Spotlight on skincare and beauty care products
The U.S. prestige beauty industry saw some rather hot activity in 2012. In fact, The NPD Group of Port Washington, N.Y., stated that it outpaced its European counterpart in terms of growth, posting a 7 percent increase in dollar sales. Skincare products, which accounted for $3.4 billion of the industrys $10.2 billion dollar volume, had the highest gains, while makeup ($3.8 billion) and fragrances ($2.9 billion) came in second and third, respectively.
But given the strong performance of national brands in the beauty care and skincare categories, its not always easy for retailers to compete in this space with products of their own. And even if they get the right store brand product assortment on shelves, strong merchandising efforts likely will be needed to get shoppers to pick up a private label skin cream or cosmetic and drop it into their baskets.
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To see what retailers are doing well and not so well on the merchandising front here, we visited the skincare and beauty care sections of three urban-format stores in Chicago: a City Target operated by Target Corp., Minneapolis; Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreen Co.s main flagship store; and a Walmart Express operated by Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart. All three stores opened between January and July 2012. Our visits took place on a Tuesday afternoon in early July.
City Target
General observations: The City Target store we stopped by takes up two floors of a historic building downtown. The skincare and beauty care sections are situated in the center of the first floor toward the front. Foot traffic was very heavy in this section; several people walked in and out of each aisle while we were browsing.
The City Target offers the largest assortment of exclusive beauty care and skincare products of the three stores, with many of the premium offerings under various brands from UK drugstore chain Boots – including No7, Botanics, Expert and more – as well as Targets Sonia Kashuk brand. National-brand-equivalent store brand offerings here – which include mostly basic lotions and moisturizers, makeup application and removal products, grooming tools, nail polish removers and acne care items – retail under Targets up&up brand. The section was clean, well-stocked and very well-organized.
The upside:
- A friendly beauty concierge attendant was roaming the aisles during our visit to offer tips and advice to shoppers – and was able to provide plenty of information to us about the stores own-brand and exclusive-brand beauty care and skincare products.
- The store dedicates an entire side of one aisle to the Boots and Sonia Kashuk brands. Colorful signage makes these brands look just as fashionable as the national brands housed in other parts of the aisles.
- The store places many of its up&up brand products next to their national brand counterparts and offers attractive price gaps between the two in most instances. Below most of these products, we noticed red \"As Advertised\" tags to call attention to their value.
- We found several SKUs of up&up brand cotton balls hung on a wing display next to shelves of various up&up and Neutrogena makeup-removal products.
- An end cap with a sign that read \"Affordably Gorgeous\" was merchandising an array of up&up brand products, including nail polish remover, cosmetic wedges, cotton swabs and more.
The downside:
- We really couldnt find a downside – the City Target boasts an enormous variety of exclusive beauty care and skincare products, and it does an amazing job showing them off and communicating their value.
Walgreens
General observations: The Walgreens flagship store, which also takes up two stories of a building downtown, houses all of its health and beauty care products and service stations on the second floor, including its Look Boutique, which incorporates a number of cosmetics displays, a help desk, several beauty consultants and a nail salon.
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All of the store brand products we found in the section are under Walgreens Studio 35 and Studio 35 Beauty brands, except for several acne care products and face washes under the Well at Walgreens brand and some W and Walgreens brand products that have yet to be transitioned to the Studio 35, Studio 35 Beauty and Well at Walgreens brands. The department was clean, well-stocked and very well-organized.
The upside:
- Beauty consultants were on hand to help shoppers make purchase decisions, and the one we spoke with was able to answer questions about the store brand and exclusive-brand products in the section.
- The store placed Studio 35 and Studio 35 beauty products next to their national brand counterparts and, in most cases, offered attractive price gaps between each pair.
- On the wall, the store installed a touchscreen monitor that allows customers to browse Walgreens discoverbeautywithin.com website for information about store brand and national brand products, beauty tips and advice, details about special promotions and more.
- We found an end cap full of various Studio 35 Beauty nail polish removal products on an aisle dedicated to various store brand and national brand nail care products. Another end cap – on an aisle containing hair care products – was merchandising Studio 35 Beauty cotton swabs, cotton balls and more.
- The store hung 16-count packs of its Studio 35 Beauty Fashion Nail Foils on a small cardboard display. Nearby, on a special shelf dedicated to new products, another small cardboard display was merchandising various packs of Studio 35 Beauty hair products.
- We found several 15-count packs of Studio 35 Beauty wet facial wipes cross-merchandised on a strip hung in front of shelves holding Neutrogena, Aveeno and Studio 35 facial cleansing products.
The downside:
- We found several instances in which Walgreens failed to price shield some of its Studio 35 and Studio 35 Beauty products when their national brand equivalents were being offered at deeply discounted prices (up to 50 percent off).
Walmart Express
General observations: Even though it is designed as an urban format store, the Walmart Express store does not have the same upscale feel as the other two stores. Taking up one floor of a building situated just north of downtown, the store houses its skincare and beauty care section on one side of an aisle in the right-hand portion of the store (looking into the store from the front entrance). The rest of the aisle is dedicated to baby care and feminine hygiene products. Traffic was pretty light here, with no one else entering the aisle while we were browsing.
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Of the three stores we visited, the Walmart Express has the smallest assortment of beauty care and skincare products – on both the national brand and the store brand sides. Store brand products are offered under the Equate, Equate Beauty and White Cloud brands. The store also offers the Walmart-exclusive Salon Perfect Nail Art and Bari Cosmetics Pure Ice brands of nail polishes. The section was fairly well-organized and clean.
The upside:
- The store places Equate and Equate Beauty products next to their national brand counterparts and offers attractive price gaps between each pair.
The downside:
- The section was poorly stocked – we spotted quite a few empty spaces on shelves.
- We found a violator touting an everyday low price for 21-ounce bottles of Equate Classic Scent Dry Skin Lotion, but the price listed on it actually was 18 cents more than that touted on the shelf tag posted below the bottles.
- The store hung strips cross-merchandising Freedom brand scrub sponges, but did nothing to cross-merchandise any of its own-brand products.