Matas
Omnichannel perfection
Beauty giant Matas is the queen of Danish e-commerce with a unique approach to connecting webshop and physical stores.
Matas is one of Denmark’s largest online shops. They are the most popular Danish-owned webshop and have won numerous e-commerce awards. These include the Gold Award at the 2020 E-commerce Awards and, most recently, 2 x Gold and 2 x Silver at the 2023 E-commerce Awards. Matas is an uncompromising omnichannel company that had unprecedented success in digitising its 263 stores. The chain is growing steadily, fuelled in particular by revenue from the online store.
From backroom to the top of Danish e-commerce
Matas.dk started in a back room of a shopping centre. The online business made up a microscopic portion of total revenue back in 2011. But these were the first humble steps towards a gargantuan online success no one had dared to predict.Online sales grew steadily until 2018, and the back room in the shopping centre Field’s was replaced with Matas’ head office and the adjacent logistics centre. With sales of DKK 100 million, online sales still only accounted for 4% of the total business. Matas remained primarily a chain of physical stores.
A new strategy saw explosive online growth
Matas’ new and ambitious online strategy was launched in 2018. Even more investment in e-commerce and its integration with physical stores was needed. Since then, one omnichannel initiative after another has been launched and the results have been incredible. In 2020, Matas emerged victorious at the E-commerce Awards, taking home the prestigious gold award. The following year, Matas’ total online turnover grew to more than one billion Danish kroner.
The success story continues
Today, online sales account for around a quarter of the total business and the share is steadily increasing. The link between physical stores and the webshop is becoming increasingly strong through an ambitious omnichannel strategy. In the latest quarterly report, online turnover grew by 23%, while Matas grew by 8% as a whole. These numbers testify to an incredibly strong brand that performs far better than the rest of the market.
A long and fruitful collaboration
Since 2011, Bizzkit and Matas have collaborated closely to create the biggest e-commerce success in Danish retail. This is a strategic partnership that has always aimed to push the boundaries of what can be achieved in e-commerce. Matas has always had the desire to optimise the customer journey and innovate with the latest technology, and we have been their regular sounding board and product developer when new customer benefits needed to be drawn up and integrated into the Bizzkit solution.
The Bizzkit platform is the foundation for our webshop. We believe that the future of strong webshops lies in linking a number of Best of Breed components together and then creating unique solutions based on that.
Skin test guides customers
Customers can receive expert advice tailored to their skin type from the comfort of their own home. Matas launched an online skin test developed by in-store product experts and a chemical engineer. Through a series of questions, the customer is asked to identify their skin type and skin condition. The customer then receives recommendations for the optimal skincare routine with specific suggestions that perfectly match their needs. The recommendations are linked to the customer’s profile so that employees can offer the best help to the customer – both in-store and when advising them online. This sets the stage for smart recommendations and unrivalled customer service.
Constant innovation
Matas’ success is partly due to their willingness to try new technologies and constantly strive to create better customer journeys. For example, over the past five years, Matas has added both voice and visual search, allowing customers to navigate and buy in new ways. For example, visual search makes it possible to scan the products you already have at home with your phone’s camera and find the same product again from the thousands of products Matas offers. Voice search integrates with Google’s digital assistant, so you can browse Matas using only your voice.
Rapid development with AI
We are currently developing several AI projects in collaboration with Matas. We are working to find new ways to make everything easier – from customer service to data management. Our first project is live and you can read much more about it below.
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AI provides faster and better skin test results
We have implemented a new AI feature that helps respond to customers’ skin tests. The artificial intelligence has been trained based on 33,000 previous skin tests and significantly streamlines the process of responding to skin tests. It is not completely self-driving, as all answers are read and adjusted by Matas’ advisors, but it is a huge help that saves a lot of time on a routine task.
Connected retail
The smallest Matas is also the largest Matas. All stores have access to Matas’ full online range, which is growing steadily. Even the largest Matas cannot stock all items due to the enormous selection, but customers never visit a store in vain. This is especially true after Matas rolled out their mobile POS. This means that Matas personnel carry with them a shortcut to the entire, immense online range as well as customer profiles. This makes it incredibly easy to order products to be sent directly to a customer’s home, view their skin type and tailor recommendations with the help of digital personalisation and a gigantic online assortment.
Same-day delivery
Matas offers same-day delivery to a large proportion of their customers. Thanks to new delivery methods, you can order a lipstick on your lunch break and have it in your handbag when you go out that same night. If you live in a major city, it is possible to have the item delivered to your doorstep the same day – an option that only appears on the webshop if you live in an area where it is available. A fully automated express service.
Click & Collect
Matas is also blazingly fast at Click & Collect. They created optimal conditions that allow stores to pick and pack items they have in stock for you in an average of 5–7 minutes from the moment you click ‘buy’. This means that you can barely make it to the store before your items are 100% ready to go. Matas optimised their stores to make it incredibly easy to pack an order, but also nice and simple for the customer to pick up their parcel.
The app makes the store bigger
The Club Matas App is not only useful when shopping with your feet up at home. It also improves your shopping experience in physical stores. With a simple swipe, you can access in-depth information about all the products you can find in store. You can scan any product and see the full product overview from the webshop, where you can read detailed descriptions, reviews and specifications.