In 2025, European retail is defined by disruption, tech shifts, and increasingly complex consumer desires. Beauty brands and retailers need to adapt—fast and smart. Across Europe, the last five years post-COVID have been transformative, shifting the economy, how businesses operate, and how consumers think. In 2025, consumers are living in a state of permacrisis, businesses have been forced into huge U-turn changes, and shopping patterns and behaviors are more complex than ever.
But despite all this, Europe is experiencing what some are calling a retail renaissance. Over the next five years, real retail sales across the Eurozone are projected to grow 1.7% per annum, outpacing 1.4% real gross domestic product (GDP) growth, and retail investment volumes are also on the up, hitting €25.4 billion ($29 billion) in 2024, according to real estate investment major AEW Capital.
So, what exactly does the future of beauty retail look like for Europe? And where are the biggest opportunities for growth and evolution in this dynamic space? BeautyMatter attended one of the region's key retail events last week in Barcelona, Spain—Shoptalk Europe 2025—to find out more.
“If retail over the past year has taught us anything, it's that the coordinates we thought we were following no longer hold,” said Hannah Redfern, Senior Vice President at Shoptalk Europe and Shoptalk Luxe, during her opening remarks. “Retail is evolving—rapidly, weirdly, spectacularly. It's a strange old world we're operating in.”
And as longstanding retail systems and business models became irrelevant and consumers veered off their predictable course, Redfern said entire categories were being reinvented “on timelines no one anticipated.”
Sophie Wawro, Global President at Shoptalk, added, “Across Europe, we're seeing a total recalibration on how business works.”
Disruptions Beyond the "T" Word
Tariff uncertainty from the US has been one central cause of concern for many European beauty brands and retailers in recent months, but it isn't the only disruption facing the category.
“The first half of the decade was a rollercoaster—there were so many disruptions,” Jamal Chamariq, Senior Vice President of Global Supply Chain at The Estée Lauder Companies, told attendees.
There was the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of challenging geopolitical events, and more recently, concerns around trade with tariffs from the US, Chamariq said. But such a disruptive backdrop for business was only set to continue, he warned. “What we are going through and the disruptions we are facing today [are] not one-off; this is the new normal.”
Natalia Lechmanova, Chief Economist for Europe at Mastercard, said while the “biggest risk” for the European outlook remains everything related to trade and tariffs, with varying risk depending on a country's economic exposure to the US, there is also the even greater “impact of uncertainty.”
“When you have uncertainty, companies pause hiring decisions, consumers begin to save rather than spend their money—uncertainty often plays an even bigger part in the economic outlook,” Lechmanova said during her presentation.
On the consumer side, however, she said Europeans are today well-positioned to “withstand the current turbulents,” given that the labor market remains stable, real disposable income is growing, and household debt is generally healthy across the Eurozone.
However, spending habits are shifting, she said. “We see consumers continue to prioritize experiences, travel continues to dominate consumer wallet, and then categories related to experiences—the appearance categories like fashion, beauty, cosmetics, and jewelry—also claiming a higher share of consumer wallet.” And Lechmanova said this “experience economy” will define European retail for a number of years.
Enter Experiential Retail 2.0
Carla Buzasi, CEO of trend forecasting major WGSN, said the rise of the entertainment industry is an important macro trend set to shape consumer patterns and therefore retail in the years to come.
Businesses now have to think in terms of “cultural currency” when it comes to consumer spending. “This ties back to the point about people spending more money on entertainment,” she explained, as consumers looked to connect and feel things when spending.
For brands, this means leaning harder into consumer engagement, she said, and targeting fandoms—dedicated and highly engaged collectives with shared passions. Australian luxury cosmetics brand Aesop is one good example of this with their store designs that lean into the cinephile world and the “golden age of Hollywood.”
Retail residences are also on the agenda for the bigger, more able brands, Busazi said, like Dolce&Gabbana with its 888 Brickell Miami hotel and residences project due to open in 2028. Partnerships beyond traditional retail will also be key, she explained, referencing Guess partnering with a safari lodge in South Africa, which embodies experience in a very different way.
Raymond Cloosterman, CEO of Rituals Cosmetics, told attendees during his keynote that experiential retail will be the absolute future of beauty and wellness. The company's Amsterdam House of Rituals megastore is a “wonderful” example of this, Cloosterman said, with four floors of immersive retail experiences—from tea on arrival through to body and mind spa treatments.
“Our obsession is store experiences,” he said. “Since day one, we've invested almost all our money into stores and store experience. For me, that completes the journey as a brand.”
Clare Cryer, Vice President for EMEA Growth at global retail innovation agency Outform, agrees that experiential retail continues to be absolutely key for European beauty players.
