d around how customers shop categories like cosmetics and skincare. Executive chairwoman Olivia Wirth has framed the overhaul as Myer’s biggest loyalty upgrade in more than two decades, positioning Myer One as a Qantas-style powerhouse that can drive sales, margins and data-led decision making after years of drift. Critically, Wirth has called out beauty as one of the most engaged categories in the program, especially among customers under 40, and the new MY Edition Beauty Boxes for Silver, Gold and Platinum members are a direct investment in that demand. With 4.7 million active members and more than half of recent joiners under 35, Myer is effectively using beauty perks as bait to attract and retain younger shoppers who are promiscuous with where they spend and highly responsive to rewards. Linking newly acquired apparel brands from Premier Investments into Myer One further encourages cross‑shopping between fashion and beauty, giving the retailer richer insight into how these categories reinforce each other. From Mecca dependence to owned beauty ecosystem Mecca’s decision to withdraw its concessions from Myer by late 2026 could have left a gaping hole on the beauty floor, given the brand’s role in redefining prestige beauty in Australia. Instead, Myer is using the looming exit as a forcing function to accelerate the “most significant transformation” of its beauty department in company history, with a renewed focus on owning its brand mix and customer experience. A cornerstone of this reset is the exclusive department store partnership with MAC Cosmetics from mid‑2026, which sits alongside existing exclusives like Benefit and the incoming Fenty Beauty. By becoming MAC’s sole department store home, Myer is trading the broad halo of Mecca for a sharper, more controlled prestige proposition where its own floors, not a third‑party retailer, are the destination. The strategy leans heavily into colour cosmetics as an entry point for younger beauty customers, with Myer promising more makeup‑artist expertise and immersive, service-led experiences to rebuild traffic and buzz at the counter. At the same time, Mecca’s pivot to large-format experiential stores underscores how crowded and fragmented distribution has become, from specialty beauty chains to pharmacy and pure‑play e‑commerce. Myer’s response suggests it is less interested in competing on breadth alone and more focused on curating exclusive brands, owned services and loyalty benefits that it can fully control and monetise. In effect, the retailer is swapping dependence on a powerful concession partner for a more vertically integrated beauty ecosystem. Range expansion tuned to the social shopper On the product side, Myer is aggressively widening its beauty portfolio, adding 22 brands and 1,731 new SKUs across 2025 and into 2026 in what its chief merchandise officer Belinda Slifkas describes as its biggest category transformation yet. The mix spans niche fragrance (Goldfield & Banks, Ex Nihilo, Fugazzi), celebrity scents (David Beckham, Paris Hilton), wellness and bath brands (Endota, Grown Alchemist, Antipodes) and fast‑moving skincare labels popular on TikTok, such as Nuxe, Bioderma and Glow Hub. A dedicated deal with BONIIK to curate Korean beauty brands, plus para‑pharmacy essentials, shows Myer is chasing the same digitally native, social‑first consumer that has powered Mecca and Chemist Warehouse’s growth. Slifkas notes that younger customers are “mixing and matching” across price points – pairing a low double‑digit Bioderma cleanser with a triple‑digit SK‑II toner and Lancôme serum – and that their decisions are shaped more by online reviews than traditional advertising. Myer’s range strategy reflects this behaviour: Build a basket where a prestige hero product sits alongside accessible “dupes” and trending treatments, encouraging experimentation without sacrificing spend. This push comes against the backdrop of a highly competitive Australian cosmetics and toiletry market, estimated at $6.3 billion in 2025 and forecast to keep growing. While the so‑called “lipstick effect” has supported beauty sales through a cost‑of‑living crunch, Slifkas is clear that distribution has exploded as new formats and players pile into the category. Myer’s answer is not just more brands, but more targeted brands – guided by loyalty data that reveals what customers want, what they ignore and where there is room to cross‑sell into fashion and homewares. Talent and media shaping cultural relevance Beyond product and loyalty, Myer is investing in the softer levers that make a beauty business culturally relevant: Talent and media. The appointment of former Mecca merchandise head Isobel McNally as GM of beauty sends a clear signal that Myer wants inside expertise on how to grow beauty as a high‑velocity, experience‑rich category. Reporting into Slifkas, McNally will oversee a portfolio that already includes new luxury additions like La Mer, Guerlain and Swiss Perfection, alongside colour brands such as Carolina Herrera Beauty and Rabanne. On the media front, the exclusive multi‑year partnership with News Corp’s Glamour Australia gives Myer a content‑led route to the Gen Z and Millennial audiences it is chasing. The digital‑first title will integrate editorial, social and e‑commerce, enabling instant shopping of products featured in content and positioning Myer as the retail backbone of a “trusted beauty destination” for young Australians. In an era where social algorithms and creator recommendations drive discovery, this kind of always‑on, shoppable storytelling is as much an investment in performance marketing as it is in brand. Taken together, these moves show Myer trying to rebuild beauty not as a bolt‑on concession floor, but as a high‑margin, high‑engagement ecosystem that touches loyalty, media, merchandising and store experience. The open question now is execution: Can Myer translate exclusive brands, content partnerships and loyalty perks into a beauty experience compelling enough to rival pure‑play specialists in the eyes of younger shoppers?