Mandates may have closed the Ulta Beauty stores, but it has meant that a large number of customers have instead chosen to engage with the retail online for the first time.
Ulta has moved quickly to gain an advantage of this new customer base, and CEO Mary Dillon said on the retailer’s first-quarter earnings call that “We’ve got a lot of guests who’ve never shopped online with us before who are now converting to omni-channel guests, I guess out of necessity. The more that we can keep them shopping multiple channels, the better. They spend almost three times as much historically as somebody who shops in stores only.”
Approximately 840 of Ulta’s 1,264 stores are open for curb side pickup. A quarter of Ulta’s total stores are open to guests for retail, and salon services are open in 283. The retailer expects all stores to be operational by the end of June. “While it’s early in the reopening process, we’ve seen stronger-than-expected sales in reopened stores, and we’re seeing great guest engagement with our salon services, with many appointments booked several weeks out,” Dillon said.
