No matter how much information a consumer has picked up online about a brand, nothing makes a bigger impact than seeing a gorgeous display of products inside her favorite beauty retail store – just ask the new, young set of tween consumers who instinctively understand the gratification of spending time in Sephora.
Brands and consumers alike are looking for an inviting, clean and well-maintained store and display. It’s more than judging a book by its cover, said the team at Beauty Barrage, great merchandising goes beyond a product’s packaging and delivers an invitation for shoppers to explore. A clean, well-organized, fully stocked display can take a pending sale to the finish line. However, in the same way, product displays that are not up to par can point a consumer in another direction.
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In her role as vice president of account management at Beauty Barrage, the strategic sales partner known for delivering full sales management for beauty brands with an impressive track record for helping brands thrive at retail, Alissa Spencer has seen the unfortunate risk for brands who do not maintain their space in stores. Empty gondolas with sold out skus, dirty spaces and damaged signs or tags, she said, are some of the most common occurrences that leave consumers with an unfavorable impression. Unsanitary and uninviting displays do nothing to encourage customer conversion.
“If the shelves are not restocked regularly, the brand is at risk for losing a loyal or converting new customers,” said Spencer. “This is where Beauty Barrage comes in. We support mass to prestige brands in merchandising as no category is immune to the shuffle that is left behind after a shopping experience. Then, once merchandising has been corrected, the strategy shifts with a focus on selling and education.”
Through Beauty Barrage’s custom partnerships, its team of experts work with brands on varying levels of merchandising support needed when creating a bespoke strategy from events to education and merchandising. A typical visit for the company’s brand ambassadors involves restocking, cleaning and tidying the shelves. The light, regular maintenance helps brands stay inviting and shoppable for a positive customer experience. For other clients, however, Beauty Barrage recommends a much more merchandising focused approach.
Spencer explained that some brand partners come to Beauty Barrage because their planogram or shelving is in very bad shape with many out of stocks or a messy presentation. Some also say they have seen a decline in sales and can’t put their finger on the reasoning. Ultimately, Spencer said, “their sales are suffering due to the disarray.”
Beauty Barrage’s team of retail merchandising specialists are trained very specifically with step-by-step instructions on how to correct the merchandising for their assigned brands. A brand’s merchandising rotation might occur during a reset and product launch month or prior to an event or holiday. The team’s merchandising often covers multiple categories and visits focus on checking, correcting and completing a specific checklist that ensures merchandising areas are left in perfect condition. Each visit, said Spencer, is finished with a special eye for detail, leaving nothing unfinished.
According to Melinda Novak and Andrea Valdez, two of Beauty Barrage’s retail merchandising specialists, beauty brands should be thinking about planning merchandising that can be described as “engaging, aesthetically pleasing, detailed, elegant, customized, well-constructed, playful, easy to clean, shoppable and simplistic.”
“The merchandising experience is determined by connecting with the brand and understanding the message they want to communicate, not only to [regular] consumers but to all [potential] customers as well,” said Valdez. “Clients and guests are generally put off by the lack of cleanliness and availability of stock.”
“People [are] put off by gondolas, walls, end caps and testers that appear unorganized and unsanitary,” said Novak. “Many consumers choose brick-and-mortar locations for quick refills and/or to play, connect and discover. Providing an optimal space for testing new items with the ease/accessibility of finding replenishment items is crucial for most consumers to obtain the satisfaction and convenience of an in-store experience.”
Novak and Valdez told Fairchild Studio that in their experience the most common merchandising issue is missing testers or not having enough stock (in every size or color) of a product to showcase an item in high demand or that is newly launched. Brands, they said, need to be aware of the quantity of products in store.
They acknowledged that not every brand has the power or eyes to check how its products are being managed in store as often as needed, which is what makes Beauty Barrage an ideal solution.
When Beauty Barrage’s team is in store, they are documenting the out of stocks and working with the store teams to make sure the inventory levels are accurately reporting in the systems, taking pictures and reporting specific out of stock skus through the surveys they complete on the Beauty Barrage proprietary portal. The surveys are customized per brand depending on the type of visit, specific fixtures and products the team will check during their shift. The intel that brands receive from these surveys are invaluable, said Spencer.
“Brands are also seeing their areas that may not be completely set up according to the planogram,” said Spencer. “If they have a secondary placement of products in a grab and go section, or a special endcap or tower, they want to make sure their brand is where they’ve been promised. They also want to make sure their brand has a uniform look across all locations, and that the shelves are free from dust and spills. If there is missing signage or broken displays, our field team is correcting this and placing the orders through the necessary means of submission.”
“Merchandising specialists play an essential role in-store by reestablishing or upholding the standards of the brands they are representing,” said Novak. “This representation allows for corporate to consumer communication of the brands’ identity. Well-maintained spaces add to the presence of a brand in-store while also conveying the brands’ values. Monthly merchandising visits create a continued focus, from in-store teams, on the importance of organization. This focus often translates to a confidence when featuring the brand to prospective consumers.”
