Ulta Sales Soar Amid Resilience Of Beauty

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Alpha8472
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Ulta Sales Soar Amid Resilience Of Beauty

Post by Alpha8472 »

Ulta sales are up. Even in times of rising prices and lack of money, people still spend on cosmetics. It is a luxury, feel good item, that people buy even more of when they feel depressed.

https://chainstoreage.com/ulta-soars-q3 ... sales-jump
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Re: Ulta Sales Soar Amid Resilience Of Beauty

Post by storewanderer »

Revlon recently went bankrupt. Ulta is on fire, but I don't think demand for beauty products is increasing. I think it is just more consumers are purchasing these products at Ulta instead of other places. It will be interesting to see how the Ulta/Target arrangement impacts Ulta's results. I suspect a lot of Ulta's sales gain is from consumers who tried to buy these products at Target (without Ulta in store yet) and faced empty shelves so they went to Ulta instead. Ulta worked hard during COVID to market relevant items to consumers and keep people interested in the brand even when certain of their products were not relevant due to work from home, mask mandates, etc.
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Re: Ulta Sales Soar Amid Resilience Of Beauty

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote: December 4th, 2022, 9:23 pm Revlon recently went bankrupt. Ulta is on fire, but I don't think demand for beauty products is increasing. I think it is just more consumers are purchasing these products at Ulta instead of other places. It will be interesting to see how the Ulta/Target arrangement impacts Ulta's results. I suspect a lot of Ulta's sales gain is from consumers who tried to buy these products at Target (without Ulta in store yet) and faced empty shelves so they went to Ulta instead. Ulta worked hard during COVID to market relevant items to consumers and keep people interested in the brand even when certain of their products were not relevant due to work from home, mask mandates, etc.
That is, assuming the shelves in the Ulta stores aren't empty as well, due to people who choose to take the products without ringing them up at a register.
Seems to be a major issue in one local store, to the point that they stationed a police vehicle in the parking lot for a couple days (at least) to see if that would stop it (and they were taking amounts large enough to be well above any limits for not charging them, even if those exist here which they may not).
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Re: Ulta Sales Soar Amid Resilience Of Beauty

Post by storewanderer »

BillyGr wrote: December 5th, 2022, 11:58 am

That is, assuming the shelves in the Ulta stores aren't empty as well, due to people who choose to take the products without ringing them up at a register.
Seems to be a major issue in one local store, to the point that they stationed a police vehicle in the parking lot for a couple days (at least) to see if that would stop it (and they were taking amounts large enough to be well above any limits for not charging them, even if those exist here which they may not).
I should pay more attention to Ulta in high theft areas. The stores in my area look great; well stocked and staffed.
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Re: Ulta Sales Soar Amid Resilience Of Beauty

Post by buckguy »

Cosmetics have continued to have steady growth, beyond the rate of inflation. Revlon had dated products that didn't attract younger women, plus a lot of debt and supply chain problems. It's a sector that needs both trendy new items and also loyal customers for evergreen ones. There's also more movement to online shopping which is probably where they hold on to continuing customers--Ulta seems to have all that now, but like anything else they need to show that they can sustain this and don't get overstored. or loaded down with products that can't attract loyal customers.
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Re: Ulta Sales Soar Amid Resilience Of Beauty

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote: December 5th, 2022, 11:05 pm
BillyGr wrote: December 5th, 2022, 11:58 am

That is, assuming the shelves in the Ulta stores aren't empty as well, due to people who choose to take the products without ringing them up at a register.
Seems to be a major issue in one local store, to the point that they stationed a police vehicle in the parking lot for a couple days (at least) to see if that would stop it (and they were taking amounts large enough to be well above any limits for not charging them, even if those exist here which they may not).
I should pay more attention to Ulta in high theft areas. The stores in my area look great; well stocked and staffed.
That is the strange part - this area isn't one of those areas.

It is in a fairly new plaza, with a ShopRite and several other stores like TJ Maxx and Michaels, smaller places including a local realty office and a Japanese steakhouse and even a credit union branch (that existed before the rest of the plaza was built).

Have not heard of any issues in the other stores around (not to say they don't exist, but they must be far less if any since this was the only thing to make the news, with no mention of anything else in the plaza having problems), just that particular one for some reason.
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