Walmart breaks its no-frills mold with in-store beauty experts and personalized advice

The roles were filled at 22 stores in Arkansas and Texas in recent months, and Walmart expects to have them in more than 400 of its 4,600 namesake U.S. stores by year-end.

The addition of “beauty experts” comes as Walmart, rival Target, specialty chains like Sephora and department stores all are vying for a bigger slice of the $129 billion U.S. beauty and personal care market, including by offering customized advice and playful, interactive spaces to encourage consumers to shop in person as well as online.

A year ago, Walmart set up areas in 40 stores where customers could sample makeup and speak with beauty advisors. The pilot “beauty bar” concept is now in hundreds of stores, according to Vinima Shekhar, vice president of beauty merchandising for Walmart’s U.S. division. As part of plans to remodel 650 locations by the end of the year, the company is moving beauty departments to the front of stores and installing displays to showcase products getting attention on social media.

“We’re not trying to be an Ulta or Sephora,” Shekhar told The Associated Press. “We have the breadth of assortment that no one else has. We have convenience that no one else has. What we also then want to do is layer on a level of service for both our associates and our customers: ‘Here’s what trending. Here’s what’s new.’”

The importance of a human touch

Department stores and beauty product chains always have employed people to assist customers with testing and buying cosmetics. Pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens added beauty experts to many of their locations in the last decade. Walmart's decision to join them highlights how retailers with physical stores rely on a human touch to distinguish themselves from online shopping platforms and AI chatbots.

Walmart has added more premium brands to its beauty assortment in the last year, including French pharmacy skin care brand La Roche Posay, Australian natural makeup brand Nude by Nature, and FHI Heat hair tools. They are not cheap. Some La Roche Posay sunscreens cost just under $40 for 1.7 oz.

The beauty refresh is part of a broader Walmart initiative to upgrade its merchandise and ambience as it attracts higher-income shoppers. Customers who buy higher-end products and not only everyday skin and hair staples are looking for inspiration when they shop, Shekhar said.

Target announced in early March that it planned to expand its assortment of upscale beauty products and to deploy staff members with enhanced product expertise this fall in 600 stores. In those stores, a new department called Target Beauty Studio will partly replace in-store Ulta shops. As part of a Target partnership ending in August, Ulta had beauty consultants in Target stores.

Experts providing enhanced customer service may become a feature in other departments of mass market retail stores. Walmart is considering adding experts in electronics, for example, according to Whitney Hunt, vice president of Walmart's U.S. operations.

Target began launching a “baby boutique” experience last month in nearly 200 stores where a concierge helps shoppers find products registries created by expectant parents.

Advice that's in demand

While artificial intelligence threatens to eliminate jobs across industries, online job postings for beauty experts and beauty advisers remained fairly stable between February 2020 and this month, according to Cory Stahle, an economist with the research arm of jobs site Indeed. Online postings for both marketing and software development jobs fell more than 20% in the same period, Indeed said.

The median wage for beauty expert roles was $19.54 per hour in March, roughly $2 more than the hourly wage for all other retail jobs, according to Indeed data. Walmart said its beauty experts can earn $14 to $35 an hour, depending on the store location. That's similar to the hourly range of $14 to $37 for all of Walmart's hourly workers, the company said.

Walmart's beauty advisers undergo a day of training at a company academy and receive ongoing instruction on products, seasonal trends and working with customers. They don't apply products on shoppers or do makeovers, unlike some of the employees at department stores and specialty beauty chains.

Walmart is providing online tools to help the advisers understand the sales targets they should meet, the beauty department's top-selling brands and how their store compares with the business generated in other Walmart locations, Hunt said.

Helena Bacon, 21, a University of Arkansas junior studying biology, said the training she had last fall made her feel more empowered to help customers. Before then, she helped out in the area that covers pharmacy, health and personal care items like basic shampoos and toothpaste of a store in Fayetteville and occasionally helped customers find items in the beauty area.

Bacon said she now understands product ingredients, knows how to identify lipstick shades that flatter different customers and is on top of TikTok trends.

“I was kind of everywhere before,” she said. “But now that I’m just in my section, if someone does come up to me and asks for a recommendation for something, ... I could go over with them into that section and say, 'This what I know is good for the problem you’re trying to fix.'”