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: July 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.
July 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 coupon usage fell to 0.81x in June, the lowest reading in the dataset and 19 points below the prior floor
Cosmetics has been normalizing its coupon dependency since December 2024's peak of 1.51x, and the pace of that normalization has accelerated in 2026. May's 0.90x was already a dataset low. June's 0.81x breaks that floor by nine points and represents a 70-point decline from the December 2024 peak in eighteen months. The vertical has gone from the most code-intensive buying pattern of any category in this dataset to the second-lowest coupon engagement rate, trailing only Food & Beverages.
The magnitude of this shift is worth pausing on. Cosmetics buyers in June 2026 are redeeming discount codes at 19% below the all-industry baseline. That's a buyer population that has been re-educated over eighteen months -- not through a single campaign change, but through a sustained category-level shift away from influencer codes, email capture discounts, and subscription intro offers toward free shipping thresholds and loyalty mechanics as the primary checkout value signals. Conversion at 1.00x confirms buyers are completing without the code.
What to do: If your Cosmetics coupon usage has tracked with the vertical's decline and your conversion has held at or near 1.00x, you've done the hardest part. The risk from here is not a code resurgence -- it's channel attrition. Buyers who were acquired through code-heavy channels may have churned during the pullback. Audit your June repeat purchase rate against June 2025. If repeat buyer share has held or grown, your loyalty mechanics are doing the retention work the codes used to do. If repeat buyer share has declined, the coupon removal took customers with it and you have a retention gap to address before it compounds.
Cosmetics AOV pulled back to 1.03x in June after two months above 1.07x. The three-month recovery run has paused.
Cosmetics AOV had been building since February: 1.08x in March, 1.07x in April, 1.11x in May. June's reading of 1.03x is the first step down in that sequence, though at 1.03x the vertical is still above baseline -- the AOV floor appears to be holding above 1.0x even as the recovery momentum pauses. ARPC followed the same pattern, dropping from 1.10x in May to 1.02x in June.
June is a natural pressure point for Cosmetics AOV. The spring routine transition that drove May's 1.11x reading -- buyers switching to summer skincare, adding SPF, shifting textures -- has largely completed by June. The buyer entering Cosmetics checkout in June is more likely to be making a single replenishment purchase than building a new routine from scratch. That compositional shift compresses AOV without signaling anything is wrong with the checkout experience.
What to do: If your Cosmetics AOV dipped in June, segment your orders by product category. If SPF and summer-specific products drove a disproportionate share of June sessions and those are lower-AOV purchases, the decline is compositional and will stabilize as summer routine purchasing matures. If the decline is broad across categories, the routine-completion prompt at checkout may need a summer refresh -- the "complete your routine" suggestions that worked in May need to reflect July and August use cases, not spring transition ones.
The free shipping rate pulled back to 0.99x in June after May's dataset high of 1.04x. The post-Memorial Day correction.
Cosmetics free shipping rate had been on a sustained upward run, reaching 1.04x in May -- its highest reading in the dataset. June's pullback to 0.99x is consistent with a post-Memorial Day normalization: brands that expanded free shipping eligibility for the May promotional window have partially restored their threshold settings in June. The reading is still essentially at baseline, which is itself a significant milestone for a vertical that was running at 0.63x as recently as December 2024.
The free shipping rate at 0.99x alongside shipping revenue holding at 0.79x tells a consistent story: Cosmetics brands have successfully replaced code-based value delivery with shipping-based value delivery, and the equilibrium appears to be settling near baseline free shipping rate. That's a healthier checkout architecture than the 2024 model of elevated coupon usage and low free shipping -- it delivers value without training discount behavior.
What to do: With the Memorial Day free shipping expansion unwinding, June is the moment to lock in your summer threshold configuration. The goal is a threshold that sits 10 to 12% above your current AOV so that a meaningful share of buyers are just below it at checkout -- enough to create a genuine progress bar moment without being unreachable. At 1.03x AOV and 0.99x free shipping rate, the Cosmetics vertical has the buyer economics to support a well-calibrated threshold through the summer period.
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.
July 2026 {{latest}}
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's 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.
AOV holds at 1.07x for third consecutive above-baseline month; coupon usage ticks back up to 1.06x after March low; shipping revenue continues seventeen-month decline.
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.
