Beauty is crowded. Your customer has seen a dozen brands this week, most of them on a phone, most of them from an ad or a creator. When they land on your store, you get a few seconds to look better than all of them.
That’s a store problem as much as a marketing problem. I’m Carson Cobb, and I run Shopify stores for growing DTC brands on monthly retainers. Over 6+ years I’ve worked on 50+ Shopify stores, and beauty and skincare are where some of my best results have come from.
The problems I see in beauty and skincare stores
Product pages that don’t answer the real questions
A skincare shopper wants to know three things fast. Will this work for my skin? How do I use it? What’s in it?
Most product pages bury those answers under brand copy or hide them in tabs nobody opens. I rebuild the page so the first screen on mobile shows the product, the price, who it’s for and the main result, with ingredients, directions and reviews right where doubt shows up.
I build these templates on Shopify metafields and metaobjects, so key ingredients, skin types and directions live in structured fields. Your team updates them once and every page stays consistent.
Shades and sizes that confuse people
Shade products are hard. If the swatch is wrong, the photo doesn’t change, or the reviews don’t show which shade someone bought, shoppers guess, and guessing leads to returns or no order at all.
I make sure the selected shade drives the photos, the stock status and, where your reviews app allows, the reviews shown. For sizes, I show what the larger size saves in plain dollars, because a bigger bottle is often the easiest order value win you have.
No routine, just products
People don’t buy skincare one product at a time. They build a routine. But most stores sell each product on its own and leave the customer to figure out what goes together.
I set up routines and bundles that make sense: cleanser, serum, moisturizer, or a starter set for a specific concern. With Rebuy or the theme, I show the right add on on the product page and in the cart, based on what customers actually buy together.
Replenishment left to chance
A moisturizer runs out. A cleanser runs out. Most stores never ask for the reorder at the right time, so the customer replaces it with whatever is at the drugstore.
I set reorder timing based on how long each product actually lasts, then use it in two places: subscribe and save frequencies in Recharge or Skio, and replenishment emails in Klaviyo. More on the email side on my Klaviyo email page.
Slow pages from heavy media
Beauty stores lean on video, big lifestyle photos, review widgets with photos, quizzes and popups. All of that adds weight, and the shopper coming from a creator’s video won’t wait.
I audit every app script and image, compress and resize media, and defer what doesn’t need to load first. The goal is a product page that shows up before the shopper loses interest.
Gift sets that show up too late
Holiday sets and gift bundles are big for beauty. They’re also often built the week before the sale. I plan gift sets and promos on a calendar so the products, the pages, the cart offers and the emails are ready ahead of time.
What I do for beauty and skincare brands
When I work with a beauty brand, I usually focus on these areas in roughly this order:
- Tracking and speed. Clean numbers first, then mobile pages that load fast.
- Product page templates. Structured fields for ingredients, skin types and directions, with reviews and shades handled properly.
- Routines and bundles. Sets that raise order value, shown on product pages and in the cart.
- Subscriptions and replenishment. Reorder timing per product, with subscribe and save where it fits. See my Shopify subscriptions page.
- Email. Klaviyo flows built around routines and reorders, not generic newsletters.
- Promo calendar. Gift sets and sales planned weeks ahead.
I work in Shopify, Recharge, Skio, Rebuy and Klaviyo every day. If you want the deeper dive on pages and testing, see my conversion optimization page.
Proof: skincare conversion up 71% at the same ad spend
One skincare brand came to me with strong ads and a store that wasn’t keeping up. I worked through product pages, the cart, mobile speed and tracking. Conversion rose 71% at the same ad spend.
In a sample month for a skincare client I run the store for, conversion went from 2.1% to 3.2% and average order value from $58 to $64.
Across my work, rebuilt pages average a 2.1x conversion lift, and I’ve supported more than $40M in client revenue for growing brands.
How to work with me
Most beauty brands start with a Store Sprint for $1,500 one time. It’s one week. I audit the store and fix the highest impact problems that same week. If you continue on a retainer, the $1,500 is credited toward it.
From there, the plan I recommend is Operator at $3,000/mo. I run the store with you month to month. For brands that want one person to own the whole channel, there’s Head of Ecommerce at $5,500/mo, which I explain on my fractional head of ecommerce page.
Every plan is listed on the pricing section.
Book a 20 minute intro call
If your beauty brand is getting attention but the store isn’t turning it into orders, let’s talk. Book a 20 minute intro call, tell me what you sell and where you think the store is leaking, and I’ll tell you where I’d look first.