Shiseido Case Study: From Doubt to Confidence: What truly influences a purchase decision?

Unlike other segments, where technical specifications are often sufficient to support a purchase decision, the beauty market involves much more subjective and personal factors.

When choosing a product, consumers consider aspects such as skin type and tone, texture, care routine, hair type, desired finish, and individual preferences. More than just knowing the benefits promised by the brand, they seek to understand how that product performed in the experience of people with similar characteristics to their own.

In the end, the question is usually the same:

"Will this product really work for someone like me?"

It is precisely at this moment that many brands fail to convert interested consumers into buyers. When this insecurity is not addressed during the customer journey, the chances of abandoning the page and searching for alternatives that inspire greater confidence increase.

The Power of Social Proof

That's precisely why social proof has gained such an important role in the beauty market.

Reviews, photos, and questions answered by consumers help reduce the uncertainties that a technical description can hardly eliminate. Instead of relying solely on the brand's promise, the consumer begins to trust the experience of those who have already used the product.

The greater the identification between the buyer and the person sharing that experience, the greater the trust tends to be during the decision-making process.

Being Relevant

But there is a new challenge.

As brands began to gather hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of reviews on a single page, finding truly relevant content became just as important as collecting it.

Ultimately, a review written by someone with dry skin may not answer the questions of someone with oily skin. Similarly, a photo posted by a consumer with very different characteristics may offer little relatability to someone about to buy.

Context-Based Decisions

This is where Vurdere's intelligent organization maximizes the impact of social proof on the purchase journey.

Instead of presenting the same set of reviews to all visitors, our AI allows us to organize and recommend content that is more relevant to each browsing context. The goal is no longer to show the largest possible number of reviews, but to deliver those with the greatest potential to generate trust.

Personalization Generates Conversion

To understand how this approach impacts the performance of a digital operation, we analyzed Google Analytics data from April 1, 2026 to June 30, 2026 , considering three brands from the Shiseido Group: Shiseido, NARS, and Drunk Elephant.

Mark	Traffic via Vurdere	Length of stay via Vurdere	Conversion via Vurdere
Shiseido	36.2%	+2.3x	+2.5x
NARS	57.8%	+1.63x	+1.65x
Drunk Elephant	36.1%	+2.1x	+2.4x

By consolidating the data from the three operations, we observe that:

Approximately 43% of website traffic interacts with the social area, actively seeking information from other customers.

Users who visited the social area of Vurdere stayed twice as long on product pages.

The conversion rate for these users was twice as high as the average for the Shiseido Group.

For every R$1.00 invested in Vurdere, the Shiseido Group obtained a return of R$275.00.

A New Experience

These results show that when consumers find more relevant content aligned with their needs, brands are able to reduce uncertainty, strengthen trust, and create a positive journey.

saleswomen, especially in a category where identification and perception of results have a direct influence on product choice.

“What surprised me most was the real difference compared to what we had before. The experience is excellent from start to finish. Continuing with Vurdere is a one-way street — and that’s great!” - Marco Okada, E-commerce Manager at Shiseido Group.

If your brand also seeks to transform user-generated content into a more relevant and personalized experience, click here . Português: https://www.vurdere.com/pt/post/case-shiseido-da-d%C3%BAvida-%C3%A0-confian%C3%A7a-o-que-realmente-influencia-uma-decis%C3%A3o-de-compra Español: https://www.vurdere.com/es/post/caso-pr%C3%A1ctico-de-shiseido-de-la-duda-a-la-confianza-qu%C3%A9-influye-realmente-en-la-decisi%C3%B3n-de-compr