Finding success at retail and keeping a coveted spot on a premium shelf is a journey of its own. Notably, since the pandemic, the frequency of brands coming to market and launching in-store has escalated enormously, especially with hair care, Black, Indigenous and people of color-owned brands, and clean beauty brands picking up momentum. New categories have also popped up, thanks to the evolving consumer journey that includes social media usage and the consumption of more content that relates to specific needs like textured hair and clean beauty. Sexual wellness and menopause are also no longer taboo — a conversation that has led to more products from the categories showing up on shelves.
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The increase certainly speaks to a hunger from consumers with prestige beauty cited as the only industry across The NPD Group general merchandise retail categories with positive year-over-year unit sales in 2022. Prestige beauty industry sales revenue grew 15 percent, according to NPD to exceed $27 billion last year. And while prestige was certainly a growth engine in the beauty space, beauty product sales at mass merchants accounted for the majority of sales across most beauty categories last year, amassing $30 billion in annual retail sales in the U.S., according to the company.
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While the evolution of beauty retail is a positive one, with all of this newness, for brands looking to launch at retail in 2023, it means facing the very real challenge of standing out in a larger-than-ever sea of amazing brands. It’s a challenge that even retailers make note of, often referring brands to seek the help of Beauty Barrage, the strategic sales partner that delivers full sales management for beauty brands.
Sonia Summers, founder and chief executive officer at Beauty Barrage, who has a reputation in the industry for the company’s impressive track record for successfully helping brands grow at retail, works with brands to launch at retail with a plan in place, offering the best practices, strategy and access to her more than 300 beauty ambassadors.
“You need to have a strategy to bring a brand to life in-store,” said Summers. Beauty Barrage builds out unique strategies for each client understanding the challenge of costs in ways that brands typically do not yet understand, including resources to train each store location and mobilizing support in-store across the country. Building a strategy that includes a realistic budget for retail while setting realistic goals is something Summers advises all brands to take time to understand when launching in stores.
“Sometimes it may take up to five months to see the shift in sales,” said Summers. “Also, if you have no experience in retail you should definitely consult with respected experts. Mistakes are costly.”
Each brand also has its own set of goals, which the team at Beauty Barrage helps to build on by starting with a full understanding. Once launching at retail, Beauty Barrage’s team stays agile, knowing how to adjust as strategy and goals evolve. Many of the company’s brand partners have been clients for more than four years.
“Our focus is always to understand the brand partner’s goals and then we build the strategy from there,” said Summers. “For instance, do we want to educate the store for the first few months, engage with customers, merchandise – all of the above? How many store locations are they in? The good news is that we have so much data that we can help choose markets for your category based on retailers.”
A common challenge for all brands at retail is making sure consumers are receiving education on the products. For clinical brands, said Summers, this might mean translating studies that prove the science of a supplement so that people feel comfortable taking them. While digitally a brand would send consumers the information through email, it’s far different from providing that education in-store. Brands need to be prepared for this. FDA clearances will also need to be communicated in stores, she said, and the messaging needs to be navigated correctly.
Ultimately, providing the consumer with the much-needed information requires ongoing education with the retailer and representatives in stores who can speak to the brand’s products and efficacy. Working with Beauty Barrage, brands can provide ongoing education to consumers through beauty brand ambassadors. These ambassadors represent brands in stores, helping consumers navigate brands with key insights that they also pass on to the retailer’s employees.
Once a strategy is in place, Beauty Barrage’s well-oiled business model can mobilize hundreds of brand ambassadors to execute in-store while providing critical data in real time.
Still, the data is always tied in with the human touch and without giving away the company’s full recipe for success, Summers said that Beauty Barrage’s secret sauce is its people.
“My executive team is super strategic and brings years of corporate retail buying and field management experience,” said Summers. “We understand what drives retail and we are very stealth at pivoting strategies when necessary.”
For Makeup Revolution, Retail Means Never Resting on Your Laurels
The brand discusses its work with Beauty Barrage and the importance of representation in stores.
In 2023, Makeup Revolution struck a partnership with Beauty Barrage to conquer the world of masstige beauty with its idea that high-quality cosmetics should be available to everyone. Competing with brands that held heritage residency on the shelves of Ulta, Target, Walgreens and Walmart provided challenges in a space where consumer favor often shines on loyalty and what they know.
In conversation, Sara Stainford, president of Makeup Revolution told Fairchild Studio it is becoming more challenging than ever to compete with other brands that have had a long-standing presence in the market and have a foundation of brand recognition with consumers that sometimes span decades. One way many young brands, including Makeup Revolution, have tackled brand is through social media.
“Having a strong social presence is essential for success in retail,” said Stainford. “Consumers are being guided by TikTok trends and those brands are seeing huge growth. However, you cannot rest on your laurels once you have a viral product.”
Expanding a quick viral moment into a lasting connection is a sticking point many brands face and Stainford said that when Makeup Revolution started its relationship with Beauty Barrage its goal was to increase brand awareness and sales in all categories, not just viral products. “You have to keep the momentum going by continually capturing the interest of the TikTok generation.”
