Douglas Counts on Digital-First Strategy

The German beauty brand Douglas has changed its business model towards a digital-first strategy – creating Europe’s first fully integrated beauty platform, as announced in a recent press release. The digital Douglas platform connects the classic online stores with the Douglas marketplace and stationary stores in one digital network. The Group’s CEO Tina Müller called this step decisive on the way from a “retailer with an online store towards a digital company with stationary stores”. With the expansion of its digital strategies, Douglas rides a wave of booming eCommerce times, which have not least been triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. In the third quarter of fiscal 2020, Douglas registered a record growth in total eCommerce sales of 70% year-on-year. The company now wants to build on this success and expand its beauty platform also internationally. When taking a look at the net sales development of Douglas’ main URL douglas.de, the new growth strategy already seems to pay off:

While douglas.de’s net sales stagnated or even decreased in the years 2016 to 2018, the year 2019 brought along tremendous growth: Net sales increased by 42% year-on-year and reached a total of €319 million. The corona year 2020 kept pace and produced another net sales increase of 33%, which resulted in total net sales of €424 million for the year 2020. As projected by ecommerceDB.com analysts, net sales on douglas.de are going to continue to grow, yet at a slightly lower pace. For 2021, a year-on-year growth of 13% is expected, which would result in a net sales total of €478 million. In general, Douglas’ focus on a digital-first strategy is more than wise in times of seemingly endless lockdowns and restrictions on people’s freedom of movement. The creation of an integrated digital platform connecting online and offline shopping possibilities makes Douglas a pioneer in the omnichannel beauty business in Europe, with competitors likely to follow their lead.