Once a brand’s space is clean, lit, stocked and in good working condition, Spencer said, the ultimate result is an increase in sales. Beauty Barrage has helped brands through serious out of stock issues, sharing images that led to work with retail partners to rectify the problems.
Sharing her brand’s experience working with Beauty Barrage to provide an elevated in-store experience, Natalie Mackey, chief executive officer of Winky Lux, said that one of the main challenges she has encountered is keeping components of units in working order. The Winky Lux display, she said, is “beautiful, eye-catching and dynamic, featuring floral accents and a vibrant, pink neon sign with illuminated plexi borders.”
However, in many stores, Mackey learned that the electrical features of the display were not functioning as they should.
“Beauty Barrage reps have assisted in identifying which displays are working properly and ones that are not,” said Mackey. “The team works with store management to correct the issue quickly, and if it is something that requires more investigation, the appropriate steps are taken. Having brand reps in-store also helps with assessing inventory and tester availability as the reps can check physical stock and alert store management for updates need – if there are holes in the sku assortment or ensure testers are displayed for the guests to experience.”
“When the Beauty Barrage retail merchandising specialists go in-store it is their responsibility to check and correct any discrepancies,” said Spencer. “If corrections are needed, and depending on the retailer, they partner with a member of management to ensure the correct replacement or maintenance tickets are submitted. This information is also reported by the beauty ambassador on their end-of-shift survey, along with before and after images so we can compare the work that was completed.”
Beauty Barrage’s success with Winky Lux is just one example of how its team of dedicated merchandising specialists have given brands a step up in retail.
Spencer told Fairchild Studio that with an unnamed prestige skincare brand that enlisted Beauty Barrage’s help earned the brand a 6-figure replenishment order within four weeks of working together. Another prestige brand partner that works with Beauty Barrage for a full merchandising program for all new product and launch periods now has uniformity across all locations and testers are now replenished on a regular basis. One mass makeup brand also reported seeing sales increase by five percent in just two weeks with Beauty Barrage’s help checking inventory levels, cleaning and organizing prior to their program blitz.
How Grande Cosmetics Brings Consumers Into Its World
The cult favorite beauty brand discusses facing merchandising issues head on with Beauty Barrage.
Perhaps best known for its viral lash serum, Grande Cosmetics has been a big hit with consumers both online and in-store. An impressive 10 million tubes of GrandeLash-MD have been sold since 2008 and the brand boasts over 100 awards that have come with a loyal, devoted fan base.
With over 75 products in its line today, the brand strives to deliver only the best. And that means greeting its customers who come to see the brand in-store with beautiful, organized, well-stocked shelves.
To ensure just that, Grande Cosmetics has partnered with Beauty Barrage as its strategic sales partner, tapping into the company’s key insights and experience in bringing success to brands in-store and perfected merchandising down to the last detail.
Here, Sarah Liriano, senior director of global sales at Grande Cosmetics talks to Fairchild Studio about the challenges of merchandising at retail stores today and the brand’s strategy for success.
Fairchild Studio: What have been some of the challenges you’ve face in store, especially in merchandising?
Sarah Liriano: Some of the merchandising issues we have encountered include missing testers, misplaced items, missing marketing pieces on fixtures and stock outs – these are common issues that we’ve encountered across all of our retailers. We have also gotten similar feedback from other brands.
Fairchild Studio: As a brand with small products why is merchandising particularly challenging?
S.L.: Although we utilize tester holders, to aid in giving the customer a touch-and-feel option that is noticeably visible to prospective customers, smaller items are not always stable on the shelf and are more prone to be misplaced.
Fairchild Studio: How did Beauty Barrage help overcome those obstacles?
S.L.: In 2023, we were given the opportunity to expand the brand at Ulta Beauty and wanted to ensure the implementation of the fixture was executed seamlessly. It was difficult for us to have visibility nationwide during the roll out which is when we contacted Beauty Barrage to step in and provide us with firsthand feedback from stores.
Alissa Spencer and her team quickly developed a plan to have their team target 100+ stores during the month of the roll out. Their team would provide us with feedback via a curated questionnaire. This allowed us to receive the feedback in a consolidated manner, so we could address any widespread findings with Ulta, other cross functional departments within Grande as well as the display manufacturer we worked with.
Fairchild Studio: From your experience, why was bringing on Beauty Barrage for merchandising crucial?
S.L.: We were able to address feed-back in real-time, across doors in major markets and proactively share findings with our retail partners and internal teams to rectify any issues we encountered which in turn had a halo effect on our sales.
Fairchild Studio: What have been some of the key learnings from working with Beauty Barrage?
S.L.: It really does take a village to build and sustain a brand and I am appreciative of having Beauty Barrage as a partner that we can rely on and trust.
Working with Beauty Barrage enabled us to see the bigger picture when it came to properly merchandising our brand across a larger volume of stores. Having store data in a consolidated format made us more agile since we were able to react and share findings more quickly with our partners.