This transcript was automatically generated.

10:00:04:21 – 10:00:10:20
Kassandra
hey, and welcome to the Dip, your number one podcast for connecting the US to the world of money and the world of money to the US.

10:00:10:21 – 10:00:28:22
Daniel
I’m Kassandra and I’m Daniel. And later on, we’re going to talk about beauty and the self-care industry and how it’s increasingly selling to children. But up first, $1 trillion. That’s how much Americans are expected to spend this holiday season. That after shopping figures exceeded expectations for Black Friday weekend.

10:00:29:01 – 10:00:49:00
Kassandra
But these impressive figures are a bit more complicated once you get into the weeds. And any bumps here are critical, because consumer spending accounts for two thirds of economic activity in the United States. For more, we’re joined by Caila Schwartz. She’s the director of consumer insights and strategy at Salesforce. And we’re also joined by Bob Phibbs. He’s a business analyst.

10:00:49:00 – 10:00:51:07
Kassandra
But of course, he’s also known as the retail doctor.

10:00:51:10 – 10:01:04:09
Daniel
So, Caila, I want to get started with you first, Americans are about to drop $1 trillion in holiday shopping. All told, a trillion. It doesn’t look like a country that supposedly skint. So what’s going on?

10:01:04:11 – 10:01:39:21
Caila
Yeah, well we saw a record breaking Cyber Week here in the US. But underneath the hood, if we really look deep down at the numbers, we’re seeing some really interesting trends with the US consumer. In particular, we’re seeing one segment of the population leading into luxury goods and higher priced items like furniture and appliances. And on the other side of the spectrum, we have a consumer that’s doubling down on essentials, and really just focused on buying the things that they need versus the things that they want.

10:01:39:21 – 10:01:48:21
Caila
And so it was a record breaking holiday season, but really propelled by the consumer at the higher end of the spectrum, spending a lot more money this year.

10:01:48:23 – 10:02:10:10
Kassandra
Right, Bob, you know, when we’re thinking about Black Friday, you have this aura of mob shopping centers, packed malls. You’re waiting in line to get out of the parking lot forever. But in-person shopping is losing ground to online shopping. Mostly, I would guess. But correct me if I’m wrong because of the ease of online shopping. So how much does in-person shopping really matter to retailers in the industry right now?

10:02:10:12 – 10:02:34:17
Bob
You know, I just keynote at the Shanghai Retail Conference and China 73. Now they own digital. They own digital that everybody would acknowledge they are the leaders. 73% of sales are still done in brick and mortar store in China. 80% are still done in America. As wonderful as the E-Comm people want you to believe, it’s a smaller niche that gets bigger information.

10:02:34:17 – 10:02:57:20
Bob
But placer, I said that indoor mall increased traffic was 3.1% this year over last year. Outlet malls were point to and open air shopping centers 1.7. But they’ll find anybody to say oh, traffic was down. It’s about the same. And there are major storms in Chicago and other areas. So yes, online went and yes, for replenishment and things like that.

10:02:57:20 – 10:03:08:20
Bob
People do go online, but we go in-store to discover. And that’s what brick and mortar merchants understand. That’s why Macy’s, had great numbers just the other day. And other retailers, as well.

10:03:08:22 – 10:03:28:07
Daniel
That’s been a trend for a while that, these retailers are focused more on experience and discovery. And, Kayla, I want to ask you, kind of digging into that a bit more, what’s pushing people to spend right now? I mean, is it excitement? Is it FOMO or is it big discounts, as we kind of traditionally associate with Black Friday?

10:03:28:09 – 10:03:57:15
Caila
But yeah, absolutely. It really is all about the discounting during this Cyber Week moment. What we hear from consumers leading into this shopping moment, not only in the U.S. but worldwide, is that this is the moment that they’re planning for and waiting for all year. So that’s why we see, especially in the last couple of years, a consumer that is buying those higher ticket items because they’re waiting to buy those while they’re on sale.

10:03:57:17 – 10:04:23:00
Caila
But just to go back to the point about store, we are also seeing a younger consumer that’s leaning into the experience of in-store shopping on these key moments. In fact, Gen Z was the number one generation, both here in the US and Canada and Europe and in Latin America, that said, hey, I want to go back to the store on these key shopping moments like Black Friday.

