Dupeshop Wants To Help Beauty Consumers Be Savvier Shoppers

Beauty shoppers love good bargains, and Dupeshop is making it easy to find them online.

Launched in 2021, the British beauty dupe destination features more than 300 reviews comparing prestige makeup, skincare and fragrance products from brands like Charlotte Tilbury, Fenty Beauty, La Mer, Natasha Denona, La Prairie, Maison Francis Kurkdjian and Bobbi Brown to their cheaper dupes. A popular review compares Giorgio Armani’s Luminous Silk Foundation to L’Oréal’s Infallible Fresh Wear Foundation. Foundation, perfume and mascara are the most-searched products on the site, and it has over 100 products available to purchase on it. 

Products are judged by formula, texture, shade and performance, and each lower cost dupe is presented as a match for one higher end product. Dupeshop co-founder Amir Awan believes the structure makes it simple for customers to find effective products that won’t break the bank. “Having multiple products that are ranked with percentages and things like that can get a bit confusing for the customer,” he says. “It makes it harder for them to understand what’s really worth it and what’s not.”

Dupeshop started gaining traction soon after its launch when a video on its TikTok account that compared Garnier’s SPF Face Fluid Sun Cream to La Roche Posay’s Invisible Fluid Sunscreen went viral. A subsequent TikTok video comparing Maybelline’s Lifter Gloss to Fenty Beauty’s Gloss Bomb also went viral and caused a nationwide sellout of the product, according to Awan. Dupeshop later experienced viral moments on both Instagram and Facebook.

The platform currently has over 800,000 followers across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest, and its product recommendations have been viewed over 50 million times. Dupeshop’s site gets on average 1.83 million impressions a month.

Awan reasons the United Kingdom’s cost of living crisis and wider global economic uncertainty have strengthened the demand for relatively inexpensive dupes. “It’s opened people’s eyes up to how good affordable products can be and how making smart purchasing decisions doesn’t always mean that they need to compromise,” he says. “That’s behavior that they’re going to carry on no matter where the economy is in the future.”

In June last year, Think With Google, Google’s marketing research platform, reported that searches for “dupe” had increased 40% year-over-year. The hashtag #dupes on TikTok has 2 billion views, while #beautydupe has 21.1 million views. 

Dupeshop picks products to dupe based on searches on its site, social media trends and beauty industry momentum. To be considered, dupes must have a below-average market price for the category they’re in. Lipstick dupes on the site are all below $20 or about 16 pounds.

Dupeshop has professional makeup artists, skincare experts and a cosmetic scientist on its team test every product before listing it in a dupe review and selling it. Generally, the testing occurs in two phases. First, the dupe is compared to the prestige product by its ingredient list. Second, makeup artists and skincare experts vet application and performance. 

Only products that are certified cruelty-free are tested by Dupeshop’s team. Skincare testing generally takes longer than testing for makeup or fragrance. “Without testing for formula, texture and performance, you can’t determine whether it’s actually a good dupe,” says Awan. “I think that there are times where people can be very disappointed and what they might see as a rumored dupe is only called a dupe because the shade is the same, but what about everything else?”

In addition to reviews, Dupeshop sells dupes from what it refers to as lower cost “non-designer” brands that it says are manufactured in the same facilities as higher end luxury products.The brands are BeautyUK, Moira Cosmetics, Deborah Milano, Zanzi, Mia Glam and Beauty Pro. Awan expects the number of products Dupeshop sells to increase by hundreds this year. 

Dupeshop’s sales grew 200% year-over-year in the first quarter this year. Return customers grew by 200% between 2021 and 2022. The United States is Dupeshop’s second-largest market behind the U.K. Awan says the site reaches a wide demographic, from gen Z to baby boomer consumers. He remarks, “Our target consumer is just someone who wants to be smart with their money and make a savvy beauty purchase.”

Dupeshop’s bestsellers include Beauty UK’s Prime Fix Foundation Primer, Zanzi’s Matte Liquid Lipstick and Moira Cosmetics’ Atomic Water Moisturizing Cream. Match Makeup’s Nirvana Eyeshadow Palette is another hit with customers on the site for its similarity to Anastasia Beverly Hills’ Soft Glam Palette. The Nirvana palette, which retails for $17 or 14 pounds, has a 4.9 star rating on the site and 100-plus customer reviews.

Other dupe platforms such as SkinSkool and Brandefy have launched their own lines of branded products. Dupeshop doesn’t have its own line. Awan says, “That’s really what separates Dupeshop from other places because we’re not just trying to create our own products in a lab and then flog them to customers. We are really trying to educate consumers.”