Yahoo Finance Walmart, Space NK Introduce BeautySpace
It’s full steam ahead for BeautySpaceNK.
The shop-in-shop concept, born out of a partnership between Walmart and Space NK in a bid for America’s prestige beauty shoppers, has opened 250 doors and is building out its assortment with an incubated brand.
More from WWD
The brand itself, which is called BeautySpace, focuses on bath and body, including soaps, lotions and shower gels. Prices range from $9 for individual products to $15 for body wash and lotion sets.
“They’re really strong price points perfect for that aspirational Walmart customer in the prestige space,” said Andy Lightfoot, Space NK‘s chief executive officer. “Expect to see our selection continue to evolve.”
He didn’t rule out expanding the brand into new categories down the line, either.
The partnership is off to a strong start, executives from both retailers agreed. “The consumer is reacting fantastically, and we’re learning a lot about how the future of this will go,” said Creighton Kiper, Walmart’s recently minted vice president of merchandising, beauty.
Skin care has been the fastest to take off at BeautySpaceNK. “Mario [Badescu] is a customer favorite, Lancer as well has performed well,” Lightfoot said. “Some skus from By Terry are doing really well.”
The partnership overall, though, has pleased both parties with its performance. “I overheard a few customers explaining how they had Mario Badescu in-store and it saved them a trip to pick up their favorites. That is exactly what we were aiming to achieve with this convergence of prestige and convenience,” Lightfoot continued.
The rollout wasn’t without challenges, though. Walmart and Space NK announced the partnership in March of this year; doors started opening in June. “Rollout of this scale, at this speed, obviously presents challenges. Both sides have had to learn operationally how to execute getting these products onto shelves, and we were passionate that we wanted these to be open sell, not behind glass,” Lightfoot said. “Even in these early first few weeks, we’ve made great strides.”
Agility was the remedy, Kiper added. “As we’re learning, the key is we move quickly, presenting an offering that the customer was asking for,” he said. “Operationally, there’s been a lot of great partnership between the field and the teams on the brands to make sure the products are out and the customers are interacting well.”
Macroeconomic pressures such as inflation have done little to hamper growth in beauty at Walmart, Kiper said. “It’s right to acknowledge that we’re living in an inflationary market, but the fascinating thing about beauty is how resilient it is,” he said. “We’ve actually had really strong business the front half of this year, and we continue to see good signs of strengths in the business.”
As reported by WWD, prestige beauty grew 16 percent in the second quarter of 2022, according to The NPD Group. Walmart’s prestige beauty shopper is following similar trends. “We see customers making choices on where they want to buy beauty, and in prestige, we’re actually seeing an uptick,” Kiper said. “Convenience matters, trustworthiness matters, accessibility matters. The appetite and the expectation is not changing.”
Kiper declined to specify what portion of Walmart’s prestige business came from digital versus brick-and-mortar, but said that both were performing well. “The business has been strong in stores and continues to grow week-over-week, and the business has been good online,” he said. “We have every expectation to continue to grow. It’s really about being present, and how the customer wants to shop, and the customer is showing that there is an appetite in both channels.”
That success has made prestige beauty a growing strategic focus for Kiper. “Prestige is a really important component of the strategy here at beauty,” he said. “We’ve been on a transformation path from a place where customers come to a real authority in the space.…Prestige is a big industry, obviously, there’s an appetite. Walmart’s share of that business is not quite where we want it to be, so that’s why we’re moving boldly and quickly.”
Similarly, Lightfoot sees the economic climate as an advantage to BeautySpaceNK. “You give yourself the best opportunity by being where the customers are, rather than trying to attract them to somewhere they’re not,” he reasoned. “I don’t think this partnership could be better timed.”
Best of WWD
