If there’s one constant across the globe, it’s health and beauty. Across all borders, cultures, and backgrounds, we all get a little extra pep in our step when we leave the house looking, and feeling, our best. And, businesses are investing in that feeling!
According to Statista, the Beauty & Personal Care market worldwide is looking at revenues of US$677.19 billion in 2025 alone. Even with the pandemic (which sparked a slowdown in sales) and global recession concerns, the industry keeps glowing up with a 3.37% CAGR projected through 2030.
However, not all beauty brands are thriving equally. The secret ingredient? A modern and resilient technology stack that will provide a foundation and avenue for growth in today’s digital economy.
This guide provides the essential technological considerations that health and beauty (H&B) companies like you should know about when building out your tech infrastructure. We’ll give you practical insights to help you scale efficiently while meeting today’s consumer expectations for rapid delivery and seamless returns.
What H&B Brands Should Expect Their Technology to Do in a Digital World
As residents of a digital world, we’re fairly dependent on all things technology. We get directions, weather updates, and sports scores from our phones. We ask our artificial intelligence-infused devices to give us advice on what’s the best way to plant tomatoes and when. And we meet potential significant others by scrolling through options via online apps.
As you probably know, things aren’t that different in the business world. Technology delivers astounding benefits, but it has to be the right technology.
Forbes Councils Member Jimmie Lee puts it this way: “Identifying and selecting the right combination of technology tools and platforms can significantly enhance a business’s operational efficiency, its ability to scale and its overall competitiveness in its market.”
Lee says that the “process involves researching and evaluating available technology options and strategically selecting tools that not only meet current needs but are also scalable for future growth, and includes factors like budget, team expertise and long-term business objectives.”
When shopping around for your tech stack you need to be just as selective as your customers are in selecting their skincare. Your ideal system should align with your:
- Budget
- Experterise
- Long-term goals
- Growth plans
As you explore your different options, here are a few things to keep in mind while selecting the software to base your business on.
1. Manufacturer Synchronization
H&B companies are product businesses, which means you have manufacturing requirements. Typically, businesses form partnerships with manufacturers they trust will deliver their products as ordered and as scheduled every time. To secure this relationship, you need to implement systems that offer real-time data exchange between yourself and the manufacturer, establish digital workflows for compliance documentation and regulatory approval, and deploy inventory tracking solutions that provide visibility from production to delivery.
2. Fulfillment Optimization
As with your manufacturing requirements, your distribution requirements are critical to your success. Your success is predicated on your ability to manage high volumes of orders and to distribute those orders on time (especially during the seasonal spikes), which means you need an intelligent warehouse management system (WMS) that makes the picking, packing, and shipping process a breeze.
In real life, that means having a WMS that automates the pick-and-pack process, utilizes predictive inventory algorithms to balance stock levels with demand forecasting, and last but not least, establishes distributed fulfillment networks to reduce shipping times and costs.
3. Multi-Channel Sales Integration
H&B companies like you are not only product businesses, but they’re also omnichannel businesses. Having buying options—including buying in person (which most shoppers still prefer, according to consumer intelligence platform Quantilope’s survey of 340 US consumers) and buying online—are what customers expect, and meeting customer expectations is a critical component for business growth.
Another growth-necessary component? Your ability to seamlessly add online marketplaces and to expand into international sales.
That’s why it’s so important that you select platforms that support your growth, not get in the way. They must smoothly connect your e-commerce platform, like Shopify, with operational systems that can assist you with your cross-border growth (which will include inevitable complexities, such as dealing with EDI compliance, currency conversions, and duties and taxes) as well as integrate with a wide variety of marketplaces, such as Instagram, TikTok Shop, Amazon, Walmart, Ulta, Sephora, and the list goes on.
You’ll also need a solution that can implement attribution tracking for influencer marketing campaigns and profit-sharing arrangements and one that ensures consistent product information and inventory counts across all sales channels.
