Founded in 2008, Naturisimo has always been ahead of the curve in clean beauty hair and skincare products. Thomas Parrott, who joined as CEO in February 2023, explains: “Way before anyone else was talking about clean beauty, the founder of Naturisimo was passionate about offering products that are completely free from toxins, carcinogens, hormone-changing protocols and other ingredients that damage women’s health, are bad for the environment or are tested on animals”. Clean and ethical beauty choices were extremely limited and there was no eCommerce business in this space whatsoever. The new owners of Naturisimo, who acquired the company in 2019, warmly embraced clean beauty values, seeing great potential to expand the concept. One of their first actions was to move the website to the Shopify platform early in 2020.
Clean beauty: ethical and truly natural
“While this transition took place, the world’s high street retailers were shutting down in response to the pandemic, but at the same time, people were increasingly thinking and talking about toxin-free lifestyle choices,” Thomas says. “The big eCommerce companies started adding a tab for ‘clean beauty’ products but without really following through. Consequently, a shopper might choose a clean hair care product but then the website would recommend another product containing an endocrine hormone imbalancing ingredient to go with it, which was kind of missing the point!”
By contrast, Naturisimo has clear policies around ingredients, ethical business and sustainability. Formulations that do not fully align with these policies will never be allowed into the product catalogue.
Products on Naturisimo.com are validated and certified by Provenance.org, which has a mission to cut through ‘greenwashing’.
“We have a whole value-driven and increasingly stringent process around product selection. We’re constantly learning as new ones come onto the market.”
Thomas Parrott CEO, Naturismo
Challenge
Guiding customers through an expanding catalogue
Over the years, Naturisimo’s product range has expanded. There is inevitably a huge number of variables in skincare and beauty products: to take an obvious example, the same brand of lipstick might be on offer in twenty or thirty different shades. 3,000 SKUs can easily ramp up exponentially when you take these variables into account.
Guiding new shoppers
When a new shopper lands on Naturisimo.com they are typically someone who has ‘seen the light’, has health concerns, or has made a point of habit change in response to factors such as a family member adopting a vegan diet, or a mother going through pregnancy and then breastfeeding. They are looking to make what Naturisimo calls a ‘clean swap’ from a mainstream product to a natural product that is equally efficacious but not full of toxins. To do this, they typically need guidance, a helping hand.
Solution
A more shoppable experience
Naturisimo first learned about Shopbox through The Growth Foundation. Naturisimo implemented Shopbox in the course of the summer of 2023 and Thomas was impressed with the speed of delivery: “The development team in Shopbox did a lot of fast work once the APIs were in place, requiring very little effort on our part. We’re a small company so we were really sold on the fact that it was a low-lift exercise. Aesthetically, the Shopbox carousels fit very nicely with the themes in Shopify, which was also important to us because they are effective while also being unobtrusive. The shopper feels it is part of the shopping experience, that they are valued as a person, not just as a source of revenue. Our home page and landing pages have become more shoppable.”
Shopbox’s AI-powered pop up shop assistant on the Product Listing Page (PLP)
“A shopper who selects a particular type of styling gel might like to see shampoo and conditioner products for curly hair, and these choices might in turn surface products in other categories, based on a variety of criteria.”
“I was fascinated by the way that Shopbox uses artificial intelligence to surface recommendations based on the way a shopper moves around our site.”
In the beauty industry, cross-selling is a significant factor. It involves understanding the customers, curating products that align with their preferred brands, and cleverly suggesting complementary items for their beauty and skincare routines.
A virtuous circle of delight
“We are there not only to help them make the initial clean swap but also to set them on a journey, making not just one but a succession of positive and informed choices. And this is where Shopbox comes in,” Thomas says.
“Shopbox directs shoppers to the most appropriate product choices based on their behaviour. And this becomes a virtuous circle, which we can measure.”
AI Powered carousels, with intelligent upselling and cross-selling on a Product Detail Page
Results
Driving Higher Spend
A few months into the implementation, Naturisimo was already seeing a clear correlation between engagement with Shopbox recommendations and the number of page views, and in consequence, increased average order value.
“The average session on the website lasts less than five minutes, but for shoppers engaging with the Shopbox recommendations carousel, the stay is five times as long, which is what’s driving higher spend.”
In November 2023, just a couple of months after implementation, users who interacted with Shopbox already contributed a 25.8% higher AOV than non-shopbox users, contributing 45% of Naturismo's total revenue.
Another indicator is the number of items that shoppers add to their wish list, often as a result of seeing Shopbox recommendations. They might not be ready to buy during a session, but they have registered an interest that they are likely to act on later.
Clean break Friday
Naturisimo took an interesting stance on Black Friday 2023, aligned with its ethical and sustainable principles. “The beauty industry is broken and there is an awful lot of waste, We don’t want to join in this promotion of landfill!” Thomas exclaims. “Every purchase should be a considered one.”
Naturisimo rebadged it ‘Clean Break Friday’, starting its communications activity a full ten days in advance so that shoppers were under no pressure to make impulse purchases of products that might go unused. “Shoppers still had the opportunity to come to our website and see a range of discounts but had plenty of time to find sustainable and natural alternatives to make a well-considered clean break from mainstream cosmetics,” Thomas explains. “We slowed the pace down. Slow shopping, you could say.”
“The recommendations made in Shopbox played their part in this (Clean Break Friday) campaign, increasing dwell time and pushing up average order value, but with considered purchases.”
In conclusion, Thomas says the whole experience with Shopbox was one of “very simple, and very well-supported onboarding, with a lot of subsequent dialogue about further enhancements, such as additional detail in the reporting dashboards. After our first three months, the Shopbox AI CEO Alan Gormley called and asked some very specific questions about what was good and what we’d like to see next. This level of personal interest is quite unique, and highly positive.”
.png){kind=logo}
