Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
An e-commerce glow-up
Consumer | E-commerce
July 23, 2025 – Beauty comes from within . . . the digital store? Online channels are expected to account for almost a third of global beauty retail sales by 2030, according to McKinsey’s latest State of Fashion report. The projected growth for e-commerce is higher than all other global beauty sales channels, Senior Partner Kristi Weaver and colleagues note. Specialty retailers and mono-brand stores will likely maintain their share of beauty sales, while drugstores and department stores could see a dip in sales.
To read the report, see “State of Beauty 2025: Solving a shifting growth puzzle,” June 9, 2025.
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Visual form
Alluvial-style channel-share chart built from stacked columns and connecting bands.
Layout / body structure
The chart is read left to right across four time points: 2015, 2019, 2024, and 2030. Each year is shown as a stacked column of beauty retail channels, and translucent bands connect the matching channel layers across time.
What is being compared
It compares the share of global beauty retail sales by channel over time. The channels include e-commerce, specialty or mono brands, grocery or big box, drugstores and pharmacies, travel retail, department stores, and other.
Measurement system
The values are percentage shares of global beauty retail sales. Each channel segment inside each year is labeled with its share, so the reader follows both absolute share and changing position over time.
Visible structure inside the graphic
The top layer is e-commerce, which grows from 10 in 2015 to 15 in 2019, 26 in 2024, and 31 in 2030. Below it, specialty or mono brands stays near the high teens, grocery or big box declines from 24 to 18, and department stores and other shrink over time. The softly shaded connecting bands make it easy to track each channel’s trajectory from one year column to the next.
Main takeaway from the visual
The visual shows e-commerce steadily widening its share of beauty sales and becoming the dominant growth channel by 2030, while several traditional store-based channels either hold steady or lose ground.
Key standout values or extremes
E-commerce rises from 10 percent in 2015 to 31 percent in 2030, making it the largest channel by the end of the chart. Grocery or big box falls from 24 to 18, department stores drop from 11 to 7, and other declines from 12 to 7. Specialty or mono brands remains relatively stable around 18 to 19 in the later years.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a static chart image with no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart image is the full visual on this page.