Retail Guide: Cosmetic Displays
Recently we sat down with our very own 3D Design Director, Bill Turner, to discuss his approach to cosmetic retail displays.
Before coming to Axis Display Group, Bill had a long career with respected fixture producer RTC. During that time, Bill’s eye for detail, rapid design time turnaround, and ability to read between the lines enabled him to play a central part in the design and development of retail solutions for national cosmetics retailers, wholesalers, specialty shops, and individual beauty brands alike.
In our conversation we explored:
The type of cosmetic projects and clients Bill has worked with in the past
Bill’s experience with navigating rapid product innovation and demand for frequent changes/updates
Challenges brands and retailers in this industry seem to share, such as speed, durability, continuity, relevancy
Some upcoming shifts in consumer demand and how that will affect future retail experiences
How, where, and why AXIS is able to serve this industry with our “displagency” business model
BEAUTY RETAILING
Working in the cosmetics industry isn’t all glamour; it’s time-consuming, demanding hard work. Anyone who has done it knows. With as quickly as consumer demands shift and as much as the seasons change, there are always new ways to challenge creative capacities and breathe fresh life into beauty retail.
Throughout his 20+ year career in retail design, Bill has worked on many of the universal wall systems for major beauty retailers such as Sephora, Ulta, Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Sally Hansen, and more. This experience has given him the opportunity to become familiar with brands like L'Oréal, Revlon, ILIA, CoverGirl, and Maybelline, helping them with free standing displays, end caps, and national wall systems as well.
In working with these organizations, Bill has learned to navigate the complexities between brands, retailers, internal design teams/agencies, vendors, and implementation teams. He states, “It’s not uncommon to have a single unit in a retail program go through 5-6+ iterations, requiring subsequent instruction sheet versions, planograms, and training materials, only to be changed and seasonally updated a few weeks later.”
He goes on to explain,
“There are some beauty retailers that assign you a brand to focus on and then you’re tasked with showcasing that entire cosmetics line in four shelves. You have to capture the brand essence. You have to know how to appeal to that brand’s overall marketing objectives. You have to follow the guidelines that the retailer sets forth for their store. You come up with concepts on your own - no planograms - and then you send it for review. The retailer has to approve. The brand has to approve. Sometimes they aren’t on the same page. It’s a huge commitment. Once you get it just right, you’re back to the drawing board because of quarterly updates. There is never a low point.”
Further, Bill notes how important it is for cosmetic brands and retailers to work with vendor partners that have the capacity for this type of resource demand, saying “sometimes you need to prototype every week and have to establish special teams to keep up with product and program changes, communications, and logistics.”
Beyond a capacity standpoint, Bill also discusses how channel differences affect the overall execution and ROI of cosmetic retail programs, especially for brands:
“Brands...L’Oréal, Covergirl, you name it...struggle with the fact that if someone buys their product at Walmart, it’s treated as a commodity; it’s something that ends up on their grocery list along with milk and bread. But when someone buys that same product at Ulta, they’re viewing it as a slightly different thing, even though it’s the same. So it can be difficult for brands to overcome the mindset of not wanting to spend as much time, money, or attention in an area that commoditizes their products.”
”When a customer shops in an Ulta, for example, it’s more common that they’ll have their phones out looking at reviews or at so and so influencer’s makeup tutorial with an associated shopping list of products they need to recreate the look. Maybe it’s Maybelline this or Urban Decay that...they go from brand to brand, inside and outside of prestige vs. mass, to acquire the necessary products. It’s a different mindset. Some brands struggle with how to create an experience within each shopper demographic that serves these varying customer expectations.”
(This sentiment reflects a Women’s Wear Daily article on the Ulta shopping experience reporting that “Ulta customers are proven to shop both categories [mass and prestige] - with store data showing that 77 percent of Ulta’s customer base shops the two, and only 23 percent shops one or the other.”)
To add insult to injury, the wear and tear on cosmetic displays, trays, fixtures, end caps, shelving, and other items is usually quite extensive, diminishing the selling power of these investments, especially in commodity channels.
“You go back and forth and back and forth with brands on all this minutia, these tiny little details that once it’s out in the field, the consumer would have no idea about the hoops that were jumped through in order to get it approved. Yet, when you go to assess the installations, especially in stores like Walgreens or Walmart, it’s almost certain that you’ll walk up and down the aisles fixing trays because the new parts that were sent out were not installed properly. There were all these worries about fit and finish, but now it’s cracked and hanging sideways with lipstick scribbled all over it.”
“...And in the case of cosmetic retailers’ wall systems, if something breaks or doesn’t seem to be functioning optimally, brands kind of have their hands tied because they don’t have the flexibility and freedom to change up who manufacturers the trays or other elements. They have to work with whatever POP manufacturer the retailer is contracted with for the universal wall system - so [brands] can design their space, but they don’t get to decide how it’s made and they can’t easily fix it if it’s broken. There are royalties and special rules, politics and policing to navigate when it comes to a brand’s space within a retailer.”
