Ulta Beauty’s Lauren Brindley Reveals her Merchandising Strategy

Call her Lauren Unleashed.

Lauren Brindley was named chief merchandising and digital officer of Ulta Beauty in late April, after a six-month search to replace the well-regarded Monica Arnaudo, who announced her retirement last November.

Brindley, an industry veteran who was most recently chief executive officer of Revolution Beauty and has held senior leadership positions at Walgreens and Boots U.K., has hit the ground running with a very clear vision of how she can fuel growth for the 600-plus (and counting) brands under Kecia Steelman’s Ulta Unleashed strategy.

“I don’t think category by category. I’m thinking about what are the biggest consumer opportunities,” said Brindley, in her first in-depth interview since being named to the post. “I see major opportunities for growth. Ulta has a unique proposition that can translate globally — this low to luxury for all life stages — and in our home market, as well, we have a huge runway for growth.”

At the top of the opportunity list: fragrance. While Macy’s is still the top fragrance seller in the U.S., with 31.8 percent market share according to YipitData, Ulta is second, with 17.1 percent share. Brindley wants to seize the top spot by talking advantage of Ulta’s breadth of assortment. “For us, fragrance is coming to life through multiformat,” she said. “There is no other retailer that can truly serve all life stages and price points, whether body sprays and creams or juices and solids. We want to be the leading fragrance destination in the U.S.”

Brindley is also laser-focused on winning with Gen Alpha, recapturing the wallet share that has been lost to Sephora, according to Piper Sandler’s biannual Taking Stock with Teens survey. At the same time, she sees ample opportunity in better leveraging the Gen X opportunity, too. (“60 is the new 40,” she quipped. “This is a generation that is living their best life and as the beauty industry, we need to cater to that and champion it.”)

Over the last couple of months, Brindley has assessed Ulta’s brand matrix, balancing what she thinks of as the art of merchandising with the science of data analysis. “We took a step back to look at the full brand portfolio to make sure we’re balancing it for all of the different guests we serve,” said Brindley. “Retailers sometimes have a habit of chasing trends or a certain guest, which is fine if you’re a retailer that is very curated, but we cater to beauty enthusiasts across all stages.

“The biggest thing for me,” Brindley continued, “is to make sure we’re thinking strategically about balancing the portfolio, and that we don’t suddenly become obsessed with one guest over the other.”

One of her first orders of business was to create a new brand-building model that can work for brands across all stages of development — launch, build, scale and globalize. “Streamlining the process is a priority. I have a project called merchandising transformation, looking at the pace and how we can simplify our processes to enable our merchants to focus on what’s going to really make a difference,” said Brindley.

At the same time, she’s working closely with chief marketing officer Kelly Mahoney and chief retail officer Amiee Bayer-Thomas to build a joint playbook for brands. “We’re aligned on the brands we want to lean in with, why, and how we’re going to do that together,” said Brindley.

“This is an impressive team,” said Alicia Yoon, the founder and CEO of Peach & Lily, which is the retailer’s second largest prestige skin care brand. “They’re investing time to get in the weeks, listening to brands and their feedback and are swift with executive. They’ve been very supportive and communicative as partners, and their vision and passion are energizing.”

That spark extends beyond the C-suite, all the way to the store level, according to Jeff Lee, the CEO and cofounder of Dibs Beauty. “They operate from the perspective of stores first, and they really understand the Ulta Beauty customer in a very deep and comprehensive way,” he said, adding that Steelman’s deep in-store expertise has resulted in significant changes.

“One of the things we’ve seen invigorated is a brand-first approach — this year alone, I’ve been in the Bolingbroke headquarters four times already,” he said. Lee is also frequently in-stores — he will have visited over 350 by yearend, and notes that the team is fast to action feedback.

“I was in a store in California where I thought we could be performing better,” he said. “They coordinated a visit with our retailer team and together we’re going to visit all of the doors in a single district to figure out how we can improve together,” said Lee. “We’re finding they are being a lot more creative and they’re coming to the table earlier with ideas. We’re able to talk with them in real-time about what we have planned.”