4. Scalability Architecture
With a strong manufacturing partner and effective multi-channel sales, you're well on your way to growing your business. Just imagine if one day, a celebrity pulls YOUR product out of their red carpet clutch, and it becomes an immediate TikTok sensation! It goes without saying that your product will be flying off the shelf, and your system will need to have design infrastructure that’s capable of handling 10x growth in transaction volume.
You’ll also want to consider cloud-based solutions with flexible capacity to manage seasonal demand spikes and that have the ability to automate order processing workflows to maintain efficiency as volume increases.
Choosing a system that is incapable of scale is a recipe for operational disaster. Plus, it would require you to spend time, energy, and resources replacing a system that should have done it right in the first place.
5. Customer Experience Enhancement
PwC, one of the world’s largest professional services networks, says that a great customer experience will encourage customers to buy more, to declare their loyalty, and to tell others about their experience. PwC also notes that bad customer service results in driving customers away, with 59% of U.S. customers saying good-bye to a beloved company after several bad experiences and 17% doing the same after just one bad experience.
Yikes!
To avoid a mass customer exodus and to encourage your customers to keep coming back for more, your brand must make the pre-and-post-buying experience easy and positive. This means you need to implement technology that helps your employees provide speedy, convenient, knowledgeable, and friendly service and that works seamlessly behind the scenes so that customers aren’t even aware it’s happening.
Technology should help your customers all throughout their journey with you. Here’s what that can look like:
- Develop comprehensive returns management with automated approvals and analytics. The returns process is rated one of customers’ most disliked experiences, and they want it to be a smooth, hassle-free experience.
- Integrate with augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for virtual try-ons and personalized product recommendations. Keep in mind, personalized product recommendations for beauty products can also be done in person via shade matching, which entails the employee taking pictures and the application delivering its data-based recommendations.
- Create feedback loops that capture customer insights for product development. Customers who use H&B companies’ products know what does and does not work, and their input into how the product can be improved will only benefit the companies who listen.
Cin7: Empowering H&B Brands with Smart Technology
Bottom line, H&B brands like you need smart technology if you want to operate efficiently and produce a profit in today’s digital economy. It’s that simple. Even simpler is choosing Cin7 as the single solution that delivers manufacturer synchronization, multi-channel sales integration, scalability architecture, fulfillment optimization, customer experience enhancement, and more.
Cin7’s comprehensive inventory and order management solution is designed with your unique H&B needs in mind:
- Advanced inventory tracking for real-time stock visibility across multiple channels
- Omnichannel native integrations capabilities (connecting seamlessly with Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, and emerging platforms)
- Automated workflows that reduce manual processes and eliminate operational efficiencies
- AI-driven forecasting that predicts demand trends and optimizes inventory
- Smart warehousing solutions with automation tools for efficient order processing and fulfillment
Cin7 has it all—as illustrated by many Cin7 H&B customers’ experiences, like HairCo, Sagely Naturals, and High Street Shoppe.
High Street Shoppe sells natural, organic beauty and wellness products through several retail stores and an online website. The team’s tech stack initially consisted of Shopify and its inventory management tool but it lacked the advanced functionality they needed
What they really needed was a tool that would do everything in one place, and they found it with Cin7. Says founder Lisa Shelley, "After looking at our many options, we picked Cin7. It was a robust platform that allowed us to manage our inventory in multiple locations, transfer information easily, simplify adjustments, and seamlessly work with QBO, Amazon, and ShipStation via Cin7’s APIs.”
Lisa also appreciates her ability to update information across multiple platforms using just Cin7.
"Changes happen frequently to skincare items, such as ingredients, and if we had to push that information out manually, it wouldn’t happen. We can make the change in Cin7’s centralized platform, and it’s pushed to all our websites. It’s a big efficiency booster.”
If your H&B company is seeking technology that meets your specific and unique needs, then Cin7 is the technology partner for you. Contact us for a free demo today.
