Are You Ready for the Health and Beauty Boom?

As the holiday season gets into full swing, many of our most loved brands are quickly stocking up for one of the busiest times of the year. Amid news headlines of an oncoming recession, some sectors aren’t prepping as much as usual. But thanks to a little-known phenomenon called the “Lipstick effect”, experts have predicted that the Health and Beauty sector will boom once again in the last months of 2022, with the rise continuing well into 2023.  

So… are you ready for the Health and Beauty boom?  

Why the Big Beauty Boom?  

What’s something you budget for when money is tight? Is it your food bill, your beloved pets, or your season ticket? Well, according to expert economists, many customers look towards to health and beauty industry when the whole world goes to pot, and one product stands out amongst the rest – premium packaged lipsticks.    

The lipstick effect is a phrase coined by Professor Juliet Schor in 1998 and explains why during times of economic crisis premium lipstick sales always spike. In short, Professor Schor theorised that when money is tight consumers look to buy smaller luxury items in order to boost their mood, rather than splurge on bigger ticket pieces. Lipstick is a common choice for these consumers as it is regularly used in semi-public places (e.g. restaurants and public loos), but in recent years the whole of the health and beauty industry has also benefited from this phenomenon.  

However, in order to work, the lipstick must look premium for the consumer to believe that the product is worth their hard-earned money. That’s where premium packaging comes in.

Premium Packaging with a Green Edge

When choosing your packaging it’s important that your product emulated the “little luxuries” idea shown in the lipstick effect, and this starts at the outer packaging.  

Take Charlotte Tilbury, for example, their iconic maroon and gold packaging exudes luxury and creates an instantly recognisable brand no matter the product you’re holding. From receiving the maroon cardboard box in the post to opening the distinct gold packaging housing the matching gold lipstick, Charlotte Tilbury’s branding exudes the same high quality as the products.  

But just because your packaging needs to exude luxury doesn’t mean it also has to be excessively wasteful. Here at Greyhound Box, we use high-quality recyclable corrugated cardboard in all of our products. Meaning that you don’t have to sacrifice that high-quality feel when looking to go sustainable. 

Go Bespoke  

If you’re looking to jump on the beauty boom this quarter, it’s important to make sure your products get to their destination in one piece. After all, you don’t want an increase in returns and a number of unhappy customers because their “little luxury” came damaged.  A great way to avoid this problem is by creating bespoke packaging.  

Bespoke packaging is specially made to perfectly hug and protect each part of your product to ensure minimal breakage throughout the transport process.  Think about it like this – if you put 6 makeup items in a standard cardboard box, you will need to add extra paper or bubble wrap in order to stop them from sliding around, but no matter how many items you place in there there will always be gaps. Gaps that promote damage as the box gets tossed around during shipping and handling.   

With a bespoke box, however, no extra wrapping is needed. This not only means a reduction in a lower product return ratio but also less wasted space in your warehouse and a quicker packing time. To top it all off, using bespoke boxes made out of sustainable sourced corrugated cardboard is a greener solution to the plastic filler that will most likely end up in a landfill once received by your customer.  

Sounds like a win-win to us.   

Stock Management  

When jumping on the health and beauty boom, it is essential that you have your stock management levels down to a well-oiled machine. After all, there’s no point in taking a high quantity of orders if you can’t fulfil them. When using bespoke packaging there’s no need to have extra shelves of bubble wrap and cardboard filler taking up valuable space in your warehouse… space that could be used for products.  

More product space = more opportunity for sales 

But if this isn’t enough and you feel you need a bigger solution to your stock management, Greyhound Box offers to not only design and manufacture your bespoke packaging but also store it in our Leeds-based warehouse ready for when you need them. 

If you’re looking to get ready for the Health and Beauty boom this quarter, get in touch with our expert team.