Amazon is closing in on the prestige beauty space, increasing consumer appetite for luxury brands that have long resisted the behemoth.
NIQ reports that Amazon is the top beauty and personal care retailer in the U.S., with premium beauty accounting for only 9% of sales, but these brands sold 52 weeks ending Nov. 2. The dollar amount increased by 35.5% and the number of sales increased by 34%.
As for whether luxury brands should participate, experts increasingly agree that they should.
Giorgio Armani Beauty, Lancôme and Estée Lauder are among Amazon’s prestige players, but no other companies have joined yet. But experts agreed that Amazon’s influence on the market cannot be denied, even for top brands, and is expected to continue to grow.
“All signs point to continued growth for Amazon in 2025,” said Anna Mayo, vice president of beauty and personal care thought leadership at NIQ. It added that it gained 1.9 share points.
Estée Lauder added several brands to the platform in 2024, starting with Clinique, including Bumble & Bumble and Too Faced. “We recognize that some consumers love the offline experience, some consumers shop online and offline, and some consumers like to read reviews.” said Amber English, President of North American Digital and Online at Lauder.
“The company has more than 160 million Prime customers and beauty penetration is quite high, so reaching consumers in another medium felt like a natural way to do so,” English said. But she takes a brand-by-brand approach to see who’s who. Then add:
“We’ve launched seven brands there and we’re not in pilot mode anymore,” English said, not ruling out adding more brands. “We are still evaluating the brand we have launched, what we have learned and how to apply it.”
Amazon shoppers’ appetite for big-ticket items is even higher for brands that don’t currently sell on the platform. According to Spate, Dior is searched about 1,700 times a month with the keyword “Amazon” and Chanel is searched about 1,600 times on Google. Conversely, Clinique receives approximately 1,100 searches per month.
Amazon’s interest in designer beauty brands is also showing up on TikTok. For example, in duplicate content under the hashtag #AmazonFinds, a video mentioning Dior has been viewed 8.5 million times.
Luxury goods manufacturers have traditionally felt limited in their platforms when it comes to brand expression and storytelling. On Amazon’s side, things appear to have changed.
“We weren’t interested in launching our brand on Amazon in a catalog-like format,” English said. “We thought about the barriers to entry for private label brands, and Amazon was very active in helping us think about those barriers and how to solve them in a digital context. .”
Case in point: Clinique has a virtual diagnostic tool in its Amazon storefront. Estée Lauder has a virtual try-on tool.
“We’re going to see a lot of brands join Amazon in 2025,” agreed Vanessa Kuykendall, chief engagement officer at Market Defense. “Consumers are buying knock-offs and knock-offs of their favorite fragrances on Amazon. This is forcing premium brands to take ownership of their products because their products are already out there. It should be a signal that you need to hold on.”
Kuykendall is particularly bullish on the platform’s fragrances: “We’ve already seen Dossier have a great Cyber Week as the number one fragrance on Amazon,” she said. The platform also exposes brands to new customers.
“You can’t ignore the halo effect on the level of consciousness and other channels,” English says. “Consumers might read a brand store or product page[on Amazon]and then go to Sephora, Ulta or Macy’s to experience the brand. That’s how we meet each other.”
Wendy Liebman, founder and CEO of WSL Strategic Retail, said Amazon represents a missed opportunity for companies that have avoided it. “Luxury shoppers have certainly been on this platform for a long time, and it would be a missed opportunity for these brands not to be on the platform,” she said.
“Our perspective has always been to follow the shopper, but luxury brands have been slow to understand that the shopper is there,” Liebman continued. “When you think about how people learn about brands and build communities around that knowledge and experience, it’s no longer just at the beauty counter.”
