Anthropologie is giving its beauty business a makeover
Anthropologie is upping its beauty assortment and creating in-store beauty installations as it sees more demand for the category.
Anthropologie sells dozens of beauty products across skin care, fragrances, makeup and more, with a mix of national brands (like Phlur and L’Occitane), as well as private-label ones (like Maeve). After adding more SKUs, the company is finding that its typical apparel customers are increasingly shopping beauty. Over the past 12 months, one in six Anthropologie customers bought a beauty product, with hair care emerging as one of the fastest-growing categories.
Part of that is due to Anthropologie’s new beauty shop-in-shops, which allow customers to try on anything from lip gloss to roll-on scents. Anthropologie set up 27 such locations in stores last year, and it will end this year with 50. The company is also curating an “incubator” of beauty products near the registers to drive last-minute sales and gauge demand. What’s more, Anthropologie’s beauty advent calendar — which it launched in 2018 — is proving so popular that the company is moving up the release of its newer 12-day version.
“Beauty has been really strong for us,” said Holly Thrasher, chief merchandising officer of women’s at Anthropologie. “We have not been in the beauty business to the degree that we are now, and it’s really amplified our customer shopping experience. … Beauty has been very consistent for us in both channels [in-store and online] all year, and outperforming. There’s a lot more growth that we know we can have.”
The multi-branded advent calendars are particularly helping to drive engagement and customer acquisition. Anthropologie has sold a 24-day version since 2018, but last year, it introduced a 12-day version, as well. Per Anthropologie, 24% of people who buy the advent calendar are new to Anthropologie. Nearly half (47%) are new to Anthropologie Beauty. Twenty-four percent buy the calendar more than once, and 30% purchase two or more calendars. One person even bought 33 calendars in a single transaction.
Customers are now snapping up the latest calendars. AnthroPerks members got early access starting Aug. 10, but the general public started placing orders for the 24-day calendar ($98, at a $301 value) on Aug. 12. They could also order the 12-day calendar ($50, at a $128 value) on Aug. 13, a month earlier than last year. Items include Ilia mascara, Drybar dry shampoo, Salt & Stone deodorant and Mario Badescu facial spray.
The calendars take a year to develop, and they contain a mix of popular and newer SKUs. “We’ll say, ‘Ok, Phlur, we want your best body mist. We see it’s this — can we do a mini size?'” Thrasher explained. “We want it to be the the best of the best for the customer.” This year, hair care is especially popular — especially when it comes to serums and dry shampoo — so Anthropologie is including six hair-care items in the calendar, up from two last year. Overall, there will be nine new participating brands.
“We usually sell out before we even get to November,” Thrasher said. “That’s how big this thing is. We bought more this year, because we continue to see it outperform.”
The advent calendars are also popular on social media, where creators post “unboxing” videos or day-by-day reviews in the month of December. One TikTok last year racked up nearly 64,000 likes; another racked up 30,000. This month, to drive hype for the calendars even more, Anthropologie will increase its marketing for paid social channels. It will specifically target people who have not bought from Anthropologie before.
Anthropologie is also betting on its beauty shop-in-shops to drive brand awareness and sales. The company set up 27 such locations last year, and all are outperforming, Thrasher said. Anthropologie picked these initial stores, in part, based on online beauty performance. This August, Anthropologie will add 23 more shop-in-shops. “[The installation] allows customers to know that we have this product, and they can do more testing, like you would at a Sephora,” Thrasher explained.
When it comes to the rest of its fleet, Anthropologie is setting up buckets of cosmetics that people can browse when they’re in line. “We get to test small samples and see which ones customers like, and then we can buy more of those for them and expand upon the offer,” Thrasher said. Elsewhere, in stores, it’s encouraging its stylists to recommend beauty products to customers, and it has a concierge service that lets customers know about online beauty inventory.
Anthropologie’s bigger beauty push coincides with larger interest in the category. According to Circana, in the U.S., during the first six months of the year, prestige retail beauty sales increased 7% to $17.1 billion. Mass retail sales also rose 7%, to $39.2 billion. Fragrance and skin care were some of the highest-performing categories. Overall, beauty is benefiting from “consumers’ willingness to shop across price tiers” and buy “products that deliver the strongest emotional and functional value,” said Larissa Jensen, global beauty industry adviser at Circana.
Beauty is also a category that appeals to all ages, which helps drive sales. While Anthropologie’s core customer is typically in her thirties or forties, beauty “really amplifies our goal of targeting generational shoppers,” Thrasher said. “Moms, daughters, sisters, aunts, grandmas — we love them all, and we want them to come shop at our store.” Per data from Mintel, consumer purchases of makeup and skin care remain fairly steady from ages 25 to 54.
Beauty fans will see more from Anthropologie in the coming months. There will be new products and new brands on shelves, including in high-growth categories like hair care, fragrances and gummies. Anthropologie is also trying to have a more consistent “always-on” approach when it comes to beauty influencers. “I think that’s probably our next big thing,” Thrasher said.