Bill assures me us this is not a criticism. It’s just a fact - a side effect of a complex system with many moving parts only exacerbated by the type of products that are on display - things people want to open, test, experience, and put on their face.
AT THE END OF THE DAY, IT’S STILL ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE, OR RATHER, THE CUSTOMER’S EXPECTATIONS
Those in the cosmetics retail industry try to remain hyper-focused on providing their customers the best environment to test, try, and experiment with products prior to purchase. Whether casually browsing the aisles of Target or CVS for a new eyeliner, or wandering into a Sephora or M.A.C. standalone eager to try the latest trending product, people need to know what they’re paying for.
Naturally, creating a space for seamless and sanitary product play makes the most sense; however, that’s sometimes easier said than done. Bill notes with a laugh, “It’s always one of the last things [cosmetics brands] ask: ‘OK but wait, how do they put the product on?”
As brands, retailers, and designers continue to get creative in solving for this issue, Bill shares that some of them have “started experimenting with augmented reality apps (such as Magic Mirror) and other “try-on” technologies” - things that can get expensive and become cumbersome to scale. He notes that policing these deployments in the field is a challenge, too.
There are, of course, other examples at play in retail that do not equate “experiential” with technology. An example of this can be seen in the expansion of CVS’ BeautyIRL hygiene bars. This concept provides mass market shoppers with an experience reminiscent of a department store beauty counter or that of a consultant-customer interaction common in the prestige areas of Ulta or Sephora. Outside of CVS, many stores (including department) are encouraging associates to remain brand-agnostic, zoning in on the individual customer’s holistic needs.
As consumer demands continue to shift in the areas of product preferences, preferred shopping methods, inclusivity, and overall industry transparency (clean labels, un-photoshopped photos, etc.), brands and retailers are challenged with turning their space and their retail marketing programs into areas that provide customers peace of mind.
“I’ve worked on designing entire departments for brands and retailers over the past few years. I’ve suggested new store layouts and traffic flows, created shop-in-shops and all sorts of other things to meet evolving customer expectations,” remarks Bill.
It’s not a matter of if this is possible or if it’s necessary; it’s a matter of how to succeed in designing for the customer experience at each level and within each channel in a way that promotes testing and associate interaction (when desirable), remains durable, cost-effective, and easily adaptable, while enhancing the overall mission and goals of both the retailer and the brand, individually and simultaneously.
Whew.
SO, WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?
Bill will be the first tell you that he doesn’t know the solution, because as mentioned above, once he’s found the *solution,* the industry will require a new one. But that’s the nature of the game, and a welcome challenge.
One of the reasons Axis Display Group hired Bill, other than his impressively original and speedy rendering abilities, is because of his wealth of knowledge and industry experience in all industries, not just cosmetics. We asked him to take a look at our business model and apply it to his experience working in cosmetics retail. Where could we help? Where could we improve customer experience? How can we promote a more beneficial relationship between beauty brands and beauty retailers? Where should we not waste our time?
While Bill noted that AXIS may not be a perfect fit for becoming the next contract manufacturer of universal wall systems for cosmetics retailers, he did point out our knack for building and managing channel retail programs in a way that other companies simply do not. He views this type of mastery beneficial for cosmetics retail for a few reasons:
Design-wise:
Axis Display Group functions as a Displagency. Quite simply, that means we operate equally as a creative agency and a display company. It allows us to come at retail from a truly holistic outlook. We’re able to perform the type of channel research, store assessments, consumer research, and market analysis necessary to deliver cohesive and resonant shopper experiences throughout demographics without losing the integrity of the brand or the product - as a single-source supplier.
Production-wise:
Axis Display Group has excellent value-engineering capabilities. Our hybrid model of global and domestic manufacturing gives us quick access to limitless materials, and our engineering team knows how to take a design and raise the bar so it makes sense to shoppers, saves money, and actually lasts in the field. We provide quick turnarounds and play nicely with others, i.e. we know how to deliver what our clients want, but will never, ever, shy away from presenting them with solutions to make it better - whether the initial concept came from us or not.
Logistically:
The complexities of a brand-retailer relationship in the cosmetics industry is not all that different from the complexities of a brand-dealer network relationship in other CPG industries. It takes time and attention to get all parties on the same page, keep them on the same page, and ensure activities and investments are driving the bottom line forward for both. As a supplier, it’s important to consider the B2B dynamics between brands, retailers, and associates that directly and indirectly affect the overall ROI of retail programs. Offering services such as project consulting, distribution planning, communication planning, store associate training, and merchandising support gives all parties a higher level of control and understanding, increasing the likelihood the investment will maximum positive impact with shoppers.
We believe the future of cosmetics retail is bright. Let’s create something great together.
Together with Bill’s practical experience and AXIS’ prestige in the retail industry, we’d like to open up new possibilities for beauty brands and cosmetics retailers to reach greater (and lasting) levels of success with today’s shoppers. Partner with us to:
discuss a new freestanding display, spinner, or end cap
work on adapting existing spaces to new product lines
reimagine the efficacy, durability, and cost of a current program
launch a DTC product at retail
create success plans for channel management, merchandising, and logistic support
and more
