Amazon Beauty Hits $8 Billion in Q1 2026, Targets Discovery With AI

Quick Facts

Amazon cleared $8 billion in U.S. beauty revenue in Q1 2026, according to e-commerce agency Front Row.
45% of consumers now begin their beauty search on Amazon, making it the most common starting point across all age groups.
300 million customers used Amazon’s AI shopping assistant Rufus in 2025, driving nearly $12 billion in incremental annualized sales.

Amazon is no longer just a place to restock shampoo. The company has built itself into the largest beauty retailer in the United States, holding 22.7% of the beauty market, according to NielsenIQ. E-commerce now accounts for 48% of all U.S. beauty sales, and Amazon leads that channel by a wide margin.

At the Business of Beauty Global Forum, Wendy Franks, General Manager of Amazon’s Health and Beauty business, outlined how the platform is pushing further into the top of the purchase funnel. ‘We’ve gone from being a destination for replenishing everyday products to a more elevated experience, where customers can discover prestige brands, indie products and complete their entire health and beauty regimen in one stop,’ Franks said.

The numbers support that claim. Amazon captured seven points of beauty market share over the past four years, with 64% of that growth coming from existing Amazon customers, per Front Row Chief Revenue Officer Christopher Skinner. Skincare searches on the platform jumped from 4 million in 2022 to 18 million in 2024, a 339% increase. Skincare grew from 25% to 30% of all Amazon beauty sales between 2023 and 2024.

Social media still drives initial awareness. Among Amazon beauty shoppers, 38% first learned about a product through social media ads and 32% through influencers. But when those shoppers are ready to buy, Amazon is where they go. Sixty percent of all beauty and personal care e-commerce sales in 2023 happened on Amazon, according to Euromonitor data.

AI is central to Amazon’s discovery push. The company’s shopping assistant, Rufus, handled 300 million users in 2025. Monthly active users grew 149% year over year. Total interactions increased 210%. Shoppers who used Rufus completed purchases at a rate 60% higher than those who did not. As of May 13, 2026, Amazon retired the Rufus brand name and folded the technology into Alexa for Shopping.

Franks described the next phase of AI-powered shopping as agentic. ‘You can set a price point at which you want to buy a product, search for deals and have the AI actually purchase the product once it reaches that threshold,’ she said. The assistant also handles natural language queries such as ‘what’s the best serum for dry skin?’ and routes users toward relevant products.

Amazon has also moved into virtual try-on. The company introduced a ‘Find My Shade’ feature in collaboration with Charlotte Tilbury, designed to replicate the in-store sampling experience online.

The broader market opportunity is large. The U.S. beauty and wellness total addressable market stands at $115 billion. Between 2025 and 2030, the beauty sector is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of roughly 5%. A Morgan Stanley report anticipated Amazon would become the leading beauty distributor in 2025, ahead of Walmart. NielsenIQ projects Amazon’s beauty market share will reach 15% by 2030, up from 10% in 2024.

For brands selling on or considering Amazon, the platform’s scale in discovery changes the calculus. Forty-five percent of consumers start their beauty search on Amazon. Brands that are not present and optimized risk being invisible at the moment a shopper is ready to buy.