Raising the bar with in-store beauty advisers

The old adage may claim that “beauty is only skin deep,” but what today’s retailers are realizing is that beauty is as deep as the customer experience. This has given rise to a heightened focus on new services, higher-end offerings and staffing beauty departments with specially trained beauty advisers.

(To read the full Beauty Trends Report, click here.)



The reality is that today’s beauty shoppers are demanding greater personalization and a higher level of customer service. They want an experience. Those retailers that successfully deliver on this demand stand to win.



Within the mass market, perhaps the greatest example of this is Walgreens, which is on a mission to “Go Big in Beauty.” The retailer has an army of more than 26,000 beauty advisers across its store network. The beauty advisers are front and center in the retailer’s Look Boutiques. These upscale beauty departments not only feature prestige and niche beauty brands, but also offer such in-store beauty services as brow shaping.



As part of this mission, Walgreens debuted last March an exclusive beauty publication called Discover Beauty Within. Lebhar-Friedman Publishing, in collaboration with Walgreens, launched the quarterly magazine — marking the first exclusive beauty publication for the mass retailer.



CVS/pharmacy, which also has beauty advisers in select store locations nationwide, also is looking to enhance the beauty experience. “We plan to continue giving our customers what they want to enhance the beauty experience at CVS, leveraging our enterprise assets to create an unbeatable beauty proposition,” Helena Foulkes, EVP and president of CVS/pharmacy, told analysts during the company’s Annual Analyst Day in December. “We’re driving the beauty experience further. We will continue to launch with new and exclusive brands. .... We will bring the look and feel of our beauty offerings up-market to create an accessible specialty look and feel, and permanently dedicate some of our most valuable space to elevated beauty offerings.” Over the next year, shoppers will see an upgraded cosmetics wall in many stores, a stepped up facial care look and feel, endcaps dedicated to beauty elevation, and an increased focus on naturals and healthy solutions.



Rite Aid also is working to improve its beauty departments with a new beauty offering that builds on innovations featured in previous Wellness remodels — such as illuminated displays and a free-standing nail bar — by incorporating upscale brands into an expanded product mix.



In addition to offering more upscale brands, stores piloting this concept also have specially trained beauty advisers who can demonstrate how products are used and help customers learn about new brands, color-matching and other current trends.



“As we move forward, we’re also expanding the level of service that we can provide in the beauty category. We now have 50 Wellness stores with expanded beauty departments that feature a broader selection of prestige brands and specially trained beauty advisers,” said Rite Aid president and COO Ken Martindale during the company’s third quarter conference call in late December.



Martindale noted that, so far, the company is “pretty excited about the early read on the beauty advisers.”



Meanwhile, Target began testing its Beauty Concierge program in July 2012 in Chicago-area stores. The program has since expanded and is currently offered in more than 400 stores.



Armed with an iPad, mirrors and product samples, Target’s Beauty Concierges are clad in black and wear beauty concierge-embossed aprons.



In addition to staffing hundreds of its stores with beauty advisers, Target also has revamped the look and feel of its beauty department and stepped up its beauty offerings by adding premium skin care products to more than 700 locations.



“In beauty, we continue to see strong results from this year’s refresh of displays throughout the United States, while featuring the beauty concierge service in more than 400 stores,” Brian Cornell, Target’s chairman and CEO, told analysts during the company’s second quarter conference call in August.