o win over the Australian beauty customer since it opened its first store down under in December 2014. Fast forward to today, it has 33 stores total in Australia which all adhere to a standard square footage – between 300 sqm to 350 sqm – with no plans to shake up the format anytime soon. “We will continue to expand our footprint in a manner that allows us to solidify ourselves in every city or every store that we decide to open,” Cheah confirmed. “Our network strategy has always been very intentional – it’s not about quantity, but quality in what we deliver to our consumers,” she added. Loyalty is earned not given Sephora may not have the same number of Australian doors as its home-grown prestige-beauty rival Mecca, but its global presence gives it an edge when it comes to forecasting. Sephora’s Beauty Pass is a tiered loyalty program that works across borders, allowing beauty fans to shop with perks around the world. “We have 15 million consumers actually, just in this region, imagine that across the globe – so we have a lot of consumers, beauty pass members in Southeast Asia and Oceania,” Cheah said. The international loyalty program allows Sephora to forecast and plan for its consumers by looking at the aggregated data around what consumers are buying and looking for – taking into account categories, franchises and product lines. “That really helps inform our regional strategy quite a bit, and our merchants have constant conversations with our brand partners and our founders,” Cheah explained. “Then our marketing team is constantly gathering data from social media and consumer feedback,” she added. Sephora has implemented many strategies to optimise itself for the omnichannel customer but according to Cheah, its primary goal is to create the simplest journey. “One of the key initiatives that we have implemented this year, or come to life this year, is what we call Skincredible,” she shared. Skincredible, by Sephora, is an exclusive in-store service using the Skincredible device that provides an insight into the individual customer’s skin and its dermatological needs. Rather than customers getting generic advice from friends or social media, Skincredible provides an in-store skin consultation and personalised recommendations based on the results.  Alongside its skincare service Skincredible, Sephora offers makeup, brow and facial services in-store. “We really pride ourselves on our values; diversity and inclusion – we welcome everyone to the world of beauty and make them feel beautiful,” Cheah explained. “So I think having this personalised approach to our consumer really makes them feel like they’re being heard and understood,” she continued. “We’re recommending really based on what you need versus pushing a specific brand – we’re very agnostic.”  The real power of celebrity  While Sephora may be brand agnostic when it comes to recommending products to its customers, it refuses to compromise on efficacy. “That product has to have demonstrated that it works, and that it helps with an area of skin – if not multiple areas of the skin – to achieve the goal that consumers want. I think that’s critical,” Cheah stated. According to Cheah, this is why Sephora’s house brand, Sephora Collection, remains its top seller in-store and online by offering consumers efficacy at an accessible price point. That criteria extends to celebrity founded brands which have evolved over the last decade from commercial products to prestige empires that are pushing the beauty industry forward. Haus Labs by Lady Gaga is a Sephora-exclusive global collaboration that officially launched across its Asia Pacific brick-and-click network this month and has already been met with incredible commercial success. Rhianna’s Fenty, Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty and Lady Gaga’s Haus Lab’s have raised the bar collectively around what consumers expect from a beauty brand – by combining product efficacy with community values. “I think we definitely collaborate and partner with brands whose values actually resonate with us,” Cheah concluded. “We want to build a long term and sustainable partnership with them and help them grow in every part of the world.”