The beauty industry is flourishing, driven by rapid digital innovation and evolving consumer preferences. By 2025, online channels are projected to account for over 55% of beauty sales, making e-commerce a critical component for brands to remain competitive. In today’s landscape, embracing a robust e-commerce strategy is not just an option—it’s a necessity.
Building a strong e-commerce ecosystem can help beauty brands tackle pressing challenges like sustainability demands, omnichannel shopping experiences, and the growing need for fast delivery. From optimized supply chains to exceptional customer journeys, e-commerce solutions offer opportunities to address these needs effectively. This guide explores actionable strategies and highlights essential tools to help beauty brands thrive in the digital era.
With global beauty and wellness revenues expected to surpass $257.5 billion by 2025, the industry is undeniably booming. However, success in this fast-evolving and highly competitive market requires more than quality products. Beauty and wellness e-commerce retailers must streamline operations, exceed customer expectations, and scale intelligently through strategic partnerships and innovative technology.
Whether you’re offering skincare, makeup, supplements, or sustainable wellness products, the right partnerships can set your brand apart. These collaborations can simplify logistics, enhance customer experiences, and create the foundation for resilience, efficiency, and long-term growth.
This guide provides a detailed roadmap to the key partnerships and tools beauty and wellness brands need to navigate today’s competitive e-commerce landscape and build a thriving business.
Beauty and wellness 2025: Glow up your ecommerce strategies
Build your beauty and wellness ecommerce strategy for 2025 The essential guide to staying ahead in the $257.5 billion beauty and wellness industry.
Why partnerships matter in beauty ecommerce
Building a thriving beauty brand in today’s environment requires more than just having great products. Consumer expectations are higher than ever, with customers demanding same-day delivery, eco-conscious practices, and exclusive, personalized services.
However, scaling these capabilities while maintaining profitability is where many beauty brands face challenges. Issues like fragmented supply chains, inventory mismanagement, and inefficient customer support can derail business operations. This is where partnerships and commerce ecosystems provide a crucial edge.
By collaborating with the right partners, beauty brands can overcome operational hurdles, improve efficiency, and deliver remarkable shopping experiences.
The value of strategic partnerships in a fragmented market
The beauty and wellness ecommerce landscape is highly fragmented, with thousands of brands vying for attention across countless digital shelves. Standing out isn’t just about having great products—it’s about building a network that supports scale, efficiency, and agility. That’s where strategic partnerships come in.
Modern beauty brands are increasingly part of broader commerce ecosystems—integrated networks of fulfillment providers, ecommerce platforms, returns managers, and marketing tools. These connections eliminate operational silos, streamline fulfillment, and open doors to new growth opportunities like international expansion or same-day delivery.
For example, one emerging DTC skincare brand used a combination of fulfillment partners and inventory automation tools to reduce shipping costs by 25%, all while achieving a 2x increase in on-time deliveries. The result? A stronger customer experience without adding operational headcount.
In today’s competitive market, no beauty brand scales alone. Strategic partnerships aren’t just supportive—they’re essential to delivering the seamless, elevated experiences customers expect while giving teams the operational breathing room they need to grow.
Operations and fulfillment partnerships
Why fulfillment matters in beauty ecommerce
For beauty and wellness brands, fulfillment is more than logistics—it’s a core part of the customer experience. Delays, breakages, or poor packaging can damage more than products—they can erode trust and brand perception. With sensitive items like glass containers, perishables, and curated bundles, fulfillment precision is critical.
The stakes are high: an estimated 17% of ecommerce orders are returned, often due to shipping issues or unmet delivery expectations. On the flip side, fast, accurate fulfillment directly reduces cart abandonment, builds loyalty, and boosts repeat purchase rates.
Strategic fulfillment partnerships empower beauty brands to meet rising expectations with faster delivery, lower costs, and more sustainable options—all while freeing up internal teams to focus on growth.