“The vast percentage of beauty shoppers are coming to the store for inspiration,” Cryer told BeautyMatter. Retailers and brands, therefore, need to think about “navigational signposts,” she said, that can guide and engage shoppers. Then, they need to bring play and exploration into the mix. Outform recently worked with luxury brand Yves Saint Laurent on the launch of its new blush line—creating an activation called "Make Me Blush"—which incorporated gaming into the store set-up to encourage shoppers to pick up and interact with the products, for example.
Polina Klekovkina, Chief Operating Officer (COO) and co-founder of augmented reality (AR) tech start-up FFFACE.ME, said brands and retailers have to go beyond “static advertising” today if they want to engage with consumers. “People don't interact with static ads anymore. We are surrounded by static advertisements, and so we have these blind spots—we don't even look at them,” Klekovkina said.
Smart AR mirrors that reflect back with some fun add-ons—think Dior classes, Maybelline mascaras, or even immersive Prada fragrance-inspired backgrounds—are more engaging. The goal for FFFACE.ME, Klekovkina said, is for AR mirrors and AR advertising to “become the new standard” over the next year.
TikTok, TikTok—Where Next?
Human-created content and engagement still remain central for now to movements shaping European retail, with TikTok Shop fully in the limelight.
“At TikTok, we've created a more impactful way of selling online; a way that brings back this joyful human element,” Jan Wilk, Head of TikTok Shop UK at TikTok, told attendees.
TikTok's live shopping option, for example, enables direct audience interaction with real assistants and has gained significant ground with big and small brands, Wilk said. L'Oréal, for example, has set up an in-house live studio on the shopping platform to reach new audiences, and Zalando just launched six months ago, he said. Today, Wilk said there are around 6,000 live shopping sessions every day in the UK on TikTok Shop, and the platform had 200,000 active users as of 2024—up 131% on 2023.
Manashi Guha, Chief Growth Officer for L'Oréal UK and Ireland, said TikTok is certainly one important platform for L'Oréal today, but it's not the only space the brand is trying to engage with consumers in because the consumer's digital path is far more complex and multifaceted.
From checking the weather app first thing in the morning to chatting online with friends during the daily commute, to gaming or watching videos in the evening to wind down, Guha said the consumer's digital journey is now “totally nonlinear.” And this also means the journey for brand discovery, brand engagement, and brand purchase is also nonlinear.
“Where does this bring us? This brings us to the most important thing that is missing today: attention,” Guha said. Capturing a consumer's attention today amid this plethora of digital information is more complicated than ever and requires “influence,” she explained, which can be achieved on interactive social channels, like TikTok but also retailer websites and in-store.
Milka Privodanova, Vice President and Head of EMEA at Pinterest, said Pinterest has long been established as a platform for ideas and influence, but more recently, it has also proven itself as a space where consumers also shop.
In the UK earlier this year, Pinterest and Primark, for example, partnered on a country-wide online and in-store activation for the retailer's homewares line, curating a range based on three décor trends and enabling Pinterest users to purchase products online for pickup in Primark stores. Pinterest also took over more than 70 Primark shop windows, promoting the campaign further. “It was such a good partnership,” Privodanova said, and hugely successful for Primark, with a 115% increase in sales and a 270% increase for click-and-collect on that Pinterest-inspired range. L'Oréal also very recently worked with Pinterest, she said, to launch a new hair color that taps into Pinterest's "cherry red" 2025 trend.
These partnerships, Privodanova said, are completely “rooted in what the consumer wants,” which then enables the brand or retailer to create “something unexpected, that delights and brings joy.”
Rebecca Bemhena, Vice President of Content at Shoptalk, said, “Today's shoppers expect much more than just speed and convenience—they want connection, they want to feel seen, heard, and valued in every interaction. They expect brands to anticipate their needs, create unforgettable moments, and make them feel like they matter.”
For beauty brands and retailers, Bemhena said this is especially relevant. And a lot of brands are already succeeding in experiential and immersive offerings—Sephora with its highly knowledgable store associates, Charlotte Tilbury with its way of matching perfumes to shopper vibrations, and SpaceNK with its imminent flagship Oxford Street London store set to offer a range of services and experiences to make it a beauty destination for respite. “What is being done and the investment that is being made in beauty, in terms of creating these spaces around experiences, is really, really exciting,” Bemhena told BeautyMatter.
And looking ahead, she said it will be important for brands and retailers to keep their eyes open for new opportunities and spaces. “I think it's really important for brands and retailers to always be curious and on the lookout for what's coming next. We're in an age of exceptional growth, in terms of technologies, so I feel like it's only a matter of time until a huge new social media channel comes, out of nowhere, probably.”
