,” said del Rey. “And we help them make a bespoke brand store in line with their requirements. It’s crucial for us to help them get it right for our customers.”

Clinique Live Chat Amazon
Clinique’s Live Chat feature in their Amazon storefront

For example, Clinique, one of seven Estée Lauder Company brands that have joined Amazon in 2024, tapped the retailer’s tech team to help develop a customized Clinique Skin Analysis tool in time for the brand’s Amazon launch in March.

In June, Clinique and Amazon took customization a step further by also offering Amazon customers the ability to consult one-on-one, in real time, with a Clinique Live Chat ambassador inside the Clinique brand store. “Just like shopping at the Clinique counter, customers can get help finding skin care tips, makeup tricks, and other ideas to help inspire the perfect purchase,” said del Rey.

Amazon has a support playbook for beauty brands big and small

“Depending on the size and relevancy of the brand, we tailor a strategy utilizing on-site and off-site marketing levers and traffic drivers. We are rigorous in our approach and bring a huge amount of collective Amazon expertise to the process,” said del Rey.

Amazon is also equipped to support its wide range of beauty brands — from small independent brands to multi-billion-dollar companies. “We have different support programs for brands of different sizes and match brands with the resources and programs best suited to support their success,” said del Rey, pointing to Amazon’s Indie Beauty program, which is specifically designed to support emerging, founder-led brands not yet in nationwide distribution.

“It’s really important that brands feel like they can join Amazon and strategically work with us to develop their business. And we operate with a lot of different business models,” said del Rey. “With any business model, though, we focus on what will work best for an individual brand.”

Amazon creates standout promotional programming

“Amazon is well known around the world for our tentpole shopping events. And these can be a fantastic way for premium beauty brands to reach new audiences,” said del Rey, who shared that some of the top performing deals from the latest Prime Day event were from beauty brands, including Laneige, Innisfree, and Sulwhasoo.

“What we also see during an event like Prime Day is customers buying their first-ever premium beauty purchase,” said del Rey, who explained that even brands that aren’t part of the promotional event can still benefit from the increase in traffic. “And, of course, these events also represent a key shift in how we think about discounts — not as markdowns that threaten the credibility of a product, but rather as a way to drive discovery and engagement.”

Beauty brands have, in fact, done so well during Amazon’s site-wide shopping events that the retailer decided to create “Beauty Haul” shopping events starting in 2021. This program now runs twice a year — in the leadup to summer and just before the winter holiday season. The 2024 Amazon Holiday Beauty Haul began this week and boasts “thousands of deals on brands like Clinique, Viktor&Rolf, Youth to the People, bareMinerals, Buxom, Dyson, Jack Black, Lancôme, Moroccanoil, Sol de Janeiro, and Kiehl’s,” said del Rey, adding that, for the first time ever, Amazon is also running an ad for its Holiday Beauty Haul on Prime Video and FreeVee.

“Our seasonal Beauty Haul events enable discovery of Amazon’s extensive beauty selection during two very important times of the year for beauty shopping, and these events increase traffic, basket sizes, and sales for Amazon Beauty,” said del Rey.

Amazon offers unmatched convenience — and speedy delivery

Amazon is delivering at its fastest speed ever. So far this year, more than five billion items have arrived the same day or the next day, globally, a new record for the retailer, said del Rey. “One of the things that makes Amazon an ultimate destination for shoppers is the speed of delivery. In the U.S., Amazon offers more than 300 million items with free Prime shipping, and tens of millions of our most popular items are available with free Same-Day or One-Day Delivery, giving members more value than ever.”

Amazon provides a trustworthy shopping experience

With the rise of counterfeit beauty and fashion products, Amazon has made it an “important part of our mission to create a trustworthy shopping experience. And when you are shopping for higher price-point beauty products, trust really matters,” said del Rey. “To help premium beauty customers shop more confidently, we developed the ‘Premium Brand Sourced’ badge for our Premium Beauty detail pages to explicitly communicate that the product is coming from an authorized seller of the brand.”

Amazon helps brands engage with three key customer behaviors

“It’s important to remember that Amazon customers interact with beauty in distinct ways, and that customers demonstrate different habits depending on what products they are shopping,” said del Rey. “Some are there to replenish products they already love. Some have deep brand awareness and loyalty. And some are there to explore and find inspiration.” To help premium beauty brands connect with all three types of customer behaviors, Amazon has created programs that appeal to and invite engagement from each.

“Replenisher” behavior is common, as more than half of Amazon beauty customers reorder their favorite beauty products. To serve this, Amazon has developed programs like Prime membership, Subscribe and Save, and Buy Again. “These are well-known examples of how we’ve fostered customer replenishment that benefits brands,” said del Rey.

Lancome La Vie Ets Belle Rose Extraordinaire
Lancôme La Vie Est Belle Rose Extraordinaire

“Brand loyalists,” meanwhile, arrive on Amazon already well-informed about the brands and products they love, said del Rey. “And they spend considerable time browsing what a brand offers in our store.” To stand out, Amazon may work with a beauty brand to offer an exclusive product or deal. Earlier this year, Lancôme launched a new fragrance,  La Vie Est Belle Rose Extraordinaire, exclusively in Amazon Premium Beauty.

“Explorers” are shoppers who are interested in “variety, excitement, and discovery,” said del Rey, adding that this group skews toward Gen Z. “This is our fastest-growing cohort, and it’s heavily influenced by social media. They tend to jump straight from social media to Amazon, looking for a specific product or trend.”

To engage with these three behaviors, Amazon uses a programmatic approach to personalization, powered by AI, to drive discovery and provide recommendations. “We use machine-learning to build models,” explained del Rey. “And we then run different experiments with a range of experiences, like showcasing trends or a new selection of products, to test how this customer wants to discover. This gives us an opportunity to understand and optimize what works — and to see what doesn’t.”

Amazon’s affiliate marketing program is a major sales driver

Amazon creator @aminamarie at @amazonbeauty on Instagram

“The Amazon Influencer Program is one of the world’s largest affiliate programs and an important part of what we offer to premium beauty brands,” said del Rey. “We offer a suite of creator collaborations, including our self-service marketplace, Creator Connections, or bespoke activations at in-person events.”

“At the high end, we have influencers that are driving millions in sales each month. This is a really important part of what we offer to brands, and it’s an area ripe for collaboration,” said del Rey.

One way Amazon is utilizing its creators to help drive beauty business is via the Holiday Beauty Haul influencer campaign right now. In the program, a select group of creators with a high Gen Z following will post on their social media platform about Beauty Haul deals and products — then they’ll be featured onsite on the Holiday Beauty Haul home page. This enables creators to bring their unique content to Amazon — and drive beauty customers to Amazon.