Recommended partners
Here’s a look at fulfillment tools that are perfect for beauty brands:
Virtualstock
Virtualstock is a trusted dropshipping SaaS platform that simplifies connections with top-tier retailers. By automating inventory syncing, order routing and back-end processes, Virtualstock helps beauty and wellness brands expand their reach while maintaining operational efficiency. It is particularly valuable for businesses looking to collaborate with established retail brands while streamlining their dropshipping operations.
Easyship
Easyship provides wellness and beauty brands with over 250 shipping solutions and pre-negotiated courier discounts. With automated shipping processes and branded tracking pages, Easyship simplifies global logistics and enhances the customer experience.
ShipBob
A leading global fulfillment provider, ShipBob offers scalable and efficient solutions, including faster delivery and memorable unboxing experiences. Its integration with Linnworks optimizes inventory management and workflow automation.
SendCloud
Trusted across Europe, SendCloud provides a seamless return portal, sustainable logistics options and access to over 1,000 return methods, making it ideal for eco-conscious beauty brands looking to scale globally.
Landmark Global
This platform specializes in international shipping, customs clearance and delivery, enabling brands to expand effortlessly into new markets while simplifying the complexities of global logistics.
Spark Shipping
A comprehensive automation tool, Spark Shipping connects your suppliers with your ecommerce platform, automating tasks like inventory updates, pricing adjustments and order tracking.
The Linnworks shipping and fulfillment report 2025
Explore how shipping and fulfillment can define your brand in 2025 and meet rising consumer expectations effectively.
Customer experience & support
The importance of fast, personalized support
In beauty and wellness ecommerce, customer support isn’t just transactional—it’s emotional. When shoppers purchase a serum, supplement, or lipstick, they’re often investing in a promise of transformation or self-care. A slow response or generic resolution can quickly shatter that trust.
Research shows that 74% of consumers will switch brands after a poor support experience, making fast, personalized service essential to customer retention.
Effective support tools enable beauty brands to resolve issues quickly, across channels, and with full context—reducing frustration while boosting loyalty. More than just fixing problems, excellent customer service is a direct path to increased lifetime value (LTV), glowing reviews, and organic brand advocacy.
Recommended partners
Gorgias
Gorgias integrates customer data and order details into a single dashboard, allowing support teams to resolve tickets more efficiently. Its multichannel support capabilities help brands provide a seamless customer experience whether through email, live chat, or social media.
eDesk
Tailored for ecommerce sellers, eDesk centralizes customer inquiries from multiple platforms and provides AI-driven insights to improve resolution speed. With multilingual support, eDesk is ideal for globally expanding brands.
Related: 15 great examples of bad customer service (and what to do instead)
Data, analytics & profitability
Why beauty brands need data visibility
As beauty brands diversify with influencer collaborations, seasonal drops, and ever-expanding SKUs, data visibility becomes a competitive necessity. Without a clear view of performance across channels, marketing ROI, and stock levels, even the most compelling product lines can fall short.
Data-driven decision-making helps brands understand what’s selling, where margins are slipping, and how to forecast demand with confidence. From optimizing ad spend to refining replenishment strategies, insights drive profitability and prevent costly missteps.
In a market where speed and agility win, the ability to unify data across sales, inventory, and marketing channels is what separates the top performers from the rest.
Recommended partners
Conjura
This platform consolidates data from multiple sources, including sales and marketing channels, into actionable insights. Conjura helps brands manage costs, improve profitability, and identify scaling opportunities.
WhatSales
WhatSales provides real-time profitability tracking and performance insights, enabling brands to optimize their spending on advertising, inventory and logistics.
Linnworks demo featuring insights and analytics
Watch this on-demand live demo to gain end-to-end operational insights to forecast, plan, and scale your ecommerce businesss.
Returns management solutions
The real cost of poor returns processes
Returns are an unavoidable part of ecommerce, especially in the beauty and wellness space where product fit and preferences are highly personal. But poor returns experiences don’t just cost money—they cost trust. Nearly 48% of customers say an easy returns process influences whether they buy again.
