Meet bareMineral’s Newest Top Seller: An AI Shopping Assistant That Finds the Perfect Shade Every Time

‍Challenge: Beauty customers often struggle to find the right foundation or concealer shade online, especially when products are reformulated or discontinued, causing hesitation, abandoned carts, and costly returns. bareMinerals’ CX team needed a scalable solution to handle the high volume of incoming product-related and shade-matching questions, many of which came in after business hours. 

Solution: bareMinerals launched Shopping Assistant to deliver instant, expert product recommendations 24/7, driving more conversions and reducing return rates. Integrated with their Shopify product catalog and trained on shade matching nuances, Shopping Assistant guides customers through product discovery, increases basket size with natural upsells, and eliminates guesswork, without adding headcount.

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About bareMinerals 

bareMinerals is a global skincare and cosmetics brand renowned for its clean, iconic beauty products, like its bestselling mineral foundations. Over the years, bareMinerals has cultivated a fiercely loyal customer base, many of whom have shopped with them for over 20 years. 

The cosmetics brand operates under Orveon Global, alongside other leading beauty brands, such as Laura Mercier and Buxom. Katia Komar, Senior Manager of Ecommerce and Customer Service Operations, leads CX efforts for the UK and EU markets with a team of in-house agents and outsourced BPO agents. 

As a brand that prioritizes personalized customer experience, bareMinerals needed to translate the one-to-one assistance customers could get in person to its online site. They launched Gorgias’s AI-powered Shopping Assistant to act as a virtual beauty consultant, guiding shoppers through pre-sales product questions 24/7. 

The challenge: Taking the guesswork out of shade matching to drive more sales and reduce returns

Finding the perfect foundation or concealer shade can be difficult, especially through a screen, which is why 55% of all incoming tickets were product-related questions. No matter how many swatch photos, customer reviews, or shade finder quizzes you look at, sometimes you just want someone to help you find your perfect match. 

This was the case for bareMinerals customers. More than half of its tickets were product questions like:

• “I have neutral undertones and usually wear medium beige foundations. What shade should I buy?”
• “I used to wear this shade, but it’s no longer available. What’s the closest match?”
• “Which powder foundation shade best matches this concealer shade?”

bareMinerals wanted to eliminate the guesswork in shade-matching to cut down on costly returns. “I saw an opportunity for AI to directly impact sales,” Katia explains. “As a cosmetics brand with a wide range of shaded SKUs, more than half of our inbound queries are product-related. 

“It’s a constant challenge to ensure our BPO agents are aligned and educated on the correct shade recommendations, especially as formulations evolve.”

—Katia Komar, Sr. Manager of Ecommerce and Customer Service Operations, UK at bareMinerals

“We weren’t just looking for automation, we needed an intelligent, conversion-focused solution capable of guiding the customer journey end to end,” Kata tells us. “Our priority was an AI tool that could replicate the expertise of an experienced beauty advisor, delivering education, personalization, and conversion simultaneously, even outside business hours." 

For bareMinerals, quickly answering these questions with personalized product recommendations meant the difference between another sale and losing loyal customers. 

The solution: Shopping Assistant sells like a top beauty consultant 

bareMinerals implemented Shopping Assistant, customized to reflect its brand tone of voice and provide nuanced responses around product benefits, shade matching, and usage guidelines. 

The AI-powered virtual assistant is integrated with bareMinerals’ Shopify product catalog to avoid recommending out-of-stock products and can then suggest alternative products in real-time. 

"The real-time Shopify integration was essential as we needed to ensure that product recommendations were relevant and displayed accurate inventory. Avoiding customer frustration from out-of-stock recommendations was non-negotiable, especially in beauty, where shade availability is crucial to customer trust and satisfaction. This approach has led to increased CSAT on AI converted tickets."

—Katia Komar, Sr. Manager of Ecommerce and Customer Service Operations, UK at bareMinerals

Helping first-time shoppers find their perfect match with AI-driven product discovery

bareMinerals offers a vast product catalog, featuring hundreds of products with up to 30+ shade options. For first-time buyers, navigating through various collections, products, or quiz pages can be time-consuming and overwhelming, making it difficult to find what they need. 

With Shopping Assistant, this process is a lot smoother with real-time, 1:1 consultations.

For example, this new customer reached out to bareMinerals’ Shopping Assistant to find a personalized shade recommendation for the Original Loose Powder product they were browsing. They shared details about their undertones and typical color match. 

From there, Shopping Assistant recommended the best shade by taking both the customer’s details and the context of which product they were viewing. 

Shopping Assistant wraps up the conversation by educating the new shopper on the benefits of the product and subtly upselling by recommending a complementary brush to apply the product.

