The heat is on for internet cosmetics sales

In the past week Italian-based www.bestbuyperfume.com has launched a portal selling a range of perfume, hair care and skin care products, while Italian designer Giorgio Armani has announced the global launch of its dedicated perfume and cosmetics portal, www.giorgioarmanibeauty.com.

The new portals join an ever-growing number of websites dedicated to the retail of beauty products. But not without reason. In the all-important Christmas retail season last year, Amazon.com announced that its top-selling item was Britney's Spear's fragrance, Curious.

BestBuyPerfume.com, is one of a plethora of dedicated websites selling a range of beauty products for the international market. Although most of these sites have tended to focus on perfume sales, increasingly a wider range of premium cosmetics and toiletry products are included as individual sections.

Giorgio Armani's move to open a dedicated site for its range of premium cosmetic and perfume products, is also further evidence that the scope for internet sales of higher end products is clearly there.

Whereas previously Armani's cosmetic and perfume range was contained within the company's dedicated website, the new dedicated site is now up and running for on-line sales in the United States, and is mooted for international markets in the New Year. Languages include English, Italian and Japanese.

One of the features of the site allows consumers to see all products on a 'beauty conuter', said to resemble a physical shop. And on top of the now traditional colour swatches, the design of the site means that consumers can actually see make-up applied to a model in real-time.

The fact that Armani is launching its dedicated collection in the US, reflects the fact that the market for on-line cosmetics retail is significantly more developed than anywhere else.

In Europe, the UK is widely viewed as one of the most advanced markets for on-line cosmetics sales, although Euromonitor​ holds no separate sales figures for Europe as the market is still deemed to be very small.

Evidence of this trend became evident in May of this year, when the TheBodyShop.com increased the investment in its on-line sales portal, upping the capabilities for both its US and UK consumers. The up-grade came off the back of significant increases in on-line sales - which grew by 57 per cent in the US last year.

Earlier this year the NPD Group​ revealed that the average US women was now spending $83 a year on beauty products purchased from the internet. Although this figure is still relatively small, it shows that US women increased their spend by 38 per cent on the same figure one year previously.