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In cosmetics sales, it's touch, feel, play and buy!
Friday, October 08, 1999 By Teresa F. Lindeman, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The $56 bottle of Eternity fragrance is sitting there on the shelf. Where just anybody can walk up and touch it. Not far away, Estee Lauder blushes, eye liners, foundations can all be tested and purchased without ever peering into a glass case.
"We want you to browse, to try, to touch as long as you want. Play. That's the key word, play," said Debbie Roepke, a consultant training employees in the fragrance area at the Kaufmann's store that just opened in Washington, Pa.
Play. That may be the most frequently used word in the upscale cosmetics and fragrance trade these days. Retail executives talk about making their beauty boutiques less intimidating, more welcoming, more colorful. But what they really want to encourage is that urge to play with the goods.
That means the big, boxy glass cases that have dominated the center aisle at department stores -- and separated the products from the consumers -- may be an endangered species.
The Kaufmann's in Washington Crown Center is the first in the Pittsburgh-based chain to install a new display that puts costly perfume out on open shelves. It won't be the last.
"I was just astounded at how the customers responded," said store manager Larry Hinkle, who had traditional cases at his last store in Altoona.
Other retailers are breaking the glass wall, too. Saks Fifth Avenue is experimenting with open displays in its new Dallas and Mission Viejo, Calif., stores. Lazarus' parent, Federated Department Stores, tried the idea several years ago and is convinced it works.
This shouldn't be a surprise, said Karen Schaffner, publisher of Display & Design Ideas magazine. Just look at the success of sporting goods stores with running tracks and bookstores with comfortable chairs. "There aren't too many areas of retail left today where a customer can't pick something up and look at it," she said.
Cosmetics retailers can't afford to ignore the trend.
In 1998, Americans spent $6.2 billion in department stores on making themselves look and smell fabulous, up from $5.7 billion two years earlier, according to the NPD Group Inc., a marketing information company in Port Washington, N.Y.
For years, department stores have dominated sales of many heavily promoted brands that promised quality and sophistication. Having a makeover at the mall was practically a rite of passage for female teens, who often bought the lipstick shade recommended by a "consultant" and became loyal customers.
But that loyalty has been under attack as the Internet and discount stores with copycat products offered alternatives, especially for customers in a hurry or those who don't feel they need someone else's advice.
Younger shoppers often won't sit still for the treatment their mothers enjoyed, said Schaffner. "Generation Y is not going to hang out at their mother's cosmetics counter. They like to play with things."
The Paris-based chain Sephora, which opened a store last year on Shadyside's Walnut Street and expects to be in Monroeville Mall in a few months, is all about doing it yourself and taking as much time as you want.
"We often see people spending 35 to 40 minutes in the store without buying," said Howard Meitner, president and chief executive officer of Sephora operations in the United States and Asia.
He doesn't mind if customers don't buy every time. If those women have a good time, they'll be back.
Sephora opens everything up. It organizes brands alphabetically andstacks containers within easy reach. Since few shoppers have studied the entire range of perfumes available, the stores feature a special scent "organ" that arranges 520 scents by family.
"The whole Sephora concept is about discovery," said Meitner.
He would argue Sephora isn't about taking customers away from department stores. He notes some people just don't like the hands-off style of Sephora's non-commission sales staff -- they prefer the one-on-one consultant-selling experience department stores offer.
But Meitner and other Sephora executives are far less sanguine about what they believe is an outright attempt by department stores to steal their ideas.
In August, the chain filed suit in San Francisco, accusing Federated of copying Sephora's designs and techniques in its new Souson boutique operations at Macy's West. The suit alleges two new stand-alone and two renovated Souson stores mimic Sephora, all the way to a name that starts with "S" and sounds French.
Display & Design Ideas' Schaffner isn't convinced. She notes that, in the retail world, imitation is rampant and it's difficult to say where an idea came from.
Not long ago, clothier Abercrombie & Fitch lost a similar lawsuit accusing another hot competitor, Warrendale-based American Eagle Outfitters Inc., of confusing customers with similar products and marketing techniques. The judge said the disputed areas were too generic to deserve protection.
Neither Sephora nor Federated are commenting on the litigation.
In the meantime, Souson soap creams, lotions and bath seltzers have arrived in the region's Lazarus stores, arranged neatly on easily accessible shelves.
The department stores agree with Meitner's assessment they aren't abandoning the service that's set them apart for decades. There are still plenty of women in white lab coats roaming Lazarus and Kaufmann's, ready to settle in for a session.
The goal is to make sure they don't scare off the rushed, independent customers.
At Kaufmann's last week, consultant Roepke was teaching the difference between helping people and making them feel pressured. "We do not want high pressure sales," she said firmly.
A more relaxed style of sales wouldn't be possible without modern security systems, said Schaffner. This is, after all, still pretty high-end merchandise.
Store manager Hinkle is watching the developments with bemusement.
The retail veteran recalled another dramatic change in how cosmetics were sold. Sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s, he recalls, Estee Lauder introduced the idea of a gift with every purchase. Now bonuses and presents have become so commonplace that customers expect them. have learned to wait for them.
Hinkle's pleased to see sales growth driven by something other than the next freebie. As he put it, "How much bigger can you make those gifts?"
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