Intro
In a recent article, I described how I went from being a college student who had no idea what sephora sold to the one who now sells the jaclyn hill palette.
Well, in this article, I’m going to describe how you can go from that to selling the jaclyn hill palette too!
If you’re just getting started with sephora and have little or no experience then I think you should probably be cautious before diving in as there are a lot of moving parts and a lot of potential pitfalls.
But if you’re already sold on sephora and already have some experience at selling other beauty products then this is the guide for you!
What Does It Take To Succeed At Selling Beauty Products?
One thing that sets sephora apart from many industry-wide brands (and I say this as someone who is not affiliated with any of them) is our focus on product design. Our goal is not just to sell high-quality products but also to make them easy to use, fun to use, and most importantly: beautiful!
The bottom line is that we do not want our customers feeling like they need us. We want them to feel like they can use our products without feeling uncomfortable or weird. We want the customer experience for us to be uplifting. Not awkward or uncomfortable. Not threatening or frightening. Just great! That’s why we work so hard – because we care about our customers so much that we would make anything difficult for them if we could help it!
For that reason, everything at sephora has been designed by someone outside of our company (we don’t do product design). It goes back all the way to when we first started selling shampoo and conditioner back in 2011 and even further back even than that because everything was designed before an idea became “a thing” for us. The people who designed shampoo and conditioners back then are still working here today! (And their names are “Ming” Chen, “Yaniv” Weberman, “Gillian Zwirnkeleriby Ng Gopinathkumar, ﺑr “Paula Raffae
Sephora jaclyn hill palette
So, you have a great product and are launching a new one. But the competition is already ahead of you and you need to stay on top of it. You will be able to keep your finger on the pulse, but there is no substitute for constant vigilance.
There’s a lot of noise out there, some good and some bad. Make sure you tune in for the good stuff first and then try to focus on the bad stuff. Chances are, we’re not going to see too much of it here on MacRumors — I hope that’s fine with you! ?
On one hand, if the competition isn’t coming at you from all sides, you have a slight advantage: they have been doing what they are doing for years now and they know how to do it well enough that they can keep up. On the other hand:
• If your new product is going to make them look bad in comparison, that’s definitely something we can avoid!
I want to make it clear: I am neither knocking Apple or Amazon based on this post (I spent 10 hours writing this piece!). I am merely pointing out that we should be careful not to stifle innovation in our industry by being overly long-sighted about competition (especially if there isn’t much of it). Out-thinking your competitors is good at first; out-innovating them later is even better.
Where can i buy the jaclyn hill palette
There are a couple of ways to go about developing a killer product:
The first is as I mentioned above. You build a great value proposition around it, and then you launch it. One thing all startups should be able to do is write the value proposition. There are so many valuable things out there, which sounds like a lot to keep track of, but if you want to get the most bang for your buck (and make sure you actually use your money), it is much easier to do that on paper than in practice. Think about it:
1) The product is awesome;
2) It solves a need people have;
3) It does so in an elegant way;
4) It is simple enough that people can understand it and actually try using it;
5) The user experience/design/UI is great; and
Can you get the jaclyn hill palette at sephora
I love the jaclyn hill palette, and although I live in Toronto, I have never seen it on sale at sephora.
I was hoping someone could shed some light on this.
When I opened the box, there were several other boxes … I was really disappointed and wanted to get my money back.
Many thanks for any help you can give me.
The jaclyn hill palette sephora
Probably the most talked about item in the beauty industry is the JACLYN HILL PALETTE! The reason is that it was created by beauty influencer and celebrity, Jaclyn Hill. Many have covered this palette, some have praised it, others have railed against it — but there has never been a debate on the actual merits of it. Someone always brings up something similar to “sephora doesn’t sell cosmetics” — and you know what? They’re all true!
Over at sephora, they sell a vast array of skincare, makeup and fragrances (including hair products). They are in every department store in America, so they can be found at your local Macy’s or Nordstrom (for example) as well as Sephora. They also sell online on their website as well as via their brick-and-mortar stores. How much do they actually sell? Well, probably not much more than $10 million a year…
That said, I love sephora. I love the way they mix “wisdom from an old woman” with cutting edge science to create products that are both effective and luxurious. I especially love that their packaging is so beautiful and elegant — even if you don’t buy anything from them (which is probably why people hate them so much). Their website design looks great too!
Anyway, we here at MacRumors decided to bring this debate to life by looking into how exactly sephora sells its cosmetics. We did a lot of research (and scoured youtube videos) just to make sure we had some hard data on how exactly they do it:
We found out that:
• It doesn’t sell anywhere near enough product to justify its existence;
• It’s quite expensive for not very useful products;
• The product isn’t really “branded” enough to really become a brand;
• The brand name isn’t really enough to drive sales; and
• It might actually be more appropriate for someone who owns multiple brands than for someone who only buys one brand of makeup/beauty items.
So let’s take all of this information into consideration as we look at some possible scenarios for sephora’s future: possibility #1: sephora sells too much product for its own good….
Is sephora selling the jaclyn hill palette
Just a year ago, I wrote a post on selling the jaclyn hill palette that I thought was actually pretty funny but ended up being one of my most popular posts. It was also picked up by Fortune and Business Insider, etc. But the title really caught their attention and they asked me to write about it again. And I did:
I also talked about a different aspect of this — what if sephora is selling something other than the jaclyn hill palette? Is that likely?
But here’s where we get into the thick of it: there are two separate questions: one is whether sephora sells the jaclyn hill palette. And if so, then what?! And if not, then why not?!
Welcome to my world!
It’s been a long time since I’ve had to answer these kinds of questions (or even thought about them). This post does a better job than my last one. It’s written to explain why this is an important question for many businesses (and startups) today and how it can present significant obstacles in terms of successful marketing.
Let me start with why you should care: you probably do not want to do an in depth market analysis before deciding whether or not your product is a fit for the market you are trying to enter. Why would someone who doesn’t know much about the market do that? Because they want to be first mover? Even if they succeed in getting there first, so what? They are late in establishing a competitive moat! They will be cannibalized by their larger competitors! You don’t want that kind of outcome! So let’s assume for argument sake that sephora is indeed selling the jaclyn hill palette…but only because sephora markets products well and has built some reputation as such (even though there may be others competing in those same niches). We now need to determine whether or not sephora can sell this product at wholesale prices (i.e., make money from it based on their own profits or through sales commissions). This isn’t rocket science; but let me explain anyway: In order for sephora to make money off its palettes, it needs wholesale pricing — i.e., setting prices above cost on all products it sells at retail price. The phase when you are trying to establish yourself as an ‘in-house brand’ will be