10:04:23:00 – 10:04:37:08
Caila
So we do see a resurgence in the relevancy of brick and mortar retail, especially for that younger consumer that’s looking to blend the traditional with a little bit more of the digital first experience that they grew up with.

10:04:37:10 – 10:04:52:11
Kassandra
You know, I hear about Gen Z not to age myself. I hear about Gen Z bringing back like the digital camera. So maybe they’re also going to be turning to other the quote unquote nostalgia here. But Bob, what sectors are actually drawing people into the shops isn’t luxury like we’ve been talking about?

10:04:52:13 – 10:05:11:20
Bob
Well, Bloomingdale’s, again, of course, to place their eye, their traffic went up 5.5% noughties. It was about two. Neiman’s was pretty much flat. So it’s not across the board, I think. Again, this is a time of year promotions. There’s no two ways around it, but can we just take a moment to just get this out of the way?

10:05:11:20 – 10:05:31:04
Bob
I don’t know how many times at this time of the year we have a stupid survey that says 85% of customers want us shop only for discounts this time of year. Please put out a survey that says, how many of you would you like to pay full price for items this holiday season? Yeah, interesting there Lilly. And so it’s the same thing at this time.

10:05:31:07 – 10:05:53:20
Bob
Well people are looking for discounts on the weekend. It’s big discounts. This isn’t the issue. The issue is sales are strong, are strong in retail stores right now. For whatever reason, people are stressed out and we’re shopping like crazy, like there’s no tomorrow. The stock market is higher than we’ve ever seen it before, and everyone’s holding hands going like this.

10:05:53:20 – 10:06:15:18
Bob
Okay. Is this okay? Yeah. It’s okay, it’s okay. Yeah, yeah. So we’re all kind of saying, let’s keep going. And that’s the bigger story, that the consumer is not freaked out. The consumer is willing to pay the higher prices. Tariffs I think have inflated prices for several brands. And those, sales increases we’re going to see in the next few months.

10:06:15:18 – 10:06:21:00
Bob
May not be as much of a factor of people doing a better job, as much as things cost more.

10:06:21:02 – 10:06:34:18
Daniel
Yeah, but it’s all it’s all due to inflation, right. That we’re seeing these higher sales figures aren’t we, Bob? I mean it’s and it’s not just necessarily because people are just desperate to, to spend all of their money. The fact is that they are very tight right now. US households, they don’t have as much to spend as they used to.

10:06:34:18 – 10:06:37:22
Daniel
So the money going up and up and up isn’t necessarily usually.

10:06:37:22 – 10:07:02:11
Bob
They year that. But we hear that. But if that’s the case who’s lying. Because that’s all we keep hearing is they’re stretched so far so tight. They don’t have any money. Well then. Oh it’s not everybody. I mean, I appreciate what Kayla says, that yes, that maybe luxury is doing well. But at the same time, dollar stores, Dollar General is up 5%, five below 2%.

10:07:02:13 – 10:07:19:06
Bob
There are a lot of discounters that are up as well. So this idea that, oh, it’s the luxury that’s propelling it all, I don’t know, I think it’s a broad based trend. And, this narrative that I think a lot of writers are putting out there that, oh, you know, no one has any money and it’s only a few.

10:07:19:06 – 10:07:26:11
Bob
I don’t think that’s holding because we’re still seeing restaurants are holding. We’re still seeing hotels are holding. People are out shopping enjoying their lives.

10:07:26:11 – 10:07:29:04
Kassandra
Yeah. Kayla, feel free to jump in here.

10:07:29:06 – 10:07:52:07
Caila
Yeah. I was going to say I agree. I think that there’s winners and losers. And I think at the very high end we’re seeing some winners. And then on the lower end, price point, we’re seeing a lot of winners as well. And I think it’s everybody in between that’s trying to figure out how to get a piece of the pie and get cheaper attention, whether it’s through bringing them in with value and or experience.

