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Hiding your address, phone number, and other details is easier than you might think.
Category:
E-Commerce
Shopping has evolved more over the past 10 years than it has in the previous 50. Once rooted in an in-person experience of trial and tactility, the path to purchase has changed dramaticallypropelled by rapid advancements in technology, shifting consumer expectations, and most significantly, global events and disruptions that reshaped the way we connect and consume. The COVID-19 pandemic served as an inflection point that accelerated digital adoption at lightning speed. Now, new geopolitical challenges like rising tariffs are adding further complexity and pressing brands to reimagine how they engage with their consumers, deliver value, and maintain loyalty in a rapidly evolving retail landscape. If the last 10 years have taught retailers anything, its that adaptability is everything. The brands that thrive are those that embrace innovation, not as a trend to follow, but as a mindset during uncertain times. As we look to the future, continued technological advances ease the way when policy and pricing pressures are squeezing margins. Technology will also shepherd in a new era of hyper-personalized, predictive experience for beauty consumers that blends digital and physical experiences seamlessly. Beauty retails biggest turning points A decade ago, the retail landscape was just beginning to feel the true impact of digital disruption. E-commerce was growing but still held a minority share compared to brick-and-mortar sales. With mobile commerce on the rise, retailers needed to optimize for smaller screens and on-the-go buyers. Buy online, pick up in store was still a relative novelty. Social media was gradually evolving from a place to chat with friends into a destination for product discovery, but it was not yet a primary sales channel. Personalization was nascent, but it was limited primarily to email campaigns and site recommendations. These trends would continue to evolve over the next handful of years, with incremental progress and increased adoption each year. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the gas pedal on these transformations. Overnight, the shopping experience completely changed. Suddenly, online shopping became the default preference for consumers, and shoppers could easily choose between same-day delivery, curbside pick-up, shipping, and more. This was the moment retailers doubled down on their technology investments in AI, automation, and better customer data infrastructure, which has surged in the years since. Social commerce via TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube blossomed with live shopping and creator recommendations that encouraged consumers to discover and add their favorite finds to cart. Even tactile beauty products that typically require customers to sample and try on before buying became sought-after online products, launching beauty brands into the next era of technology adoption. Virtual try-on using augmented reality and AI-driven product matching and recommendations became industry must-haves. Consumers began to expect unified and tailored shopping journeys across every touchpointfrom virtually trying on lipstick via a mobile app to receiving AI-powered skincare recommendations on a laptop. An increasingly saturated marketplace and influences from a complex web of content, reviews, and recommendations turned personalization into table stakes. Beauty retails consumer-centric reset Today, retail has evolved from a largely transactional, siloed model into a dynamic, interconnected ecosystem. The biggest shift? Power has moved into the hands of the consumer, who now expects personalization, participation, and seamlessness wherever and however they choose to shop. The last decade has proven that beauty shoppers are primed and ready for the industrys next transformation, which is coming at a moment of heightened economic uncertainty. Consumer behavior is echoing the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, with shoppers now tightening their purse strings, panic-buying, and ditching the salon. During the pandemic when life became contactless, the industry had to pivot fast and reimagine how customers discover, try, and buy products. Now tariffs, global supply chain fragility, and regional policy shifts are sparking another wave of reinvention. Todays retailers must meet this moment by balancing the demand for integrated, customer-centric shopping flows with the operational need for agility, efficiency, and resilience. The challengeand opportunitylies in building an ecosystem that can flex with the market, while still delivering the elevated, intuitive experiences modern beauty shoppers expect. Whats next for beauty retail? Agentic AI Technology proved essential in maintaining connection and engagement during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and it continues to serve as a critical bridge between brands and consumers amid todays financial and geopolitical pressures. But the next chapter will be shaped by something far more transformative: the emergence of agentic AI. Unlike traditional AI systems that respond to user inputs with passive recommendations, agentic AI operates autonomouslylearning, reasoning, and initiating actions on behalf of the consumer. This means moving beyond surface-level personalization to deliver true, proactive value, marking a fundamental disruption to the traditional shopping journey. In a world where tariffs, supply chain constraints, and fluctuating prices create uncertainty, agentic AI brings stability and foresight. It enables brands to meet each shopper not just where they arebut where theyre going and unlocks unprecedented operational flexibility. Sampling, trial, education, and even replenishment can be driven digitallyreducing overhead and mitigating exposure to global market volatility. For consumers, the shopping experience becomes less about browsing and more about being intuitively served, with smart systems anticipating needs, providing confidence, and removing friction. This is not just the next trendits a paradigm shift. The brands that embrace agentic AI now will be best positioned to lead a new era of intelligent retail, where deep personalization, economic efficiency, and brand trust converge. Just as the past decade redefind where and how we shop, the next will redefine what helps us shop. And that helper, increasingly, will be agentic AI. The industrys mission has always been to bridge the gap between innovation and consumer connection, helping brands reimagine whats possible even amidst global challenges. Technology is poised to continue its role as a vital lifeline that provides the stability and flexibility consumers and brands grab hold of as new trials emerge. Alice Chang is CEO and Founder of Perfect Corp.
