Selfridges Beauty Acquisition
Discovering what motivates beauty customers to shop, return and explore
What’s the problem?
As part of Selfridges' digital strategy, Beauty was identified as a key opportunity for customer acquisition and long-term growth.
The challenge was to better understand the motivations, behaviours and barriers influencing how customers shop Beauty, while uncovering opportunities to encourage cross-category migration and increase customer lifetime value.
This discovery project aimed to build a deeper understanding of the Beauty customer, identifying what drives purchase decisions, brand trust, loyalty and category exploration.
My role & process
Research strategy & planning
Defined the discovery approach, selecting appropriate research methodologies, timelines and stakeholder inputs to ensure the project delivered meaningful insight against business objectives
Cross-functional collaboration
Partnered with teams across Analytics, Product, Trade, Optimisation, Insights, Beauty Services, Store Operations, Buying, Merchandising, CRM, Social and Creative to align research goals and gather existing knowledge
Reviewed existing insights
Synthesised available quantitative and qualitative research to establish a baseline understanding of Beauty performance, customer behaviours and known opportunity areas
Competitor analysis
Evaluated how leading retailers support Beauty discovery and encourage cross-category purchasing. Areas reviewed included; navigation, product discovery, PDPs, services, loyalty programmes, bundling and routines, cross-category recommendations and mobile app experiences
Focus group facilitation
Planned and moderated internal focus groups across multiple age groups and genders to explore shopping motivations, decision-making behaviours, loyalty drivers and migration opportunities
Research synthesis
Analysed focus group themes, behavioural patterns and recurring pain points to identify key customer needs, barriers and opportunities
External survey design
Developed an unmoderated survey to validate qualitative findings with external customers, focusing on shopping motivations, brand trust, category exploration and purchase behaviour
Insight playback
Regularly shared findings and emerging themes with stakeholders throughout the project, ensuring alignment and enabling early action on key opportunities
Challenges
Accessing data across multiple teams
The project relied on inputs from several teams, requiring careful coordination and prioritisation alongside existing business commitments
Translating complex analytics
Beauty performance data was often highly detailed and fragmented, requiring interpretation and synthesis into actionable customer insights
Research constraints
Some hypotheses required data or analysis that was either unavailable or would have required disproportionate effort to obtain within project timelines
Participant recruitment
Focus group attendance varied from original plans, requiring flexibility in session planning and analysis
Deliverables
This project strengthened my experience leading large-scale discovery research across multiple disciplines, combining qualitative research, quantitative analysis and stakeholder collaboration to inform strategic product decisions.
This discovery project is currently ongoing, with the following in progress:
Friction scoring assessment to evaluate the end-to-end Beauty journey across discovery, services, product selection and checkout to identify customer pain points and usability barriers
In-store observations to understand how customers and store colleagues navigate Beauty in a physical environment, identifying behavioural triggers, service interactions and operational challenges
Competitor test shopping to experience competitor journeys and assess product discovery, education, services, packaging and post-purchase experience
Journey mapping to create end-to-end view of the Beauty customer journey, highlighting moments of friction, opportunity and influence
Customer scenario mapping to define key customer mindsets, motivations and shopping contexts to support future design decisions
Full discovery synthesis and insights report that combines behavioural patterns, customer segments, opportunity areas and recommendations for Beauty at Selfridges