How the Retail Partnerships at Target and Kohl’s are Faring

By Faye Brookman

By most counts, the partnerships between Target and Ulta and Kohl’s and Sephora are willing. While Target has a slight edge over Kohl’s and is building sales across a wider range of categories, the Sephora and Kohl’s alliance is gaining steam.

The brands in both hybrid concepts are also gaining exposure and sales, especially brands that Target now sells via Ulta Beauty that its shoppers could not access in the past.

Kohl’s biggest score has been in fragrances, a category where it did not have a major presence in its past iterations. That’s one of the findings presented recently by Circana, the new company formed with the merger of NPD and IRI.

Target has produced sales in makeup, skin care and hair with the biggest gains in skin.

Speaking at an investor day, Christina Hennington, chief growth officer and executive vice president at Target said beauty is delivering the highest growth rates across the store. While beauty in general is riding a sales wave, Hennington noted the eye-opening results.

“Last year’s sales from Ulta Beauty at Target were more than four times higher than in 2021. This growth is almost entirely incremental,” she stated. Beyond the brands Ulta brings, Target added at least 40 new lines in its stores last year.

Fragrance has been an emerging area at Target in its traditional mass space with high sell-throughs of Mix:Bar, Frenshe by Ashley Tisdale and a positive response to a new exclusive called Fine’ry. Target also offers a clean beauty line called Good Chemistry in its lineup that is helping usher in sales in mass market fragrances which have been dormant for the past decade.

There are also new items set to launch this year such as LilyAna Naturals, AfroPick, Everyday By Unsun and Saltair.

Ulta is firing on all cylinders at Target, but also just announced new a premium segment is being carved out with many of the most prestigious names in the business now coming to Ulta Beauty stores. A special area at the front of about 200 stores will house either new distribution or expanded availability of Chanel, Hourglass, Dior, Natasha Denona, Tom Ford, Viktor & Rolf, Gucci, Tiffany and Givenchy.

Shifting gears to Kohl’s, the retailer is under a new management team that is on a rebuilding program with Sephora as a focal point.

The company says the original 200 stores produced high single-digit comp sales in 2021 and the 400 that opened last year posted “better than expected” results. Some eight million customers bought Sephora products in Kohl’s last year and total beauty sales jumped 90% in the fourth quarter.

Some of the best sellers in the combo stores, listed by Kohl’s, included the Sephora Collection, Sol de Janeiro, NARS, Fenty Beauty, Charlotte Tilbury, OLAPLEX, and Too Faced. Kohl’s also has its eyes on building out a bigger men’s grooming selection. There were about 600 of combo stores at the end of 2022. Kohl’s has plans to put Sephora shops in all its stores.