Our Insights

At Sephora, the price of entry may still be premium, but the price of performance is increasingly clear. It sits just under $40.
Across skincare, makeup, and hair, the fastest-moving products are not the most expensive ones. They are the items that deliver clinical efficacy, multi-use value, or format flexibility without crossing into luxury price points. That $25 to $40 window is not just a sweet spot. It is a sales engine.

Search isn’t just a touchpoint anymore it’s the battlefield. Whether it’s Ulta.com, Amazon, or Google, every conversion now starts with an algorithm. But most brands are flying blind on the terms that actually
drive sales, not just clicks. We analyzed the top beauty search terms on Amazon from
Q1 2025 and compared them to the same period last year. The results show a clear evolution. The fastest-rising terms weren’t tied to campaigns or brand heat. They were
functional. Ingredient-specific. And clinically positioned.

Prime Day is no longer a two day sprint. It is a four day campaign that requires clarity, coordination, and real strategy. For beauty brands, it is one of the highest intent shopping moments of the year, but only for
those who know how to meet the customer where they are.

Spring Haul season is always a key moment in the beauty retail calendar. It gives us an
early look at shifting consumer behavior, retailer strategy, and brand momentum across platforms. This year, with Ulta and Sephora activating promotions at the same time and Amazon building its own event calendar, the dynamics are changing fast.

In Q1 2025, beauty shoppers made one thing clear. Results matter more than ritual.
Across Amazon, Ulta, and Sephora, skincare products rooted in clinical ingredients and measurable claims outperformed brands that lead with story and aesthetics. This shift is not just about branding. It is behavioral. And it is showing up across search trends, product pages, reviews, and share of sales.

Ulta and Sephora may both dominate the beauty retail space, but they cater to
fundamentally different consumer mindsets—and now the data proves what many in the industry have long assumed. By analyzing category-level sales, product trends, and paid media dynamics across both retailers, the numbers backed up the perception. The Ulta shopper and the Sephora shopper aren’t just buying different brands—they’re solving different problems, shopping in different formats, and responding to different marketing tactics.

Ulta’s 21 Days of Beauty is no ordinary promotion. It is a retail event with cult status among beauty shoppers and a critical testing ground for what is resonating in the market. This year, it delivered more than just buzz. It offered a window into how consumers are making choices and how the brands that show up strategically are the ones driving results.

The Amazon Beauty & Personal Care category showed strong momentum in Q1 2025, with sponsorship activity up 8.7% and organic visibility down 1.3%, reinforcing the shift toward paid media. Top performers like Nutrafol (+2.4% share) and La Roche-Posay (+2.2%) gained ground through focused advertising and dermatologist-backed positioning, while
CeraVe held onto the top spot in skincare. High-performing hero SKUs—like Nutrafol’s
supplements and Clean Skin Club’s Clean Towels—drove a disproportionate share of sales, validating product-led strategies.

Sephora’s first quarter of 2025 showed consistent performance across categories but signaled a more focused shopper and a more competitive paid media landscape.
Shoppers leaned into recognizable brands, functional formats, and price points that
balanced value with experience.