10:07:52:07 – 10:08:23:15
Caila
And so I agree with you. I think it’s a very complicated story in the US consumer in particular, even when we were seeing much higher rates of inflation continue to spend, they reprioritize their spend. They spend it in different ways. They budgeted more and they waited more for moments like Cyber Week, but they still spent. And when we like looked back at the whole year, we still thought growth in retail even during like those very, very high inflationary periods during 2023 and parts of 2024.

10:08:23:15 – 10:08:25:20
Caila
So I agree with you.

10:08:25:22 – 10:08:46:09
Daniel
Okay. Bob, I want to come back to you just on, the in-store kind of experience. I mean, we’ve talked about this for for so long about it being much more experiential these days. Right now, when I can just get things online, why should I bother going into a store? And if you’re a retailer, how should I be adapting my, my offering in the physical locations?

10:08:46:09 – 10:08:51:04
Daniel
I mean, because we hear about malls shutting down all across the US. What needs to change?

10:08:51:04 – 10:08:57:08
Bob
Malls are not all shutting down across the U.S.. Give me a break. It’s like, give us really good.

10:08:57:10 – 10:08:57:24
Daniel
Give us the.

10:08:57:24 – 10:09:01:12
Kassandra
Team. Take it from over here. Tell us what’s happening.

10:09:01:14 – 10:09:21:08
Bob
Oh, I forgot to like what I was in China and their their experience of us, they go, oh, we know from from America is what we hear from your president was like, wow. Okay. It’s a little different. The reality is, look, if I’m sitting here at my desk and I, my HP printer needs, cartridge 64, I’m probably ordering that online.

10:09:21:08 – 10:09:42:24
Bob
That’s replenishment. Right. So big deal. I don’t want to go down to the Office Depot, and the scrunchie key has to unlock the case for the $30 cartridge. Right? I’m just going to buy it online. But if I do decide to leave my house and go to traffic and roll the dice that I walk in and have a great experience, and I have to walk up to the person of the sacred scrunchie and say, can you unlock the case?

10:09:42:24 – 10:09:55:22
Bob
So they unlock it and they pull up and they say anything else, and I say no, because I got my thing and they walk away. That’s where you missed it, because I walked into your store. What’s the obvious thing? I could have gotten.

10:09:55:24 – 10:09:57:21
Kassandra
My stuff out. Oh yeah.

10:09:57:23 – 10:10:14:07
Bob
Maybe furniture. That’s why I walked in. So maybe you have a great display. Maybe I look at it and no one’s there to talk to me. At that moment, I’m thinking, yeah, I could get that, I get it, and no one’s there to talk to me. You blew it because you sold me with your display or the fact that you had that brand.

10:10:14:09 – 10:10:18:05
Bob
And now I’m going to walk out the door empty handed because I didn’t feel I matters.

10:10:18:05 – 10:10:20:12
Daniel
Yeah, but, Bob, why people are going to go in time.

10:10:20:12 – 10:10:21:10
Bob
In and day out.

10:10:21:11 – 10:10:34:05
Daniel
Why are people going to go into these stores and say, I’m going to go there and get up, sold on something like that. They’re not there for that day. They want they want an experience. They want to walk around an Apple store and feel like they’re in an art exhibit or something like that.

10:10:34:07 – 10:10:41:12
Bob
Supposedly you’re just bitter. Geez, dude, they do not say, I’m going to be upset. That’s not so selling them. So it’s not.

10:10:41:15 – 10:10:48:24
Daniel
Making them go to these places and saying, I’m actually going to not just order off the internet. I’m going to go out to this place.

10:10:49:01 – 10:10:51:09
Bob
Have you ever done that, Daniel? Have you ever done that?

10:10:51:09 – 10:10:57:14
Daniel
I am very much a homebody. I just order everything online. It’s just much easier that way.

10:10:57:16 – 10:11:25:16
Bob
Yeah. Luckily for you, you’re that less than 20% that’s buying, retail, you know, online. And I don’t care how much a generic search people are trying waste on us. That’s not what people want to do. They want to go out. And as Kayla rightly said, the younger generations want to go out, particularly as groups. Right, Kayla? They’re not doing it necessarily individuals and experience it because the here’s the thing, brick and mortar exists to answer the customer’s one question, which is what’s new?

