How specialty beauty retail came to dominate the mass channel

Shopping for beauty is not like it used to be, and you have specialty retailers dedicated exclusively to beauty to thank for that. The change to beauty retail has occurred over three decades since Sephora and Ulta Beauty first emerged in the 1990s and disrupted the department store dynamic. But over time, specialty retail’s influence has crept into other shopping spheres, like e-commerce and mass retail. A key motivator for this creep is the chicken-and-egg dynamic of where and how customers shop and how specialty retail has influenced and responded to it.