HAMBURG ,GERMANY - MARCH 25: Franziska Knuppe attends the Douglas Make-Up Launch on March 25, 2015 in Hamburg, Germany. (Photo by Franziska Krug/Getty Images for Douglas Make-Up)

Those of you who do not live in Melbourne may not know that my love of products and the business of retail grew during the time I was employed at Walgreens, one of the largest Drugstore Chains in the country. During my 7.2 years of service with the company, I spent about 6.5 years working as a Beauty Advisor. Today, I want to share some data that will shed light on the state of the Beauty Industry so that you will realize, like I did, how unreasonable the spending requirements to receive free samples or free gifts seem to be, on some well known websites.

The numbers are in and the data collected by the Tabs Group appears to prove that Consumer Surveys and other quantitive data are useful in evaluating the state of the Beauty Industry. Insights on consumer purchasing behavior across various category segments were documented after 1000 women and 250 men were surveyed. It was determined that 36% of women and 56% of men brought some form of cosmetics during the 2014 calendar year.

Though the most popular cosmetic product purchases were Mascara (61%), Nail polish (56%), Foundation (50%), and lipstick (48%), the data collected by the Tabs Group also revealed that women who made premium purchases from Department Stores like Macy's and Specialty Stores like Sephora, admitted to buying cosmetics from multiple outlets, especially Drugstores.

The Data collected concerning milennials confirms what many retailers already knew, the spending power of millenials is as strong as ever. In beauty, millennials (25-34) are making more purchases than any other age groups. Contrary to popular belief 6.7% of purchases are made by women of color with Hispanics buying more than any other nationality. Overall, spending in the Beauty Industry continues to grow collectively, making the popularity of Social Media, You Tube, and Blogs even more influential, as information concerning products is often reviewed by consumers who intend to make an informed purchase. With over 12 billion dollars circulating into the Beauty Market, it's obvious that innovation will fuel competition between brands.

Rewards and gifts offered by brands and Online Retailers like beauty.com and skinstore.com really entice consumers to buy, when great products are up for grabs. Yet, the numbers collected during this survey, detailing average purchases (2.9 products) made by consumers buying beauty products in the most popular categories, make scoring one of those coveted rewards/gifts highly unlikely. Furthermore, only 11% of sales are happening online, even with increased mobile device usage. Since sites like poshly.com exist, consumers probably won't even miss not receiving those freebies anyway. The fact that poshly.com is providing a great way for consumers to score free products, does not mean that beauty.com and skinstore.com get a pass to continue with unrealistic offers. Brands have to work with these sites to reevaluate spending requirements so that consumers get a fair shake to score freebies.

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