10:11:25:18 – 10:11:46:16
Bob
We find that in the store. And maybe it’s an older product that is, put in a different display or it’s done differently. And we think, yeah, I think I might like that. That little place of wonder is what we’re craving. That’s that’s our dopamine hit, is to think, oh, I could do that. And a great brand. Someone comes up to you and they convince you that, yeah, you could use this.

10:11:46:16 – 10:12:04:11
Bob
And they help you feel that you matter so that you end up seeing it and take it home and you’re thrilled with it. You’re not returning it. You know, merchandise in the store has a less than 5% return rate online at 70%. Hello. Why are we making this push to do more people online for the better people like Daniel?

10:12:04:13 – 10:12:08:20
Bob
Yeah. When the 80% of the world are like me who want to go out and experience the world.

10:12:08:21 – 10:12:27:16
Kassandra
But you said it. Not me. But, Kayla, I want to turn to you with a question because, you know, I’m American. I can say this Americans do love their credit cards and young people across the board, you see it everywhere. Are using these buy now, pay later apps as well. So I’m wondering, you know, we’re talking about some of this record spending the beginning of this holiday shopping season.

10:12:27:16 – 10:12:34:11
Kassandra
But how much of it is being propped up by, you know, bills that are going to come due on January 1st?

10:12:34:13 – 10:13:01:05
Caila
You know, it’s a great question. There was a lot of chatter this Cyber Week about those tools. We didn’t see more Americans using tools like buy now, pay later. Where we did see a lot of growth was in markets like Canada and some markets in the US. I’m sorry, in Europe and in Asia. So in the US, we actually did not see more more consumers than last year using these tools.

10:13:01:07 – 10:13:32:10
Caila
We over the last maybe 18 months, we have seen, more consumers maybe leaning into credit cards. There’s a little bit more perks and benefits to using credit cards. And we also see a Gen-Z shopper who is a little bit, facing a lot of macroeconomic headwinds at the moment. So they’re not leaning as heavily into these tools as they were a couple of years ago, at least in the US market on a global scale, we are seeing adoption, but not necessarily here in the US.

10:13:32:12 – 10:13:53:01
Daniel
Kayla, I want to dig into the discount a bit. We touched on it earlier. So people see this, Cyber Week and Black Friday is, big discount time. But what does that that kind of profile of the discounts look like? Because you hear anecdotal stuff on social media, which you shouldn’t really take as the truth that, oh, they just don’t discount as much these days or they’re not as deep discount.

10:13:53:02 – 10:14:00:14
Daniel
I can’t really find anything, but it’s really mixed. What does the actual data say about this? How did discounts look at this time?

10:14:00:16 – 10:14:27:15
Caila
Yeah, well, it is the best day. We’ve been studying this data for over ten years now. So I can say with confidence. Cyber week, Black Friday, Cyber Monday are the best days to get the best online discounts. We will not see discounts reach these peaks until this time next year. And typically discounts range, you know, between 28 and 30% across the week.

10:14:27:17 – 10:14:57:11
Caila
Cyber Monday really being the capstone for digital discounts. So online shopping very different than in store. But something that we noticed happened last year, and it also happened this year, is that retailers waited to come out, on the Tuesday after Cyber Monday with their best discounts. And so especially here in the US with margin sensitivity, retailers really trying to strike a balance between delivering on discounts and maintaining margins.

10:14:57:13 – 10:15:18:17
Caila
There’s been a hold back on discounting too deeply early in the week. The consumer is very savvy. They know if they’re getting a good discount. We saw that in the data. So Black Friday discounts were not as lucrative as Cyber Monday discounts. We didn’t see as much growth on Black Friday online. We get to Cyber Monday and it doubled.

10:15:18:22 – 10:15:38:15
Caila
The growth doubled. So consumers do know when they’re getting a good deal. And at least in the digital space, they’re going they’re going to get the best deals on this week. Now if we look in-store shoppers, the two best times to get deals are Cyber Week in store, as well as the last 3 to 4 days right before Christmas.

10:15:38:15 – 10:15:45:06
Caila
So last minute in-store shoppers will get another moment to capture some of these holiday deals.

