THE WHAT? L’Oréal’s Chief Digital Officer Lubomira Rochet has revealed that lockdowns around the globe have accelerated the shift to digital and could have fundamentally changed the way consumers shop for beauty forever, according to a report published by the Financial Times.

THE DETAILS “The crisis has profoundly accelerated the digital transformation of the beauty sector,” Rochet told the Financial Times. “In e-commerce, we achieved in eight weeks what it would otherwise have taken us three years to do.”

The French beauty giant believes that much of the shopping behaviours learnt during lockdown will endure beyond the pandemic, with e-commerce growing 53 percent in the first quarter of fiscal 2020, compared to the same three-month period in 2019.

THE WHY? L’Oréal’s Modiface-powered try-on facilities gave the French beauty giant a competitive advantage and the manufacturer of Maybelline was also quick to shift its marketing spend to focus on digital channels. The company is now preparing for a world where half of all sales are rung through digital channels and 80 percent of consumer interactions occur online.