by Kelsey Rivett
Founded in 1969 in France, Sephora
counts over 2000 stores worldwide with revenues exceeding 4 billion dollars.
The Champs Élysées flagship store in Paris draws in more visitors than the
Eiffel Tower, with over 6 million people stopping by this beauty playground
every year. Founded with the objective of revolutionizing the way beauty was
sold – giving customers the freedom to try, touch, smell and explore – the
Sephora brand has managed to do just what it set out to do. Their strategy has
been a smashing success in helping them capture the loyalty of millennials.
From a marketer’s perspective, understanding millennial consumers can be
quite puzzling. On one hand, they are notoriously less brand loyal (Daymon Worldwide) than previous
generations, yet on the other they have higher expectations of brands and the
roles that they play. According to a report by Adriot Digital entitled Millennials: The New Age of Brand Loyalty,
52% of all respondents stated that for a brand to remain relevant, it needs to
listen to consumers and be willing to make changes based on their feedback.
Sephora’s
success stems from their ability to tap right into what makes this segment of
the population so unique. They’ve understood key traits in millennial
consumers, like their strong desire to express their individuality and the
wealth of information they have at their fingertips. With YouTube reviews, blogs,
mailing lists, Instagram and Snapchat, millennials know what they’re going in
to buy before even entering the store. They’ve carefully crafted their virtual
shopping basket, browsed social media, asked friends and read the reviews. It’s
safe to say that consumers are now more informed and self-expressive than ever
before, which stands in stark contrast to how their mothers and grandmothers
shopped at mono-brand department store counters, where customers relied on the
advice of brand representatives to guide their beauty purchases. The millennials
don’t relate to this model, as they’ve understood that each brand has its own claim
to fame and are wary of traditional sales tactics. In fact, 55% of
millennial shoppers report that a word-of-mouth recommendation is one of the
most influential factors in getting them to try out a new brand, second only to
price (Adriot Digital).
Sephora
has capitalized on this by making it its mission to push trends (contouring, bold
eyebrows and matte lipsticks for example) and help each customer find the
product suited to his or her needs and budget within that trend rather than
pushing specific products or brands. They’ve also create a no-pressure sales environment
where the employees feel more like friends who are glad to share their beauty
hacks with you, and where niche, indie and big-name brands harmoniously cohabit
under the same roof. Gone are the days when products could only be tried under
the prying eyes of a sales associate. “Sephoraization” as beauty analysts have
dubbed it has made everything more accessible, satisfying the consumers’ desire
for a hands-on, full sensory experience.
Sephora
has also done a stellar job at understanding shifts in trends, notably by
moving towards more organic and chemical-free products, steadily increasing their
offering of brands that represent those values and attributes. In addition, they
have embraced the ethnical and cultural diversity of the population,
understanding that the “one size fits all” formula is a thing of the past. Lastly,
they are vocal about promoting social development initiatives, which resonate
with millennials. In fact, a staggering 38% of
respondents (Adriot Digital) stated that they would move away from a brand if they
found it to have unethical business practices.
As
a result of all this, Sephora has redefined what it means to be brand loyal,
giving a modern twist to the concept by creating loyalty to the Sephora store
experience and ethos, which embraces and even encourages mixing and matching
different beauty brands to create one’s personalized beauty kit. Sephora has
understood what it takes to capture the heart of millennial consumers, creating
spaces where beauty lovers from all over the world can come together, transcending
stereotypes and social and racial barriers.
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