10:15:45:08 – 10:16:03:00
Daniel
Well, that’s certainly news to to Bob Sears because he loves to go in store for sure, to get his discounts. But Bob, I wanted to ask you, are retailers being spanked right now by tariffs and inflation? You mentioned it briefly earlier. Are they eating the cost or are they passing it on? What what are they doing.

10:16:03:02 – 10:16:23:01
Bob
So great. It’s a great question. The big boys and girls are definitely eating it. And, trying to stay in good graces and not say there’s a Trump tariffs or anything else. They’re trying to minimize it. All the ones are paying for it. For the smaller retailers, you know, they don’t buy by the boatload. They didn’t plan back in February for all this to happen.

10:16:23:03 – 10:16:47:08
Bob
And so smaller retailers are one of my clients, she said. You know, this month alone, my, increase was $9,000 in tariffs I have to pay for my merchandise. So she said, that’s real. And, she is saying, you know, am I supposed to do, raise my prices 50%? I can’t do that. And so she ends up laying people off and trying to do a better job herself.

10:16:47:08 – 10:17:11:14
Bob
And it’s like, well, that’s just, you know, the I don’t know, was it the cat eating its own tail or snaking its own tail? I mean, it just makes worse and worse. And so how do you end up, doing that? I think we’re going to see, certainly more small businesses go out as a result of this because that, figure that is being quoted is look at all we’ve collected in tariffs really became a tax on an awful lot of smaller retailers.

10:17:11:14 – 10:17:19:21
Bob
And that’s, why so many court cases are going against tariffs and why Costco in particular is suing to get their tariffs. They paid back.

10:17:19:23 – 10:17:30:03
Kassandra
Kayla, I know something you’re watching is artificial intelligence and how it’s being deployed in the retail world. What are we seeing so far this season and is it a harbinger for the future?

10:17:30:05 – 10:18:02:12
Caila
Yeah, it really was a strong year for AI. You know, over the last probably ten years actually, we’ve been seeing AI become more relevant, more of a driver of sales during holiday, particularly, predictive and, artificial intelligence. So those carousels at the bottom of your product detail page that say you may also like all powered by AI, but ever since we’ve seen, these search tools come to market like ChatGPT perplexity, it started to grow even faster.

10:18:02:12 – 10:18:25:04
Caila
So we saw a lot of consumers using these tools in greater numbers to start their buying journeys. So if we look at the rate of growth now, I will say it’s off of a very small base. So it’s, you know, still very early days, but something that we also saw leading into Cyber Week were more and more retailers launching their own shopper agents.

10:18:25:04 – 10:18:51:07
Caila
So these are chat like experiences on the retailer website. They they mimic, you know, the traditional chat bot, right, where you see that little icon in the corner and you can chat with customer service, but instead of chatting with customer service agent, you’re chatting with, an AI agent that’s helping you pick, you know, products and have, exploratory guided shopping type of experience.

10:18:51:09 – 10:19:14:03
Caila
And what we saw in our data was that for retailers that launched these heading into this season, they saw a much faster growth rate. Even shoppers that were, coming from an AI type of search, they just they converted better. They did better. And so as we look to the future, you know, it’s still very early days and consumers are exploring these tools.

10:19:14:03 – 10:19:50:13
Caila
But the early data suggest that they are very instrumental in helping the consumer make purchasing decisions online, especially in the mobile factor. So mobile drives three quarters of all online shopping traffic. And what we see within mobile is that these tools are really helpful. And supercharging that small form factor shopping experience, because let’s just face it, tapping all those little icons in a filter or on a product detail page, not a great experience.

10:19:50:13 – 10:19:56:09
Caila
And so if you can have a conversation and get what you need through that, we see consumers leaning in.

10:19:58:08 – 10:20:29:03
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10:20:29:05 – 10:20:55:03
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10:20:56:01 – 10:21:00:13
Kassandra
Danielle. You know, I’ve been wondering you’ve been looking really good lately. What’s your skincare regime?

10:21:00:15 – 10:21:09:03
Daniel
That is a top secret. I can’t tell you. But let’s just say it involves, like, a liter of cream a day, because I have very, very dry skin. Just so I tell you that.

