Updated at 12:14 p.m. ET on Sept. 29
Sephora and M&S are partnering to bring a new beauty experience in the U.K.
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It will be called Sephora at M&S and be located in select M&S stores and on its website starting in spring 2027. There should be approximately 100 such doors ultimately.
"The partnership is an important next step in the transformation of M&S fashion, home and beauty, offering customers more of the beauty brands they love and a stronger specialist experience," Sephora and M&S said in a joint statement.
"By bringing together Sephora's beauty expertise, brand relationships and focus on discovery with M&S' trusted brand, national presence and omnichannel platform, the partnership will make a specialist beauty experience accessible to more customers in more places," it continued. "M&S will bring Sephora to 100 high streets and shopping parks in the U.K."
While the U.S. has been no stranger to such tie-ups — think Sephora on TikTok Shop in the U.S. and Bath & Body Works' respective forays on Amazon and in Ulta — it is less common in Europe.
Rumors had existed in the past that Sephora had been in talks with M&S. WWD last reported on the possibility in January 2008.
For M&S, the hope is that the new beauty offer will help lure new customers and enrich existing customers' shopping experience. Indeed, while food sales were up 7 percent in the last financial year, fashion, home and beauty sales were down 7.7 percent.
Specialist beauty teams will support customers in stores while marksandspencer.com will offer a broader online range with home delivery and Click & Collect from M&S stores nationwide. The final brand lineup will be confirmed closer to launch.
John Lyttle, managing director, fashion, home & beauty at M&S, said: "We're transforming fashion, home and beauty at M&S, creating a better experience for our customers and building a more efficient, more profitable business. Our new partnership with Sephora is the next step in this transformation. Beauty is an important category for M&S, with the potential to attract new customers to shop with us and give existing customers the opportunity to shop with us more often."
For Sephora, this tie-in marks the next step in its growth strategy, having returned to the U.K. in 2023 for the first time in 18 years, with a store in London's Westfield mall. That followed its 2022 acquisition of the online prestige beauty retailer Feelunique in a deal valued at 132 million pounds, which was rebranded as sephora.com.
Catherine Spindler, president of Europe and Middle East, Sephora, said: "Our U.K. launch has been such a huge success that we wanted to go further and faster. Our partnership with M&S is the next evolution of this strategy, introducing a retail model that complements our existing formats and allows us to build on the strength of the Sephora brand in the U.K. By combining our global expertise in prestige beauty with M&S' established retail infrastructure, we are creating a more diversified and scalable model for growth, while continuing to evolve the way customers can access the Sephora experience."
Sephora currently has around 18 stores across the U.K. at the latest count, across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Sephora is no stranger to retail partnerships, having teamed up with JCPenney in the U.S. back in 2006. It grew to 600 Sephora shops operating inside JCPenney locations, but came to an end in 2006.
More recently, Sephora has forged a successful partnership with Kohl's Corp. But it faced headwinds in the second quarter, with sales down 4 percent. While it continued to see strong customer demand for newness, Kohl's reported that the top-line performance was pressured by the impact of expanded distribution for several of our key brands.
"We expect the softer performance we've seen year-to-date to persist until we can reach full scale with new brands and cycle through the headwinds from expanded distribution from a few of the bigger brands," said Michael J. Bender, chief executive officer of Kohl's during an earnings call.
"Our focus with Sephora is really on selling these new brands that are coming through because we still have a robust pipeline," he continued. "We think in the back half of the year, in particular, that the gifting expansion that we have outlined for our stores will be helpful in terms of driving that business."
Ulta Beauty, meanwhile, previously partnered with Target Corp., but that came to an end last month amid struggles with intense competition from Sephora's partnership with Kohl's and, more recently, Amazon's push into prestige beauty.
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