Brindley and the team are also betting big on wellness, significantly expanding the retailer’s lineup. The launch of the upcoming Ulta Beauty Marketplace, announced earlier this year, is another key initiative. “The marketplace is going to be huge,” said Steelman. “We don’t want to just put a bunch of products on a platform. We want to put products on a platform that make sense, in that it’s very adjacent to what you would expect from Ulta Beauty today. We want the shopping experience to be seamless. You’ll be able to earn your points, use gift cards, make returns.”

The Marketplace will launch online in the third quarter, with about 500 brands. While the tech was fairly developed when Brindley joined the team, she’s had an active role in identifying brands and categories with the most opportunity. “We’re not going to do anything that doesn’t make sense — this is a beauty and wellness marketplace,” she said. “We’ll personalize the experience for our 45 million loyalty club members, utilizing data and AI to give the brands the opportunity to connect with the right consumer in our database. It doesn’t become a long tail of products — it is a curated selection for each guest.”

Ulta is also bringing a number of new brands into stores for the second half of the year — about 30 in all. “We’re looking at brands across the spectrum of all categories. Our role is to really understand which brands have true differentiation and are bringing a new relevance to consumer groups. If you don’t have differentiation, do you have a point of superiority, because that is another lens. If you don’t have either, that’s a concern,” said Brindley. “We all see a lot of brands that are suddenly hot, but they’re not able to build relevance over the years. That is not what want. It’s not newness for newness’s sake.”

One of the new brands launching is Isima, the hair care brand from superstar Shakira. “What excited us most was Ulta’s deep understanding of the evolving consumer,” said CEO Sid Katari, when asked why the brand chose Ulta Beauty to be its launch partner. “They’ve helped us navigate the nuances of reaching diverse consumer segments within their ecosystem and have been instrumental in amplifying our message that everyone deserves better from their hair care. The Ignite program resources, from marketing support to merchandising expertise, have accelerated our ability to establish Isima as a new standard in performance hair care.”

Katari was referring to Ignite, a collection of 20 or so brands, that will get the full purview of Ulta’s levers. It includes bigger players like Peach & Lily and Dibs, as well as emerging brands like Noyz, the fragrance brand started by the incubator Beach House Group, and Live Tinted.

“Emerging doesn’t mean small,” said Brindley. “The emerging brands we want to work with are those we think will be the powerhouse brands of the future, otherwise you end up playing in small things that don’t scale. We want to put the sweat equity into businesses where we see a long partnership and runway to growth.”

“To be one of those brands jet fuels every step of a brand like ours,” said Malena Higuera, CEO of Noyz. “Our rate of growth wouldn’t be possible were it not for how we both lean into each other.” She noted that Noyz has been particularly active on eventing, and will do 10 IRL experiences at Ulta this year. “This is accelerating our growth,” continued Higuera, “and also gives guests a unique experience that has a longer term value than even sales growth.”

Ulta’s global expansion — in Mexico, the Middle East and with Space NK in the U.K., is also top of mind for brands, giving them a viable alternative to Sephora as they’re looking at worldwide expansion.

“We’re excited to be a part of their Mexico expansion — our philosophy is to go an ‘inch wide and mile deep’ in all we do,” said Yoon.

Live Tinted is also going into Mexico with its full assortment. “Ulta is doubling down on exclusive brand partnerships and is well positioned as the go-to beauty incubator with its authority, loyal customer base and deep consumer insight,” said brand founder Deepica Mutyala. “Our early inclusion underscores our confidence in Ulta’s leadership and will be key to accelerating both brand and regional growth.”

“This creates more than just a gateway for brands like ours,” agreed Lee. “It’s also an interchange of ideas and trends and knowledge from the international markets.”

Brindley, who has spent as much time understanding her team’s dynamics as she has with the brands, is the champion of that win-win approach. “Our team has amazing ideas and I’ve been able to synthesize them into clear priorities for the organization to get behind,” she said. “They’re in the driver’s seat and are empowered to make decisions and that’s fun. Kecia and I talk about that all of the time — we want to have fun. Let’s make some magic.”