10:21:09:04 – 10:21:18:11
Kassandra
No, I appreciate that. And I respect the trade secrets, but skin care has become a larger and larger part of the conversation and an even bigger part of the beauty industry.

10:21:18:13 – 10:21:28:13
Daniel
Yeah, and it’s widening out to a bigger and bigger demographic because it’s not just people in their 20s, it’s also people in their teens and now even elementary school.

10:21:28:13 – 10:21:39:02
Kassandra
So for more on this, we turn to a colleague who has been looking into how the beauty industry is increasingly targeting teens and children. Vada Imran joins us from GW business.

10:21:39:02 – 10:21:53:20
Daniel
So what a this all kicked off, when an actress named Shay Mitchell launched a skincare line for kids, and that’s what brought you to cover it lately. What was different about her line that kind of kicked off this controversy recently?

10:21:53:22 – 10:22:24:23
Warda
Hey, you too happy to be here? Yes. Let’s talk about Shay Mitchell’s, skincare line. It’s called Renee, which is roughly children in Korean. She started it with her Korean business partner, and the website says that it’s elevated by Korean innovation. Now, everything sounds good on paper. What really made people mad or parents really angry was its launch, and it was launched with this image of a toddler, you know, roughly between the age of 2 to 3 with holding a sheet mask on their face.

10:22:24:23 – 10:22:46:19
Warda
And it’s promoting hydration, hydrology also. But it really didn’t sit right with so many parents, you know, under that, under that post, there were comments from people that said, maybe these these kids can’t even speak, but we’re expecting them to put on a, you know, like a face mask. So I think that image really didn’t sit well with a lot of people, and it ruffled a lot of feathers.

10:22:46:22 – 10:23:11:16
Warda
And so there was this kind of backlash on the actress. And what this shows is that the beauty landscape has completely transformed. Now, this multi-step skincare, multi-step skin prepping has become for all ages. And that is not the case. There are a lot of people, including dermatologists and scientists, who say that a lot of these products are not good for a child’s skin.

10:23:11:18 – 10:23:29:03
Kassandra
You know, vada, I was one of these kids, or maybe more of a young teenager who was buying, you know, cheap nail polish or wet and wild branded blue lipstick or something like that from the drugstore back in the day. But that was because I could see it when I went into the store to do, you know, errands with my parents or whatever.

10:23:29:05 – 10:23:37:20
Kassandra
Where are these kids? Some as young as three. You’re saying, why are they even learning about skincare regimes?

10:23:37:22 – 10:23:54:20
Warda
Well, a lot of it is first, watching your parents, right? This is also what the actress Shay Mitchell said. She said that, oh my children want to do something with mom. When she’s doing her skin routine. So that was kind of the inspiration behind it. So the first step of exposure is definitely the parents. But that’s not all.

10:23:54:20 – 10:24:02:19
Warda
The biggest role is played by social media. Now, I don’t know if you do have come across this trend. Hashtag Sephora kids, have you guys seen it?

10:24:02:21 – 10:24:03:09
Kassandra
Yes.

10:24:03:15 – 10:24:05:15
Daniel
I think I’m in a different algorithm.

10:24:05:15 – 10:24:09:06
Kassandra
Than you guys. I relate to you Vada. I definitely relate to you.

10:24:09:08 – 10:24:28:12
Warda
Right? So Danielle, because you’ve not seen it, I’m a pinch you a picture, right? Imagine that there’s tens of thousands of videos of moms, of older sisters kind of taking their younger sisters who are in elementary school or sometimes even younger, to go to Sephora to buy, you know, and have like a Sephora hauls. It’s goodie bags filled with.

10:24:28:12 – 10:24:51:07
Warda
I’m not even sure if they’re age appropriate at that point, but this idea of, children wanting to go and, you know, go through beauty. I’ll see all the products, see all the colors. And this has been this kind of trend has been one of the drivers for in-store shopping. But that’s not that’s not all. Because, beauty products is one of the biggest, drivers of sales of Tick Tock Shop.

10:24:51:13 – 10:25:12:01
Warda
That means that when you kind of see this, trend on TikTok, your next instinct is to buy it. And so you go to the tick tock shop and you, you press, you know, buy. But the thing is that we’re not sure how people are able to regulate this, to see if it’s a dupe, if it’s an original, what is what is this child buying, you know, so it’s kind of blurry over there.

