Teen Beauty Spending is Evolving Post Pandemic

Piper Sandler Companies has released data from its 42nd semi-annual Taking Stock With Teens survey, which in looks at discretionary spending trends and brand preferences from 10,000 teens across 44 US states. While there was an acceleration in overall teen spending 6% year-over-year, areas of slight wallet share contraction (Y/Y) included personal care, according to Piper Sandler. Spending within beauty is evolving, too. There is sequential build for haircare (+8%) and fragrance (+14%) while skin and cosmetics lagged, according to Piper Sandler’s survey.
 
In the survey, Maybelline was the top cosmetics brand and CeraVE was the top skincare brand.
 
While Amazon remains the No. 1 website—it did see mindshare slip year-over-year as female-centric websites like Shein, a fashion retail site, are on the rise, noted  Piper Sandler Senior Research Analyst Erinn Murphy.
 
Second Hand News

According to the survey, teens allocated 8% of their shopping time to secondhand; 51% of teens have purchased and 62% have sold secondhand.
 

Also of note: cash is (still) king for teens as top payment method followed by Apple Pay. PYPL’s Venmo again ranked No. 1 with teens for payment apps, and its “Pay in 4” was teens’ top buy now pay later offering.
 
Ulta was the No. 1 beauty destination with 46% share. Sephora was No. 2 at 21% share. Target was No. 3.
 
Social & Society

The survey also digs into teen behaviors and social concerns, which impact how brands may want to interact with these customers.
 
According to estimates, Teens spend four hours a day on social media, with Snapchat and TikTok the top-two platforms. Teens spend 32% of their daily video consumption on Netflix followed by YouTube (30%), according to the survey.
 
GenZ is a conscious generation and teens in this survey cited the environment as their top social issue, said Piper Sandler.
 
The Piper Sandler Taking Stock With Teens survey is a semi-annual research project that gathers input from 10,000 teens with an average age of 15.8 years. Since the project began in 2001, the company has surveyed more than 211,800 teens and collected more than 49.7 million data points on teen spending.