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LIFE & STYLE
In Aisle Five, $50 Skin Cream Big Beauty Brands Push Up Skin-Care Prices at Mass Retailers
Updated Jan. 15, 2014 10:55 p.m. ET
Shoppers, welcome to the world of "masstige" skin- and hair-care products—a retail world where "mass"
players like big-box chains and drugstores sell products similar to the "prestige" offerings sold at
department stores.
Mass brands from Unilever, L'Oréal, Procter & Gamble, and Johnson & Johnson are boldly pushing up
prices to $25 and beyond for products with premium ingredients that target specific problems, selling them
alongside traditional $8 moisturizers. Target is taking pricing a big step further, with plans next month to
introduce high-end skin-care products including three priced at $55.
Retailers selling these new products are trying to up their game and compete with department stores for
beauty purchases. Target, Walgreens and Rite Aid have new display areas with better lighting and fixtures
and employees trained to answer questions or offer advice. Even so, young shoppers don't necessarily
demand such amenities, relying on YouTube video reviews and social media recommendations to steer
them to products before they set foot in a store.
Makers of m ass-m arket hair and skin products are heading into new pricing territory: $30-plus for a bottle of skin lotion or hair
conditioner that straddles "m ass m arket" and "prestige." Elizabeth Holm es discusses. Photo: F. Martin Ram in/The Wall Street
Journal.
By EL IZABETH H OL MES
Young women "care less about what store they are buying
at, and more about the product and the product features,"
says Virginia Lee, a senior research analyst at research firm
Euromonitor. Convenience is key for time-starved shoppers.
"Department stores have limited hours and limited locations,
whereas your average drugstore is open to 7 a.m. to 10
p.m."
Skin care is the focal point as stores clamor for a bigger
share of the $12 billion industry. Drugstores, such as
Walgreens, sold roughly 13% of all skin-care products in
2012, while mass merchandisers, such as Target, sold
about 8%. That compares with 17% for department stores,
according to Euromonitor.
To justify the higher prices, many so-called masstige
products claim to offer solutions to specific problems.
"There's a willingness to pay more to treat that skin because
your needs are heightened," says Rob Candelino, Unilever's
vice president of marketing for skin care. Unilever's Dove
division this month launched two new masstige brands.
Dove DermaSeries is aimed at women with extremely dry
skin and priced from $7.99 for a cleansing bar to $19.99 for
an eczema "therapy cream."
Dove Men+Care's Expert Shave line, meant to address
shaving concerns, is priced even higher, ranging from
$21.99 for a pre-shave exfoliator to $25.99 for a post-shave
"repair balm." Mr. Candelino says the growing interesting in
men's grooming has shown men are "less rigid" about price.
"They are much more inclined to say, 'I have a specific need,
I want the best quality of product,' " he adds. And the higher
price itself is an indicator of quality, he says. "It supports the
fact that there is something unique."
Next month, Target plans to launch a number of skin-care
lines, including newly developed brands and some prestige
lines from overseas with a big remodeling of its beauty
department. It plans to improve lighting and displays and
expand what it calls its beauty "concierge" program, which
puts a trained employee in the section.
The beauty business attracts a mix of two desirable shopper types—those replenishing staples, who are
valued because they build store traffic, and those shopping on impulse, who are "driven by inspiration,"
says Christina Hennington, Target's vice president of beauty and personal care. "We see guests buying
toilet paper and then come over and browse in beauty for a significant amount of time."
To catch these shoppers' attention, many companies are racing to release new twists on skin-care
F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by
Anne Cardenas
Target's premium skin-care line includes exclusive
products such as a $23.99 Borghese f ace serum. F.
Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by
Anne Cardenas
F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal
formulas that were first seen in prestige brands' products, such as last year's influx of BB and CC Creams
or the "blur" wrinkle-camouflaging products hitting shelves now.
"We have to have an obsession about being new, better, different," says Malena Higuera, senior vice
president of marketing for the L'Oréal Paris brand.
Most masstige products go beyond basic cleansing and moisturizing. Often they offer similar active
ingredients like Retinol found in a number of products from Johnson & Johnson's Neutrogena and RoC
divisions. P&G's Olay brand introduced some of the earliest masstige brands several years ago, including
the Regenerist line of anti-aging products and the Pro-X collection designed by dermatologists.
Many drugstores don't have dedicated employees available
to explain the complicated benefits, so the masstige product
"really has to sell itself," says Michelle Ryan, senior vice
president of product development at Garnier, owned by
L'Oréal. Garnier aims for clear, simple language with
diagrams and color coding.
"Boosts wrinkle repair in just 1 step," reads the box for its
Ultra-Lift 2-in-1 Wrinkle Reducer. A small cylindrical timeline
at the bottom of the box indicates the product is meant to be
used after the "clean" and "treat" steps.
Masstige products are benefiting as more consumers
research skin care online. Anissa Dang first learned about L'Oréal Paris's Youth Code line from a YouTube
video. At first, the 24-year-old was skeptical about the price tag. "Maybe I should take my $25 and go to
Nordstrom or Sephora and get a real beauty cream," she recalls thinking.
But the video review was glowing, and Ms. Dang, who lives in Anchorage, Alaska, sought out the products
online and found them at Target for $19.99 each. With the help of some coupons, she bought a serum and
a moisturizer for $34, which felt like a bargain compared with department store products and prices, she
says.
Mass retailers' hair-care offerings include many brands, including Matrix's Biolage and Unilever's Tigi, that
are "authorized" for sale only in salons, but end up in stores through distributors.
Unilever's Nexxus hair-care line sells at thousands of salons as well as in many approved mass retail
outlets. The brand's tagline, "Salon Hair Care," has come to mean less about where it is sold and "more a
distinction of the quality of the product," says David Rubin, vice president of U.S. hair at Unilever. In recent
months, Unilever has introduced a line from hair-salon chain Toni & Guy, including styling products that will
be sold in both stores and salons.
"There is a common expectation by many consumers that most products are available in lots of different
places," Mr. Rubin says.
It has been more than a decade since Sephora, LVMH's specialty beauty chain, jolted the cosmetics
industry with its "open-sell" environment, bringing products out from behind glass display cases so
shoppers could handle them and experiment. Ulta, another retail chain, was among the first to put mass
and prestige offerings on the same selling floor. In recent years, drugstores have upgraded makeup
displays, adding more opportunities to sample products before purchase.
From Dove's new 'masstige' line f or extra-dry skin, an
$18.99 rough patch treatment. F. Martin Ramin/The
Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas
At Walgreens, shoppers browse the range of products,
including mass, masstige and those it calls its own
"prestige" offerings, says Shannon Curtin, the chain's group
vice president and general merchandise manager of beauty
and personal care. More than three quarters of its shoppers
are female. The variety of beauty products a woman might
use mirrors the tendency toward high-low mixing in clothes,
Ms. Curtin adds.
Overall, beauty shoppers tend to spend more. At Rite Aid,
the market basket, or total purchase size, of the beauty
shopper is greater than for the standard customer, says Bill
Bergin, group vice president of health and beauty. Higher-
priced products don't tend to sell as quickly as lower-priced rivals—nor do they need to.
"At a premium price point," Mr. Bergin says, "you don't need to sell as many units to generate the same
sales and profit."
Write to Elizabeth Holmes at [email protected]
$39.99 MD Complete w rinkle remover. F. Martin
Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne
Cardenas
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