10:25:12:03 – 10:25:29:10
Daniel
Okay. What I’m going to turn the heat up a little bit and play bad cop. All right. That there are millions of parents who are buying this for their kids. It’s very rarely can actually be the kids themselves who are buying this. Isn’t it just something that kids have always done? They’ve copied their parents. They want to play dress up, played out.

10:25:29:16 – 10:25:35:16
Daniel
They’re grown up. Is there any evidence that this actually harms kids in any way?

10:25:35:18 – 10:26:03:22
Warda
Yes. Well, Yale Medicine dermatologist Kathleen Susy, she did a study about this, and she said most children in need for things water, a very, very gentle cleanser, lotion, some moisturizer and sunscreen. That’s it. Anything else can be detrimental to a child’s skin. I mean, someone who’s that young already has a very healthy skin that’s, you know, that’s going to get better over time.

10:26:04:03 – 10:26:35:18
Warda
And you don’t need to make that. You don’t need to break that barrier with all these products. But it’s not just the Yale, survey. You know, it’s also other research. Now, the expert that I spoke to when I was working on this, on this topic, she had a rather grim, forecast. She said that because of all the extra skin care, younger children or younger people are doing right now, we might be seeing an increased reporting of skin inflammation in the future because they will have used all these products, which which they’re not meant to.

10:26:35:21 – 10:26:39:19
Warda
So definitely there is research that suggests that this is not really good.

10:26:39:21 – 10:26:45:19
Kassandra
Stepping back when we’re talking about skin care, how big of a part of the beauty industry is this?

10:26:45:21 – 10:27:14:08
Warda
Well, the global beauty industry, according to McKinsey, is valued at $450 billion. Now the number sometimes is between 350 billion to 400. But the thing is, it is a big industry and skin care is $113 billion from that. So it’s already grown into a really big segment. And now if you go into the US alone, it’s slated to go to $30 billion worth in the coming years.

10:27:14:10 – 10:27:22:22
Warda
So it’s actually a very big market. And what we’re seeing, you know, celebrities, brands, everyone’s opening up shop on this. So it’s just going to get bigger okay.

10:27:22:22 – 10:27:43:11
Daniel
And wonder, is this a case of these companies trying to get in early, lock in loyal customers, for life for their early years? And are there any rules against this kind of thing, any kind of marketing? I kind of, I guess, protection against, the type of marketing which could influence younger people.

10:27:43:13 – 10:28:13:10
Warda
I’m so glad you brought that up, Danielle, because, you know, this consumer’s for life thing is literally one of the biggest criticisms of this new baby, baby skincare or skincare for tweens movement. And it’s it’s coming from all directions, you know, from scientists to critics to observers. They’re all saying that it’s setting up this young child to forever be a consumer, and it actually is a profitable demographic because, you know, like we discussed, children are not buying this product themselves.

10:28:13:10 – 10:28:35:18
Warda
It’s their parents that are buying it. So if you have, willing parents and wealthy parents, then why would businesses step away from this? You know, and talking about marketing because I think none of these brands are directly marketing to children. They’re, they’re outsourcing this to influencers. You know, who will use a drop of this, a drop of that in their videos.

10:28:35:18 – 10:28:45:24
Warda
And just seeing this is marketing enough. So I’m, I’m also worried about the lack of rules around this, but hopefully, you know, the bigger it becomes, the more we’ll be able to regulate it.

10:28:48:07 – 10:28:54:23
Kassandra
And that’s it for us here at the dip. If you liked what you heard, you can, like, you can subscribe and you can leave us a comment under any of our videos.

10:28:54:23 – 10:29:01:15
Daniel
Because we’ll be back on Tuesday with our Q and A edition. We’ll we’ll be answering all kinds of questions and looking into your comments as well.

10:29:01:19 – 10:29:10:24
Kassandra
Those questions and comments can also come to us via email, good old fashioned email at the dip at dw.com. But until next time you’ve been watching

10:29:10:24 – 10:29:14:22
Daniel
the dip. Bye bye. See you later.