For beauty brands, a clunky or unclear return policy can turn one-time buyers into lost opportunities. Efficient, branded return workflows not only reduce support strain and restocking delays—they also reinforce confidence and encourage repeat purchases.
Recommended partners
Loop Returns
Trusted by beauty brands worldwide, Loop Returns simplifies exchanges, returns, and reverse logistics. Its seamless integration with Linnworks ensures accurate inventory updates and enhanced customer experiences.
SendCloud
SendCloud’s branded return portal streamlines the return process for customers and helps brands implement sustainable practices through solutions like digital QR codes.
The Ultimate Returns Playbook
How to Retain Revenue, Prevent Fraud, and Increase Customer LTV
Payments & revenue recovery
In beauty and wellness ecommerce, where customer trust is everything, a seamless checkout experience can make or break a sale. With cart abandonment rates hovering around 70%, even minor friction in payment processing can cost you revenue. Reliable payment platforms reduce these drop-offs by offering preferred payment methods, quick load times, and secure transactions.
But post-purchase, the financial work isn’t done. Behind the scenes, tools for reconciliation and revenue recovery help brands maintain control over cash flow and profitability. From automating FBA reimbursements to tracking refunds and chargebacks, these systems provide the visibility needed to make smart, data-backed decisions.
By investing in payment and financial operations tools, beauty brands not only ensure a smoother customer experience—they unlock insights that drive smarter forecasting, better inventory planning, and healthier margins across channels.
Recommended partners
Getida
A leader in Amazon FBA auditing and reimbursements, Getida helps brands recover lost revenue by identifying missed opportunities in operations and logistics.
Lightspeed
Lightspeed integrates with ecommerce platforms to offer real-time stock tracking, flexible payment solutions, and actionable financial insights for beauty retailers managing omnichannel operations.
Marketing & growth agencies
Standing out in the beauty and wellness space takes more than great products—it requires standout storytelling and sharp execution. With trends shifting rapidly across platforms like TikTok and Instagram, beauty brands need marketing partners who understand both the emotional appeal of beauty and the data behind performance.
Specialized digital agencies can help you craft scroll-stopping creative, launch influencer-driven campaigns, and fine-tune your media spend for measurable growth. Whether it’s driving awareness through viral content or optimizing ROAS with targeted paid ads, these partners act as an extension of your team—blending creativity with strategy.
When evaluating an agency, prioritize those with:
- Proven beauty and wellness expertise
- A deep understanding of your audience personas and buying behaviors
- Experience executing cross-platform campaigns, including short-form video, affiliate, and influencer marketing
Partnering with the right agency can fast-track your brand’s visibility, accelerate product launches, and build long-term customer loyalty. In a highly visual, emotionally driven category like beauty, the right marketing partner doesn’t just promote your brand—they help shape how it’s perceived.
Recommended agencies
Unsociable
A TikTok Shop marketing agency focused on influencer collaborations and viral content marketing strategies to drive sales for beauty and wellness brands.
Optimizon
Specializing in creating engaging, visually striking content, Optimizon supports beauty brands with their storytelling and content marketing needs across platforms.
Summary and what comes next
Thriving in the competitive beauty ecommerce landscape requires more than just great products; it demands strategic partnerships and smarter operations. Leveraging commerce ecosystems, brands can efficiently manage fulfillment, delight customers, and drive sustained revenue growth. By integrating these essential partners into your operations and leveraging Linnworks for centralized management, you can optimize workflows, enhance customer experiences, and drive meaningful growth.
Want to take your ecommerce strategy further? Discover more in our Beauty & Wellness eBook. From mastering returns to tackling supply chain optimization, this resource has everything you need to elevate your beauty e-commerce business.
Discover how Linnworks and its trusted partners can empower your beauty and wellness business. Request a demo today and unlock the full potential of your operations!
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