Beauty and the Tech: A Nykaa UX Study
A case study that draws a parallel between the tech and beauty industry and exemplifies how UX practises can help a brand gain a competitive advantage.
The Tech & Beauty Industry
Back in the late 20th century, one could get away with saying that the tech industry and beauty industry have no overlap. However, over time, with the coming of the information age, technology penetrated into the beauty industry and the two industries which seemed dissimilar on the surface, soon had several intrinsic similarities.
As users took to internet, e-commerce sites popped up, allowing users to buy products from the comfort of their homes. Sephora entered early into the field with its e-commerce websites launching in 1998!
In recent times just how most smart phones use AR/VR features such as memoji to engage users, the beauty industry has utilised this feature to address some of its pain points, allowing users to “Try On” products before purchasing them.
Just as the tech field faces intense and overwhelming competition with new innovations and products, so too does the beauty industry. To gain a competitive advantage, key players in the beauty industry are focusing on enhancing the UX of its consumers.
This study focuses on one such player in the Indian market that has managed to attain a spot in the Top 10 E-Commerce platforms in just 5 years since it’s inception!
What is Nykaa ?
Nykaa is an Indian online multi-brand beauty and personal care products retailer, which started off as an e-commerce portal and later opened up retail outlets in several big metropolitan cities in the country. Founded in 2012, this beauty platform generated a revenue of approximately $157,000,000.
Similar to Sephora, it acts as distributor and sells variety of products ranging for drugstore to high end and, in 2017, they also released a range of products under their private label.
What made Nykaa do so well?
Several features such as its business model, inventory management, and others have allowed Nykaa to outperform it’s competitors. I am focusing on the UX features some of which are unique to the platform and have helped it gain its reputation and client base.
Spot on User Persona
“The Nykaa woman is fun, fearless and feminine. She dreams big, has flaws, keeps a crazy schedule and manages to look fabulous through it all.”
The persona created while building the app has been moulded perfectly to ensure the best UX. The app caters to young woman aged 22–35, and in turn uses bright and youthful colours to symbolise modern and playful vibrance that is still rooted in Indian culture.
The beauty of the persona is that it caters to both the rich and the middle class girl. Nykaa introduced a special category named “Nykaa Luxe” which showcases the high end beauty brands such as Bobbi Brown, Smashbox, HudaBeauty etc.
Omnichannel Experience
You can order groceries, shop for clothes, buy a book, talk to person living across the globe and even sell items, without taking a single step. We live in a world in which anything and everything can be achieved with a few taps or clicks.
A major issue that users face while buying beauty products online is that they aren’t able to “try” the products on. Users can’t gauge whether the cosmetics suit their complexion.
Providing an omnichannel experience has helped this predominantly e-commerce platform alleviate the most pressing user pain point. By opening brick-and-mortar stores, Nykaa has allowed users to try on brands that otherwise can’t be tried like HudaBeauty(which doesn’t have retail outlets in India).
With this experience, you can shop for your favourite brands using your phone or laptop, or if your confused you can drop into their store and try it on yourself.
Network
Nykaa has built a community wherein users can converse, share ideas and tips, get inspiration, learn and watch tutorials.
By building this community, Nykaa has built the perfect nest which helps retain existing customers and attracts new ones. This community model functions the same way influencer marketing works. People are more likely to purchase products that are vetted by experts or people that they trust. Consumers are aware that product descriptions are not representative of the actual views, especially when products cost a lot.
Nykaa has instilled a very key UX principle, trust.
Trust Model
Continuing on the previous point, trust is key to building a successful product. You need the user to trust that the product is reliable and trustworthy. The moment the user realises that a product isn’t what it is claimed to be, you’ve lost a consumer, damaged your brands trust and lost potential customers.
When it comes to beauty, this task becomes even more complex due to the high number of “dupes” and “first copy” makeup circulating the market. Even trusted e-commerce websites like Amazon sometimes end up selling these copies, and an unknowing user falls prey to this travesty.
Nykaa builds trust by not only building a community, but also by reinforcing authenticity. The UI makes it a point to highlight the fact that the product is genuine, it also allows users to view their certificate of guarantee and thus helps the user build trust with the product.
User Retention Schemes a.k.a Gamification
- Point system : This reward program, which works much like a credit card point system, something that I personally felt was an excellent touch, made users want to come back and keep buying products. For every purchase, you earn certain amount of Reward Points, which can be cashed in on your next purchase. In this manner, Nykaa has gamified its experience by providing “points” for each purchase. Inherently users believe that if they purchase more, they earn more points and hence save more. It’s a brilliant cycle, one that I have personally fallen for.
- Badges: Nykaa gives out special privileges to its PRIVĒ members. These benefits include discount coupons, birthday gifts and free shipping to name a few. Just as you would earn a badge after achieving a certain level in a game, this PRIVĒ membership is earned once you spend a certain amount of money in a given time. This again, makes the users want to spend that amount in the hopes of getting a discount in the future. Another scheme that I have happily fallen for.
Seamless UI
Both the web and the mobile app of Nykaa have characteristics that set it apart from its competitors in the field.
- Brilliant Information Architecture: This app has managed to group and organise its content so perfectly, a user would not need to spend any time trying to look for a particular item. By providing both a side bar and a bottom tab, the app becomes familiar to users.
- The Offers Tab: By providing a one click button for offers, Nykaa has allowed the users to find discounts and offers easily without having to apply multiple filters.
- Try-it-On: Although this feature is pretty primitive and it isn’t applicable for all products, Nykaa does attempt to show users how a particular shade of would look on a a given complexion.
My 2 cents
Though the Nykaa experience is seamless and translates beautifully from the web platform to the store, I believe that their UX could be improved with small additions and features.
- Following Hick’s Law: The more stimuli to choose from, the longer it takes the user to pick which one to go with. Users bombarded with choices have to take time to interpret and decide, giving them work they don’t want to do. The home page of Nykaa unfortunately makes this mistake. By piling the user with information, I sometimes find myself confused and often forget what I was searching for in the first place. The home screen is an overload of information to process and scrolls on for much too long, most users would feel overwhelmed at first glance.
- AR/VR : A big step towards improving the UX would be incorporating some AR or VR technology similar to the ones used by Sephora to let the user see how the product would look on them.
- Personalisation : User’s like to see content that is relevant to them, as mentioned above having too many options makes it difficult for a user to make a decision. Incorporation of a “Based on your purchases” on the home page would add relevant content and help meet users’ needs.
- Opening in a new tab : Everytime you click a link on the site, it opens the link in a new tab of the page. I believe this choice should be left to the user.
Takeaways for your e-commerce platform
- Omnichannel services help users overcome pain points that might occur on a web or app platform.
- Gamification can work on e-commerce platforms and helps customer retention
- E-Commerce models require building trust with the user, identify potential weaknesses that a user might consider doubt and reinforce that this is not the case.
- Creating a network or a community can help boost your sales, as a lot of purchasers are influenced by opinions and views of vetted experts.
- Identifying a user persona and building the UX around that persona can ensure that your brand is accepted well by its target audience.
I would love to hear some feedback on the beauty industry and how the UX in this industry is booming. Please comment and let me know what you guys think about the case study.