Even with a built digital presence, engaging the consumer in-store is still nuanced. Consumers need to be guided to a brand, provided background, ingredient information and often tutorials and this isn’t provided without a strategy. “We had seen some organic support for the brand but not as much as we would have liked,” said Stainford. “Store associates naturally gravitate towards brands they are familiar with and use themselves.”
Identifying a need for support in-store, Beauty Barrage’s team of Beauty Ambassadors underwent a program specifically designed to educate them on everything Makeup Revolution has to offer. They tested the brand, asked questions and learned about hero products that consumers already love. This education was added to what they already know about the retailers and the relationships they have fostered there.
“We work together to cultivate ways to boost brand awareness, create excitement and unforgettable experiences in stores that ultimately result in sales,” said Sonia Summers, founder and chief executive officer of Beauty Barrage. “With our team of highly trained and passionate beauty ambassadors representing the brand with first-class service and expertise our partnership with Revolution will only continue to strengthen and flourish.”
Having the Beauty Ambassadors in store, educating store associates and selling to customers has given Makeup Revolution a huge advantage, exec told Fairchild Studio. It’s an advantage that until Beauty Barrage, she thought was only given to prestige brands. “It’s not the standard,” she said.
Since coming together with Beauty Barrage, Makeup Revolution cites not only an increase in sales on days when Beauty Ambassadors are present but also coming from the store associates who had learned about the brand from Beauty Barrage’s presence.
According to Summers, the relationship between Beauty Barrage and Makeup Revolution is a true partnership where both teams are open to experimenting and change. “Beauty Barrage is Makeup Revolution’s biggest advocate,” said Summers. “We have a genuine interest in helping the brand achieve success and see continued growth. This unwavering commitment to the brand’s success has established a relationship based on trust and collaboration.”
Across the board in beauty retail Summers said, everyone is facing the same challenges: brands looking to cut through the noise at retail and provide consumers with the information they need for a successful shopping journey.
How Kerastase Brings the Professional’s Luxury to Sephora Consumers
Guillaume Duez of Kerastase shares insights into its amplification in-store through Beauty Barrage’s experience with consumer education.
Often when a beauty brand enters a retailer’s stores it isn’t without its own story, its own DNA, its own relationship with the consumer and while the integration into a retailer’s brand is a great opportunity to grow, in order thrive a brand has to be prepared to make its own message heard.
As a luxury professional brand, Kerastase has built a strong education heritage, one that connects with today’s highly conscious consumer. Used by professionals in some of the best salons in the U.S., consumers are often introduced to the brand by use, finding expert opinions from trusted stylists for any hair needs. Placing the product on a retailers’ shelves, however, put the brand in a different environment, one where store associates were not always familiar with Kerastase offerings.
To amplify its education to consumers, Kerastase formed a collaborative partnership with Beauty Barrage. Starting as a test with a small scope, the brand grew at scale within Sephora with increased sales. Now, the brand works with Beauty Barrage for service at all Kerastase Sephora doors.
Here, Guillaume Duez, general manager of Kerastase USA at Kerastase, speaks to Fairchild Studio about the opportunities seen for the brand at retail, Kerastase’s work with Beauty Barrage and growth at Sephora.
Fairchild Studio: What were the opportunities that you saw when launching Kerastase at retail?
Guillaume Duez: As a professional brand, anchored in offering customized hair regimens and solutions to any hair need, like we do in the finest salons of the country, we knew that education was critical. We also needed the retail expertise that Beauty Barrage has brought to the table.
The brand has a strong education heritage and we were looking for a partner to help us effectively train the Sephora Beauty Advisors and provide sales support for the customers in line with our values and DNA. Beauty Barrage came highly recommended, and we knew they had built-in relationships.
Fairchild Studio: With this partnership, why were you specifically targeting Sephora?
G.D.: When considering our partnership with Sephora, our goal was to reach a new clientele and introduce them to our universe, our range and hero products. Sephora was the obvious choice as the prestige beauty retailer, which has a history of brand and awareness building and also allowed us state-of-the-art execution for our brand through elevated merchandising and education.
Fairchild Studio: How did Beauty Barrage help overcome obstacles at retail?
G.D.: Beauty Barrage was able to offer a robust retail strategy that included their education team, events, merchandising and sales support – and the ability for our brand to have visibility to the quality of the visits in-store through reporting.
Relationships in-store matter! From the relationship with the store associate to the relationship with the customer, having a presence in-store is key to building your retail footprint, and also maintaining a state-of-the-art execution for our luxury brand.
Fairchild Studio: What would you say is the best evidence that this partnership is working?
G.D.: The obvious indicator is our sales and the positive feedback from the Stores team! Since we have partnered with Beauty Barrage, we have exceeded sales expectations and our in-store presence has been elevated.
Kerastase recently expanded into all Sephora doors if this is an indication of the success they are seeing. Beauty Barrage now is their exclusive sales team for retail support.
Fairchild Studio: What’s next for Kerastase? Any new goals?
G.D.: Our Goal is to keep introducing more consumers to our amazing brand and products and promote our unique salon services too. Our focus will continue to be growing our awareness with Sephora and always be at the forefront of innovation with exciting new products, ingredients and engaging content along the way. At Kerastase, our motto is “You Dare, We Care.”
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