by With ropes to manage queues and a team of security guards stationed at the door, the vibe at Sephora in west London’s Westfield White City shopping center is more nightclub than beauty hall.
But inside, instead of dancing and sipping drinks, women are milling around displays of eye shadows, lipsticks and serums under signs promising the “next big thing” and “hot on social media”. Amongst a cornucopia of 135 of the most popular cosmetic brands in the TikToksphere, the “face glow” bar features two prostitutes, towels over their eyes, average faces.
Selling cosmetics the Sephora way seems to be winning even at a time when higher living costs are squeezing the disposable income of its predominantly female customer base. At its recent annual results, its owner, French luxury goods empire LVMH, highlighted the brand’s “exceptional performance” and “very successful” return to the UK.
Although beloved by beauty gurus – The Guardian’s beauty columnist Sali Hughes says it is her favorite global beauty retailer – Sephora pulled out of the UK in 2005, closing a handful of stores, after failing to teeth in a short-term market.
Now that it’s back, its return in 2023 has been hugely hyped. It started with two stores in London in the huge Westfield malls that book London, west and east, and the third one is to be in Manchester’s Trafford Center in the spring. More stores will follow, says UK managing director Sarah Boyd.
“We couldn’t have asked for a stronger return to the UK,” she says. “Our first store, White City, has become a destination to visit.” It will continue to open stores across the UK, she said, so that “everyone can easily visit their favorite beauty playground”.
Sephora is “the mother of today’s beauty industry”, says Greg Silverman, global director of brand economics at marketing consultancy Interbrand. “It oozes luxury but with an affordable price tag.”
Last year, Sephora was the top-grossing retailer in Interbrand’s annual Best Global Brands report. Interbrand, which assigns a dollar value to each brand based on factors such as financial performance and brand strength, said Sephora’s brand value reached $6.3bn (£5bn), up 15%. With more than 2,700 stores in 35 countries, the report said, it was “a force to be reckoned with in the retail space”.
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As department stores in the UK have closed in recent years, most notably the loss of Debenhams, the curtain has fallen on the old beauty hall model, Sephora’s laid-back self-service model seems to be appealing to younger shoppers – what the industry says ” open sale” – even if the prices are just as high. Research shows it is a threat to rivals Boots and Superdrug.
With loud music, beauty treatments and staff wielding lip glosses, Sephora stores aim to be pleasant to visit. The beauty industry is hungry for new products from consumers “who have 10 to 20 lipsticks that they don’t necessarily use but wanted to try”, says Sara Hudson, a partner at consulting firm McKinsey. “A lot of that discovery is driven by multi-brand stores, so we often call it a candy store for adults.”
Opening stores is a way to raise a brand’s profile and showcase the latest brands, but market data shows that the internet is now the most important beauty sales channel, accounting for £2bn of the £9.3bn spent Britons beat themselves last year, according to McKinsey. .
Before entering the UK, Sephora bought British beauty website Feelunique for £132m. It has since been subsumed into Sephora’s website, which Boyd says is going “from strength to strength”.
In a world where browsing happens on phones rather than in beauty salons, Silverman says Sephora is better than competitors at engaging with customers online: “Its social media and customer service are so tightly integrated, it feels like the brand as part of the customer’s personality. a network rather than a single store.”
Analysts say Sephora’s work with emerging brands and collaborations with high-profile influencers on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have helped the brand reach its target audience of 24-36-year-old women. (While this is worrying that children as young as 10 are pressuring their parents to buy them expensive anti-aging brands after seeing them on their social media feeds).
Another part of the appeal is that Sephora is giving UK shoppers access to brands, such as Tarte and Skinfix cosmetics, that previously could not be bought in Britain. This meant buying from overseas and paying shipping fees, explains Tash Van Boxel, analyst at GlobalData. Now shoppers can “avoid these extra costs to find trending brands and products online”.
“This ensures attraction, especially among young shoppers.”
