Cosmetics
Indexed performance data for Cosmetics brands on Shopify: conversion rate, AOV, free shipping behavior, and shipping revenue, tracked against a consistent baseline month over month.
Part of the PDQ Checkout Benchmarks: 130M+ checkout sessions across 500+ Shopify merchants, indexed to June 2024 = 1.0x.
Cosmetics Checkout Performance Index: August 2026
An index of 1.15x means that metric is 15% above baseline. 0.92x means it's 8% below. We publish relative change rather than absolute numbers because absolute rates vary too much by merchant size and category to be meaningful as cross-merchant benchmarks.
August 2026: Cosmetics Checkout Insights
Three signals worth acting on this month
Written for Cosmetics operators. Every observation connects to a decision you can make this week.
Cosmetics AOV fell to 0.97x in July, its first below-baseline reading since January 2025
Cosmetics AOV had been recovering since its January 2025 low of 0.94x, reaching a recent high of 1.11x in May 2026 before pulling back. July's reading of 0.97x is the first time the vertical has crossed below baseline since the recovery began eighteen months ago. ARPC followed to 0.97x as well. The spring and early summer AOV recovery that characterized Q2 2026 has not carried through to July.
The most likely driver is seasonal. July is structurally one of the softer months for Cosmetics basket size: the spring routine transition is complete, the summer routine is established, and buyers in July tend to be in replenishment mode rather than discovery mode. A buyer restocking their established summer skincare routine purchases fewer SKUs per session than a buyer building a new routine from scratch. That compositional shift -- from routine-builders to routine-maintainers -- compresses AOV without signaling anything has broken in the checkout experience. ARPC at 0.97x confirms the revenue impact is real, but it's compositional.
What to do: Before adjusting your checkout configuration in response to the AOV dip, segment your July orders by product category and purchase history. If the AOV decline is concentrated among returning buyers making single-item replenishment purchases, the composition is seasonal and your checkout isn't the variable to change. If first-time buyers are also arriving with smaller baskets, check whether your routine-building cross-sell prompts are surfacing summer-relevant combinations. A "your summer routine" framing for complementary products will outperform a generic "you may also like" for this category in this season.
Coupon usage held at 0.81x for the second consecutive month. The floor appears to be in.
Cosmetics coupon usage hit 0.81x in June -- a dataset low at the time -- and held there exactly in July. Two consecutive months at the same below-baseline reading after a prolonged decline from the December 2024 peak of 1.51x suggests the normalization has found its floor. The vertical has gone from the most code-intensive category in this dataset to running 19 points below baseline, and that level appears to be stabilizing.
A stable 0.81x coupon rate is a healthier equilibrium than the 1.51x peak, but it still means Cosmetics buyers are completing with less discount support than the all-industry average. The question for operators is whether this floor represents genuine buyer independence from code mechanics, or whether it reflects a buyer population that has partially churned -- code-motivated buyers who were lost during the promotional pullback and haven't been replaced by non-code buyers at the same rate.
What to do: With coupon usage appearing to stabilize at 0.81x, this is the moment to audit your retention metrics against the pre-pullback baseline. Pull your repeat purchase rate for the last three months against the same period in 2025. If repeat purchase frequency has held or grown, the coupon reduction didn't cost you the buyers -- it just changed what they expect at checkout. If repeat purchase frequency has declined, you have a retention gap that the coupon removal likely contributed to, and a loyalty mechanic at checkout -- visible points accrual, threshold-based rewards -- may be needed to close it.
Shipping revenue ticked up to 0.85x in July, its first monthly improvement since October 2025
Cosmetics shipping revenue has been declining for most of the past two years, hitting a series low of 0.78x in June. July's reading of 0.85x is a 7-point improvement and the first monthly gain the series has posted since October 2025 -- nine consecutive months of decline finally interrupted. It's a small move, but the direction change is notable.
The improvement likely reflects two things happening simultaneously. First, the free shipping rate pulled back from 0.99x in June to 0.95x in July as post-Memorial Day threshold adjustments continued to filter through. Fewer orders qualifying for free shipping means more shipping revenue per session. Second, the AOV decline to 0.97x may be creating a counterintuitive dynamic: buyers with smaller baskets are falling below free shipping thresholds they were previously clearing, generating shipping revenue on orders that didn't produce it in May and June.
What to do: If your shipping revenue improved in July alongside the vertical, check whether the improvement is coming from the right source. Shipping revenue that recovers because AOV fell below your free shipping threshold is not a sustainable outcome -- you're generating shipping revenue by losing basket size. The healthy version of a shipping revenue recovery is one where AOV holds and the threshold is positioned to stretch, not one where buyers can't clear the threshold they used to clear. Audit your order value distribution against your threshold before treating the July shipping recovery as a positive signal.
How does your Cosmetics store's checkout compare?
Checkout Index tells you where your store sits inside this vertical: personalized Health Score, shipping signal analysis, and a revenue impact estimate based on your actual checkout behavior.
Archive
Monthly archive: Cosmetics
Every monthly dispatch, indexed and preserved. Use the archive to track how Cosmetics checkout behavior has shifted over time, to validate whether seasonal patterns in your own data match the vertical.
August 2026 {{latest}}
AOV falls to 0.97x, first below-baseline reading since January 2025; coupon usage holds at 0.81x for second consecutive month; shipping revenue ticks up to 0.85x, first improvement since October 2025.
Coupon usage falls to 0.81x, lowest reading in the dataset; AOV pulls back to 1.03x; free shipping rate settles at 0.99x after May dataset high.
Coupon usage drops to 0.90x, sharpest single-month decline in the dataset; AOV reaches 1.11x, highest since September 2024; free shipping rate hits dataset high at 1.04x.
Data begins June 2024 (baseline). Earlier dispatches available on request.
Methodology
About this dataset
The Cosmetics dataset within the PDQ Checkout Benchmarks draws from aggregated, anonymized session data across cosmetics-categorized merchants on Shopify's platform. Merchants are classified using Shopify's standard industry taxonomy and must meet a minimum session threshold for inclusion. The Cosmetics cohort spans makeup, skincare, fragrance, haircare, and beauty tools categories.
All figures are indexed to June 2024 = 1.0x. Figures exclude bot traffic, draft orders, and point-of-sale transactions. Data refreshes monthly, typically in the first week, reflecting the prior month's activity. Absolute conversion rates are not published; all metrics represent relative indexed change against the baseline cohort.
To compare your store's actual performance against this vertical, use Checkout Index.
