El Corte Inglés reinforces its online cosmetics offer after the arrival of Zara Beauty and launches a "virtual mirror" with L'Oréal products

Just a few weeks after Zara launched a cosmetics line online and incorporated a virtual test option, El Corte Ingles wanted to strengthen its digital offer and has done the same by incorporating a "virtual mirror" with the products of the L'Oréal Group, as explained by the cosmetics company itself.

Modiface, the name given to the tool, allows users to compare the effect of products while shopping online. The technology allows realistic results as well as a calibration of the shadows by artificial intelligence and the simulation of each tone based on the information provided by the makeup brands.

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"The operation is very simple, you just have to enter the El Corte Inglés website or app, choose the product and upload a photo or connect the device's camera to check how the product looks on your face without having to than using it on your own skin", they say from the company.

A sector with great expectations

For Guillaume Sonolet, head of marketing at L'Oréal Spain and responsible for the company's digitization projects, this tool generates consumer loyalty, because it multiplies by 4 the time spent on the web or in the app and the purchases are doubled.

This last point becomes important if we take into account the good progress of the e-commerce of beauty products in Spain. In fact, according to Stanpa, the sector's employers' association, the online channel grew by 54% in the national territory.

A fact that Sonolet also corroborates: “The main driver of growth in the cosmetics sector has been e-commerce. If in 2019 it closed with 6% of the total weight, in 2020 it accounted for 12% and we anticipate that by 2025 a third of beauty will be sold online”.

Such is the good rhythm of the sector, that only in the case of the L'Oréal Group the forecast is to reach half of world sales through e-commerce in 2025. Currently it reaches 27%, a total of 7,000 million euro.

Globally, cosmetics is one of the product areas with the greatest vision of growth in the coming years. Thus, the CB Insights forecast is that by 2023 the sector will generate more than 800,000 million dollars, approximately more than 658,000 million euros.