Aesthetics practices’ online revenues increased during the 2021 Cyber Weekend and Holiday Season. The increases defied the overall trend reported by ecommerce industry analysts.
After the 2020 surge, some questioned whether online revenues would be able to sustain the high volumes seen in 2020. Aesthetics practices with DermPRO-hosted online stores not only sustained, but increased online revenues during the 2021 holiday season.
As reported by CNBC, using data collected by Adobe, “Cyber Monday 2021 online sales dropped 1.4% from 2020, falling for the first time ever.” According to Adobe Analytics, this year is the first time that Adobe has tracked a slowdown in spending on major shopping days. The firm first began reporting on e-commerce in 2012. While the single-day revenues were down slightly, the overall holiday shopping season did grow year-over-year.
The Aesthetics Shopping Report from DermPRO
The national retail data is interesting, but DermPRO provides research that you won’t find anywhere else. With our position providing ecommerce to aesthetics practices—hosting stores for hundreds of dermatology and plastic surgery practices and medical spas in 43 states—DermPRO has unique visibility to the impact of ecommerce on dermatologists, cosmetic surgeons, and other aesthetics providers. Our third annual Holiday Shopping Report and Infographic offers an unprecedented view into real results from real aesthetics practices.
We used data from all of the online stores hosted by DermPRO. The data was analyzed over three primary periods: Cyber Weekend—Black Friday (November 26th) through Cyber Monday (November 29th), Cyber Week (November 26th thru December 3rd), and the entire holiday shopping period covering all of November and December. As our third year publishing this report, we have the added insight of comparing the 2021 results to those of the previous two years.
Across all three periods, average revenues increased from last year.
More Practices Selling More
Ecommerce is not a tool for only an elite group of top aesthetics practices. More and more practices are experiencing growing online revenues. The top revenue-producing stores are growing in number and variety, a continuing trend. The average holiday revenues for the top 50 stores in 2021 were roughly equivalent to the top 30 stores’ average revenues in 2020. Ecommerce success is widespread for aesthetics businesses.
During each period that we analyzed—Cyber Weekend, Cyber Week, and the entire Holiday Season—a different practice topped the revenue numbers for each period in 2021. The top revenue-producing practices include newly-opened online stores and long-standing online stores alike, and a variety of practice types including medical spas, dermatologists, cosmetic surgeons, and wellness centers.
Some Things Never Change
Many of the results observed in 2021 are consistent with expectations, given history and a certain amount of predictability in the aesthetics industry and ecommerce in general.
- Cyber Weekend represents the highest 4-day period of online revenues all year.
- Cyber Monday has the highest single-day revenues.
- The most popular shopping hours by number of orders are 8pm, 9pm, and 10pm.
- Neurotoxins are the top-selling category of products, and specifically BOTOX® Cosmetic is the top-selling single treatment or product across all stores. It represented 13% of all Cyber Weekend revenues.
- E-gift cards are always a top-seller during Cyber Weekend and throughout the holiday season.*
- The largest source of converting traffic to the stores is email.
With Gift Cards and Skincare Products accounting for 53 percent of Cyber Weekend revenue, that leaves treatments and treatment memberships accounting for 47 percent of online revenues. That these givens stay true year after year can be a comfort to any practice that hasn’t yet jumped into ecommerce. We know what works for most practices.
*It’s worth noting that the increase in gift card purchasing is particularly significant during the holiday time period. For January through October, gift cards represent just 5 to 6 percent of online revenues, jumping to over 20 percent during the holiday season.
New Visitors: Social Shoppers
One thing new this year was a new stream of online shoppers from social media. This year DermPRO’s popular 12 Days of Christmas social media campaign results were buoyed by our ability to tag posts. With the social posts linking directly to the online shops, revenues from social shoppers were, on average, more than twice the revenues from last year’s 12 Days of Christmas campaigns.
Discounting
Successful selling over Black Friday or Cyber Monday does not have to include steep discounting. In fact, the average Cyber Weekend discount for the top 10 stores was just 13 percent, and averaged just 10 percent for purchases on all DermPRO stores over Cyber Weekend.
How do they do it? There are some very effective ways to offer value to your patients without cutting into your profits, including extra value added to gift cards, free gift with purchase, and buy X get Y offers. DermPRO’s customers have access to a library of promotions that have been successful for our customers.