Two giants. One battleground: Prestige beauty.
Mecca and Sephora have shaped the Australian beauty retail landscape, building their brands on loyalty, curated experiences, and a deep emotional connection with customers.
They are both loved by millions of Aussie shoppers – but when it comes to online customer experience, which brand truly comes out on top?
Both brands are featured on the Humii Online CX Index in partnership with Inside Retail, which tracks and scores the online experience of Australia’s leading retailers. While both retailers are high performers, closer examination reveals distinct differences in their journeys.
Humii has conducted hundreds of mystery shops across both retailers. Each journey was tracked across over 200 data points, from discovery to post-purchase. Identical scenarios across mobile, desktop, and app were used with no opinions canvassed – just data.
The winner? Mecca
While the devil, as often, lies in the details, the overall winner after taking all factors into account is Mecca. The high-flying local Australian beauty retailer, about to open one of the world’s largest beauty stores in downtown Melbourne, outperforms a subsidiary of the European luxury giant LVMH.
Mecca has an overall online CX score of 77.8 out of 100. Sephora is a clear margin behind at 71.4.
That doesn’t make Mecca perfect. The Aussie company falls way behind Sephora in several key performance standards. Getting a response from Mecca’s live chat will take an average of two minutes, but Sephora’s team will respond in 48 seconds.
When it comes to shipping, Sephora delivers more quickly; in 1.5 days, compared to Mecca’s 2.1 days.
Where Mecca excels is in refund processing, with a four-day turnaround compared to almost three weeks (19.7 days) by Sephora.
Mecca is also a little quicker to respond to emails – 16.1 hours compared to 19 hours.
Where each brand wins
While Mecca leads overall, Sephora delivers a more substantial experience in the website journey, which includes search and discovery, pre-purchase support, and checkout and payment, outscoring Mecca by four points.
However, Mecca excels in the post-purchase experience, which encompasses dispatch and delivery, product and packaging, returns and refunds, post-purchase support, and loyalty and retention. Here, Mecca outpaces Sephora by a significant gap of eight points.
More tellingly, 13 per cent of Sephora shoppers said they would not shop on the site again given their customer experience, compared to just 4 per cent of Mecca customers.
However, both brands achieved low levels of website abandonment – when shoppers said they would leave before completing checkout: Just 2 per cent for Sephora and 4 per cent for Mecca.
Sephora is showing significant improvement
Despite the top-line figures, Sephora is demonstrating ongoing improvement to the level of customer experience and satisfaction it is delivering. Sephora’s overall Online CX score has improved by eight points over the past six months, and Mecca’s Online CX score has improved by three points over the past six months.
The takeaways
Mareile Osthus, Humii’s co-founder and CEO, says both brands are leaders in online beauty retail and consistently deliver high-quality experiences that set the benchmark for the industry.
“However, our results show their strengths emerge in different phases of the customer journey. For Sephora, it’s all about ease and speed upfront, while for Mecca, it’s the care and consistency that follow after the purchase that make the difference.”
Osthus notes that while return rates in the beauty category are typically lower than those in other categories, the returns experience remains a critical touchpoint for shoppers.
“In this space, Mecca is outperforming Sephora. With faster refund processing and a smoother overall experience, Mecca demonstrates how even low-frequency moments can leave a lasting impact.”
Inside Retail managing editor of features and premium, Heather McIlvaine notes that competition is particularly high in the beauty sector, so retailers can’t afford to overlook any areas for improvement in their customer experience.
“Mecca and Sephora are known for their exclusive brands, personalised product recommendations, virtual try-on tools, and incredible customer service, but as Mareile points out, both retailers have room to lift their game by solving small moments of frustration in the delivery, return and refund process.
“By looking at it from the customer’s perspective, and trying to understand the real-life impact of waiting longer than expected for a chatbot response, or a refund, Mecca and Sephora have an opportunity to turn a ‘good enough’ online interaction into an exceptional one.”
