For nearly two decades, I have helped businesses with their web strategy, e-commerce, and how they reach their customers. I have seen digital take up an enormous place... and rightly so. It has made businesses more accessible, simplified purchasing, and allowed small brands to reach customers they probably would never have been able to reach otherwise. But lately, I have been observing a pendulum swing that seems particularly interesting to me. I wouldn't say that e-commerce is disappearing, far from it. I would rather speak of a certain fatigue with everything online. Consumers seem to be rediscovering the desire to see, touch, try, talk, and above all, buy from people they trust. A Canadian study conducted by KPMG in 2025 revealed, moreover, that 66% of respondents preferred the in-store experience and that 57% associated this preference with frustration experienced with online shopping. And when we look closely at what has happened in recent years, I believe we cannot completely separate this phenomenon from the massive arrival of artificial intelligence. When everything became a little too easy to create ChatGPT officially made its debut at the end of 2022, but it was truly in 2023 that generative AI became part of the daily lives of businesses and the general public. Suddenly, it became possible to produce dozens of product descriptions, advertisements, images, articles, and web pages in a few minutes. The tool itself is not the problem. I use it myself and would be in no position to claim otherwise. Used as a support tool, artificial intelligence can be extraordinarily useful: to structure an idea, correct or improve a text, simplify complex information, support certain administrative tasks, help with basic accounting, understand a system, or even solve a technical problem. In short, it can save valuable time when it supports a person's work rather than completely replacing it. The problem begins when no one reviews what is produced anymore, when we settle for saying "it's good enough"... and when we end up with those famous flyers where three fonts, five colors, and twelve messages fight for attention. But behind the wink, the problem is very real. We ended up with entirely AI-generated product descriptions, images that embellish reality enormously, and increasingly promising sales pitches. In trying to convince, some brands pushed the discourse so far that we sometimes get dangerously close to misleading language. And consumers noticed. In fact, data is beginning to document this unease. A 2025 study on product returns reports that nearly 60% of consumers surveyed had already returned a product due to an inaccurate or misleading description. Size issues also remain one of the main reasons for returns in clothing. We order a color that doesn't really look like the photo, a texture that isn't what we imagined, a garment whose cut has nothing to do with what was presented, or a product whose description had created expectations that were far too high. After a few experiences like those, consumer confidence erodes... and rightly so! In beauty treatments, the need for something real is even stronger This is where I find the situation particularly interesting for beauty therapists. A skincare treatment is not a product you choose solely based on a beautiful photo and a well-written description. Texture matters. Smell matters. How it feels on the skin matters. And above all, the person who makes the recommendation matters a great deal. Canadian data from KPMG also shows a marked preference for in-person purchasing in health and beauty categories. A client can discover Shakti on Instagram, visit the website, and read about a product. But when she arrives in the treatment room and a beauty therapist who knows her skin uses that product during a treatment, explains why it was chosen, and lets her truly feel it, the relationship with the brand becomes completely different. It comes back to something very simple: one person recommends something to another person. The web is not the enemy of personal connection And that is probably the most important nuance. The return to physical stores and personal recommendations does not mean we should abandon digital. The two are now deeply linked. In our case, the web can make Shakti known even before a client walks through the door of a beauty salon. Social media can spark her curiosity. An article can help her understand the philosophy of the range. A collaboration can get the brand's name out there. But the professional brings something that digital cannot truly reproduce: a recommendation based on a real understanding of the client, her skin, her habits, and her needs. It is no longer simply presenting a product; it is placing a solution in a real context, with the possibility of explaining, qualifying, adjusting, and sometimes even saying: "no, this is not what is needed right now." This is precisely why I find the network of beauty therapists being built around Shakti so valuable. The more visibility a brand gains, the more important this network becomes. A client can arrive in the treatment room having already heard of Shakti, then find a professional in front of her capable of truly introducing her to dermo-botanical treatments and determining what is right for her skin. In my view, this is where one of the great strengths of the coming years lies: using digital to create discovery, then letting the human element build trust. After years of trying to automate our ways of selling more and more, this return to something more tangible, more personal, and more real feels very good. And for beauty therapists, this is not a new way of working to learn. It is rather the recognition of something that has always existed in treatment rooms: expertise, a relationship, and trust that no algorithm can replace. Marie-Eve MagnyWeb Strategist
