Social media is a way for brands to directly contact their customers. Brands were able to do this before by sending out mail ads, which they still do, but it’s now overwhelmingly via email. This saves them major coins because they don’t have to pay for paper and mailing costs, and it’s a lot better for the environment. Although, working at a cosmetics counter, I really hate when people pull out their phones and they’re like, “but I got an email saying…”. And then 10 times out of 1o it’s for an offer that is online only and they want it in stores. Well look, Susie Q, I can’t do an damn thing about it; you’ll have to order online. For me, this is one of the disadvantages of brands using online marketing to generate business. If you’re going to offer promotions online that aren’t honored in stores, you’re driving your business to your website. That’s fine for the brand because they’re making their profit one way or another, but it hurts the people that they’ve employed to work their counters. I work off of commission so I need to sell as much as a possible can to make ends meet, but not only that, brand executives put a lot of pressure on beauty advisors (people working the counter) to make as many and as high sales as we can. Which we would love to, because we benefit from it as well, but when brands push customers online, there’s no way for us to make our sales. The most common thing that I see is free “gifts” offered for online orders. They’re not really gifts, they’re just samples but people go crazy for them because they think they’re getting something. So, people would rather order online than come into the store to buy their products. But what people don’t realize is that in stores, we sell our service. That’s what we’re trained to do; we sell services before we sell products. You’re looking for a foundation? I’m going to give you luxury service because I work for a luxury brand. You’ll get basically a mini facial and makeover just because you came in for a foundation. And it doesn’t matter if you don’t buy the other products that I used, I’m just showing you what else you could use in conjunction with the foundation. But, most importantly, you get to see and feel the texture of the foundation. I seriously don’t understand how people buy foundation online. You have to try it on to see what colour you should wear and to see if you even like the formula. But going back to services: people don’t realize that that’s what they’re buying when they purchase luxury brand cosmetics. Services aren’t offered online which is why most brands offer free samples (which you can get at any cosmetic counter anyway) but people think they’re getting a great deal. Brands just need to realize that they’re not making any more than the would because they’re taking sales from their counters and moving them online. This only causes frustration from BAs and ends up costing them more than the profit they think it generates.
Sep 252016