At 55 years old, Sephora is getting a facelift

• Sephora is embarking on the largest capital project in its history — a complete redesign of its stores.
• Sephora CEO Artemis Patrick said the redesign would change how its North American shops look.
• She said the refresh aimed to provide a consistent consumer experience across all stores.

Sephora is betting big on its brick-and-mortar strategy by giving its entire fleet of North American stores a facelift.

The LVMH-owned beauty retailer, which operates over 2,700 stores in 35 countries, will revamp the design of all its North American stores in the next five years, CEO Artemis Patrick said at the National Retail Federation's Big Show on Monday.

Patrick said it will be the "largest capital project for Sephora in its history." She added that while some stores will only see minor changes, others can expect "major redesigns."

She said the company talked to "millions of consumers" and used heat maps to understand its customers' shopping habits.

One thing the retailer is rethinking is gondolas — stand-alone islands in its stores that display products from one particular brand. She said that the gondolas are "quite expensive."

"We're not a cheap date," Patrick said. "And we don't want our brands to be spending a ton of money on building these amazing fixtures, and then it's not productive and doesn't work out."

Instead, she said that Sephora was testing out a new layout format focused on Sephora's four key product categories — makeup, skincare, fragrance, and hair care — which would make updating stores easier.

Another change shoppers can expect to see is the location of the beauty studios, which will be moved to the sides of the stores.

"We talked to our millions of consumers, and the reality is, they didn't want their makeup being done in the window," she said. "Not shocking."

Patrick said that Sephora is also rethinking the section near the checkout counters where the mini sizes of products are placed.

She said that with Sephora's staff billing a fourth of customers via mobile devices around the stores, the minis section could be broken up and moved to the front of the stores instead of near the checkout counters.

She added that the redesign, as a whole, aimed to give Sephora customers in different regions a consistent experience.

"One of the things that was really, really important to us was ensuring that no matter what, where you are, whether you are in our Soho store, you're in Boise, Idaho, or you're in Vancouver Island, that experience is the same no matter where you go," she said.

She added, "Because we do believe we have that consistency with our beauty advisors, but maybe not necessarily in all our retail stores."

Sephora contributed heavily to LVMH's "selective retailing" division. In the first half of 2024, ending June 30, the division raked in $8.6 billion in revenues and saw a 7% increase in profits from recurring operations compared to the year before.

Its biggest competitors in the US include the cosmetics store chain Ulta Beauty and department store chains Nordstrom and Macy's. Macy's recently announced that it plans to shutter 150 stores by the end of 2026.

Representatives of Sephora declined to comment in response to a request from Business Insider.