Category:
E-Commerce
Believe it or not, this is the best time in history to be a creative. Technology advances and platforms like Instagram and TikTok have dramatically lowered the barriers to create work and share it with the world. Theres less emphasis on formal degrees or certifications, and more value placed on having a portfolio that reflects your taste, sensibility, and point of view. At the same time, its become more challenging to land (and keep) an entry-level role at an agency or design studio. Studies show that client pressure to produce more assets for less money has driven the push for greater efficiency in time and budget. As a result, teams have become leaner and more reliant on seasoned talent who can operate independently from day one. With many teams still working remotely or in the office only part time, the expectation is often to self-manage and deliver with minimal oversightsomething thats inherently more difficult for those just starting out. In my work with the creative organization and educational charity D&AD, Ive seen firsthand that its a complicated picture, full of real structural challenges. And its evolving in real time. But this moment is also full of opportunity, so long as creative talent and educators evolve accordingly and dont ignore the industrys changing creative needs. Today, nurturing creativity isnt about learning specific skills in design, VFX, production, writing, and more. Instead, its about perspectiveeach creative’s unique lens on the world informed by their lived experiences, personal network, and interactions. And it must be nurtured if were to navigate the uncertainty the industry is facing. A critical creative shift The accessibility of creative toolsand their ease of usehave opened the industry to fresh voices and perspectives. Its part of the reason we initially launched Shift, our free night school for self-taught creatives, to serve a growing influx of diverse creators coming from outside traditional pathways. Similarly, emerging tech is also fueling record-breaking creative output. This past year alone, were increasingly becoming accustomed to embracing and awarding work utilizing AI to push creative boundaries. But while more people are creating at a higher frequency, far fewer are doing it with the focus, consistency, and discipline required to achieve real expertise or mastery. While the concept is often contested, Malcolm Gladwell popularized the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to truly get great at something. It’s harder to reach that threshold in todays creative industry. The pace is fast, attention is fragmented, and opportunities to go deep into one discipline are increasingly rare. Were also missing the network and community that made it easier in the past. While some might say that taste and storytelling are the creative skills that will help talent survive this industry-wide shift, the truth is that both are becoming table stakes. The real creative differentiator is the ability to leverage your unique perspective, developing an insight that addresses a challenge. Then, you have to be able to articulate your perspective well enough to orchestrate creativity around itto lead multidisciplinary inputs, shape ideas across human and machine collaborators, and still land on something culturally relevant. In a world where the tools are accessible to everyone, the people who can apply their voices and direct creative impactnot just generate more and faster creative outputsbecome indispensable. Now, that doesnt mean that everyone needs to be a content creator or a polymath. Whats changing is the need for new and deeper cultural points of reference, the ability to articulate and communicate those references, and the expectation that creatives understand how different mediums and roles interact. Even if youre not doing it all yourself, you need to be able to collaborate across disciplines, speak multiple creative languages, and move fluidly between ideas and execution. Value your experiences As talent looks to future-proof their careers, theres several steps they can take to make sure their unique voices and experiences become valuable assets in meeting tomorrow’s creative needs. First, they should hone their perspective, particularly if theyre coming to the creative industry from non-traditional educational or cultural paths. Not only do they not need to conform; the industry urgently needs its nonconformist perspectives to evolve. Increasingly, when brands and orgs ask creatives to address a specific challenge, they dont want guesses from outsiders to that challenge. They want people who can speak to their own communitieswith similar interests, concerns, impulses, and experiences. In this sense, creatives can be the missing insight that the industry is lacking. So, they should do what they can to protect and value their identities. But also, talent should go beyond traditional skills as they expand their creative knowledge. The bulk of education cant be only focused on learning creative tools. In our Shift program attendees, we often see gaps in industry literacy: how roles work, how to respond to a brief, or how to turn creativity into a career. Creatives should seek out opportunities to build those more practical skills through classes or even mentorship. This kind of knowledge not only makes it easier to earn a job and helps shape good work, but fuels the confidence behind it. While most companies say creative talent is key to their business, few invest in developing that talent in ways that speaks the language of ideas, ambiguity, or cultural tension. These are the creative building blocks of insight. And its crucial that we cultivate this resource if we want to ensure a strong creative future. Kwame Taylor-Hayford is the cofounder of Kin and president of D&AD.
Category:
E-Commerce
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