Spend a day at British Beauty Week and a familiar theme emerges: even brands with a great product can lose revenue and customers when their ecommerce foundation isn't strong enough to support growth.
With many brands being live on four or five marketplaces as well as their own DTC site, there are a few pitfalls brands need to avoid in order to scale successfully. Whether that is losing control of how the brand shows up on each channel, getting squeezed on margin as more channels take a cut, or wrestling with whether to protect the brand's own site or lean into marketplace growth. This last point is a particular pain point for many brands. Marketplaces are often still treated like a side hustle in their business instead of a real retail channel. And for brands that were successful in the UK, expanding into Europe or the US raises a further question: how do you repeat that success without starting from scratch?
It all comes back to one line from Pattern’s research this year: most beauty and wellness brands aren't losing to a better product, they're losing to a better ecommerce foundation.
Stop treating marketplaces as a side hustle
Marketplaces now drive a huge share of beauty discovery and purchase, and they demand the same basic elements as the physical shelf: the right assortment, competitive pricing, strong in-stock rates and a convenient path to purchase. The only caveat is that each marketplace is unique and to scale sustainably across different regions and platforms a small internal team often isn’t enough. If a beauty brand is expanding internationally, the last thing it should do is copy and paste the home-market playbook. Each region needs its own approach to pricing, logistics and marketplace presence.
The brands that are struggling to keep up with the fight against unauthorised sellers, winning the Buybox and keeping on top of individual marketplaces changes run the risk of managing their marketplace presence on leftover images, inconsistent pricing and no defined strategy. Once they treat marketplaces as a proper retail channel, backed by the right strategy and execution, performance can shift fundamentally. This is exactly what a 3P accelerator like Pattern helps brands solve when they're choosing to prioritise marketplace growth to complement their wider retail strategy.
Three pieces of advice for beauty brands that want to grow
On a digital marketplace shoppers can’t just test the product, so imagery, shade guidance, ingredient transparency and reviews become powerful tools. Localised copy and imagery for each market (not just translated), stable pricing and availability as well as a dedicated team supporting the growth allow beauty brands to scale and expand.
The next big beauty trends: social commerce and AI personalisation
Looking ahead, social commerce is the trend to watch. It already influences around two-thirds of online beauty purchases, and live shopping is growing at nearly 40% a year. Live demos and instant Q&A simply convert better than a static product page.
Close behind is AI-driven personalisation: quizzes and recommendation engines that help shoppers find the right shade or formula without scrolling through product pages or social media. The brands that win in 2026 will treat both as always-on channels, not one-off campaigns.
