How Specialist Retailers Are Rethinking Hair Care E-Commerce in a Competitive Landscape

Value growth across UK beauty and personal care continues to be driven by purchases made through retail e-commerce, with the channel accounting for over 40% of category sales in 2024. Rising consumption of beauty content through social media such as TikTok has played a significant role in boosting the visibility and popularity of certain subcategories online, particularly salon professional hair care. 

Online marketplaces have been big beneficiaries of this demand so far owing to their broad product portfolios, but UK specialist retailers are responding by stocking salon professional brands online. Thanks to Euromonitor International’s Passport E-Commerce Tracking System, this activity can be assessed, as well as how consumer online shopping habits are evolving in the hair care space. 

Online expansion of salon professional hair care continues post-pandemic

Between 2018 and 2023, 44% of total UK hair care value growth came directly from salon professional brands. This was propelled by trends towards natural, clean and sustainable hair care, accompanied by broadening availability across retail channels, particularly online platforms. 

The latter was accelerated in 2020/2021 as COVID-19 lockdowns prevented salons from opening, resulting in consumers purchasing salon professional products online instead. Strong consumer interest in the space has continued post-pandemic driven partly by more educational content online, which has incentivised the uptake of premium products owing to reviews of higher efficacy and stronger results.

Boots invests in salon professional space following success of competitors 

Retailer success in the UK’s hair care e-commerce space is closely tied to the number of salon professional brands they stock, which benefits marketplaces owing to their broader product variety.

Four of the top five e-commerce hair care brands by value were salon professional in 2024

^{Source: Euromonitor International’s Passport E-Commerce}

As such, retailers like Amazon and direct-to-consumer sites through Shopify, where these products are accessible, naturally lead the category in market share.

Boots, a subsidiary of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc, is the UK’s leading pharmacy chain and second largest beauty and personal care e-commerce platform but has struggled to capitalise on the growth of hair care owing to its limited premium offering. Euromonitor International’s Passport E-Commerce ranked Boots eighth among platforms for hair care sales in 2023, with only 5% of its total online sales coming from the category. To address this, Boots expanded its premium portfolio in October 2023 by launching 140 online-exclusive SKUs from 10 brands, including Kérastase and Redken.

The expansion boosted Boots’ e-commerce performance, with Shopify being the only other platform representing stronger growth of hair care brands across the top five UK platforms in 2024. Although Boots predominantly remains a supplier of mass brands, salon professional accounted for 12% of its online hair care sales in 2024 (up from 4% in 2022), contributing to further portfolio expansion in 2024, with brands such as Aveda. This diversification has also been accompanied recently by adding mass brands, such as Nature Spell and Mielle, that have gained online popularity, further boosting e-commerce performance across its hair care business. 

Competitive pricing crucial as shoppers browse across platforms

As the UK’s online hair care space broadens, shopper browsing habits continue to evolve. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of what products they want by conducting their research prior on social media platforms, something they traditionally did by browsing directly on retailer websites. Alongside this, repeat purchasing is popular within the category.

Previous personal experience of a product was the most influential factor among UK consumers when purchasing hair care products in 2024

^{Source: Euromonitor International’s Voice of the Consumer: Beauty Survey, fielded June to July 2024 (n=518)}

As such, consumers are cross-comparing online retailers for specific SKUs based on fastest delivery or lowest price, particularly the latter as UK consumers remain cost-sensitive due to the cost-of-living crisis. Shoppers are therefore browsing individual retailers less frequently for hair care products, including boots.co.uk, with clickstream data revealing that users browsed 2.3 products per visit in 2024 (down from 2.5 in 2022).

This has not impacted the retailer’s performance, however, with average spend per visit on hair care products on boots.co.uk increasing in 2024, compared to 2022. This has been driven by two factors: Boots’ recent portfolio expansion and its competitive pricing strategy. For example, Euromonitor International’s VIA Price Tracker shows that Kérastase was, on average, cheaper at Boots in 2024 than from the UK’s other top five e-commerce platforms. This pricing strategy has been fundamental to its recent success, with new brands often available on discount alongside consumers receiving the additional benefits from Boots’ rewards scheme. 

Boots’ diversification shows how retailers can effectively leverage e-commerce for portfolio expansion by tracking and capitalising on emerging beauty needs. Thus, understanding the evolving habits and needs of online shoppers is crucial for sustaining growth and unlocking future opportunities. 

For more insights into how e-commerce is reshaping beauty and personal care, read our article, The Rise of the Cultural Beauty Movement: How E-Commerce Is Bridging Traditions and Trends Globally.