Turning discontinued product disappointment into natural upsells 

One of the biggest pain points for bareMinerals’ customers is finding replacements for discontinued shades or products.

Through a combination of knowledge sources like AI Guidance, Help Center Articles, and shade conversion charts, Shopping Assistant has the information it needs to offer instant, accurate alternatives for discontinued products. 

For example, one of bareMinerals’ loyal customers who had purchased seven times before reached out asking for a match to the discontinued powder foundation. 

Shopping Assistant instantly responded with multiple correct product matches, educating the customer on the benefits and features of each best-selling option. It then naturally cross-sold by recommending a complementary setting spray to make the foundation last longer. 

Shopping Assistant closed out the conversation with a follow-up question aimed to increase basket size: “Would you like a recommendation for a primer or brush to complete your look?”

Shopping Assistant struck the perfect balance between educating the customer and closing a sale, resulting in the customer purchasing the recommended product and leaving a 5-star review. 

“What impressed me the most is the AI’s ability to upsell with a conversational tone that feels genuinely helpful and doesn't sound too pushy or transactional. It sounds remarkably human, identifying correct follow-up questions to determine the correct product recommendation, resulting in improved AOV.  It’s exactly how I train our human agents and BPO partners.”

—Katia Komar, Sr. Manager of Ecommerce and Customer Service Operations, UK at bareMinerals

Proactively engaging customers to capture short attention spans

bareMinerals meets online website visitors where they’re at with Shopping Assistant’s customer engagement features. By proactively starting conversations with AI-generated prompts, every shopper feels like they’re walking into a one-on-one beauty consultation. 

When someone lands on the website, they’ll see the Ask Anything Input—a floating query bar that enables conversational, human-like interactions. "Many of our customers don’t realize they’re talking to an AI Agent because the conversations are so natural, which is key in a category as personal and subjective as beauty,” Katia tells us. “Customers are engaging with it organically, and that’s the gold standard for seamless digital experience.”

Shopping Assistant greets every visitor on every page with a floating query bar that asks, “Need more help?” 

bareMinerals also guides shoppers through their website with Suggested Product Questions curated based on the shopper’s browsing behavior. These strategic questions mimic bareMinerals’ other online conversion tactics, such as product quizzes. 

For instance, when shoppers land on this tinted moisturizer page, Shopping Assistant prompts them with three curated questions:

1. Is this tinted moisturizer oil-free?
2. Does this product contain SPF?
3. Is this product good for dry skin?

“Customers have very short attention spans and will abandon their search if they don’t get an answer within 20 seconds. Having Shopping Assistant help the customer when they’re showing high intent has been absolutely crucial to increasing conversion rates and lowering cart abandonment rates.”

—Katia Komar, Sr. Manager of Ecommerce and Customer Service Operations, UK at bareMinerals

The results: AOV is up, returns are down, and Shopping Assistant is the top-performing sales associate

Within 30 days of launching Shopping Assistant, bareMinerals exceeded its goals and shows no signs of slowing down. 

In the first month, bareMinerals hit its conversion rate and AOV targets: 

• 5%+ conversion rate uplift, with a goal of 2-5% 
• 5.5% AOV uplift (£48 to £51), with a goal of 5%
• 3.9% of GMV influenced, with a goal of 3-5% 

Shopping Assistant is quickly paying off with better product recommendations that reduce return rates, improve CSAT scores, and expectedly outperform human agents when it comes to driving sales, because it’s working around the clock. Since Shopping Assistant can respond in real time, bareMinerals is also minimizing cart abandonment due to long wait times.

With Shopping Assistant, bareMinerals achieved: 

• 8.8x ROI in one month
• 0 returns on AI-influenced purchases within 30 days, despite a 30-day return window, thanks to smarter product recommendations 
• 25% increase in CSAT compared to human agents’ already impressive ratings (5.0 vs. 4.6)
• 20–30% more revenue generated compared to human agents

A self-fulfilling profit prophecy: How Shopping Assistant became a training tool for human agents

Beyond the numbers, Shopping Assistant became an unexpected asset for internal sales enablement. The CX team began reviewing AI conversation transcripts to learn how to sell more effectively, studying its tone, phrasing, and upsell techniques.

This helped agents build confidence, recognize buyer intent signals, and mirror the AI’s personalized conversion approach. It also reduced the need for repetitive training with BPO agents, especially around reformulated or discontinued products.

“From an operational standpoint, Shopping Assistant has become the equivalent of employing a top-performing sales consultant, available 24/7 across every customer touchpoint. The results are already impressive on ROI, improving CSAT, and setting a new performance benchmark for both AI and human agents.”

—Katia Komar, Sr. Manager of Ecommerce and Customer Service Operations, UK at bareMinerals

Want to convert more customers around the clock? Book a demo to see Shopping Assistant in action.