Target and Walmart’s Beauty Overhaul Reshapes Brand Strategy

By Nathan Brooks

“Except for a couple of our brands, we don’t have DTC,” said Veronique Mura, Edgewell Personal Care’s svp and gm of sun and skin. Edgewell’s brands include Hawaiian Tropic, Schick and Wet Ones.

“Target and Walmart are very important to us, so we’re trying to adapt and work with those retailers from a footprint perspective — but they’re also media partners now, and that’s the big evolution,” Mura said.

Modern Retail+ reported that Target and Walmart are overhauling beauty, wellness and personal care aisles to rival specialty powerhouses and each other. The changes are pushing large consumer packaged goods companies and independent labels to update store presentation, redirect media spending and rethink distribution around retail partners’ direction.

For brands without DTC infrastructure, Modern Retail+ said, mass stores remain critical for sales volume and increasingly offer media opportunities.

Mura described retail media as central to Edgewell’s plan: “Retail media is a big part of what we are trying to do: always integrating our plans back into commerce,” she said. “With a smaller budget, that’s really important.”

What does this change for brands?

It changes positioning, packaging, media and distribution, not just shelf access. For Edgewell, the shift starts with Hawaiian Tropic and the retailers’ push toward beauty and wellness.

“A lot of these big retailers are really attuned to beauty and wellness, and they’re really amping up the agenda here, so we’re looking at that,” Mura said. “I very much see our Hawaiian Tropic brand as a beauty brand and not as a clinical SPF brand; it’s leaning into the territory of beauty.”

Mura said Edgewell is asking how it can lean into a brand’s beauty credentials while supporting what retail partners are building. “Obviously, Target used to have Ulta,” she said. “Now, they’re also trying to build their [own] beauty credentials in the beauty aisle. And with Hawaiian Tropic, we’re [supporting] that.”

“We are [exploring updates] to our packaging across our brands,” Mura said. “Just because you’re a mass brand, it doesn’t mean you can’t look good.”

For Hawaiian Tropic, “We’re commissioning and developing better materials — not only from a look and feel [perspective], but also down to the corrugated substrate we’re using — to drive this beauty positioning,” Mura said.

As beauty aisles grow crowded, brands must keep pace with retailers and align their proposition and customer story, Mura said. “It’s more about keeping up with the pace and making sure what you’re offering, in terms of the brand — your brand proposition, your customer story — aligns.”

James Thomas, U.S. chief commercial and operations officer at No7 Beauty Company, sees “tremendous opportunity for continued growth” at Walmart. Thomas said in an emailed statement that Walmart is “uniquely positioned” to help No7 reach new audiences and serve as a key growth driver for the brand.

Modern Retail+ also reported that independent executives saw retailers’ beauty upgrades requiring brands to work with younger merchandising teams, rethink distribution and handle a new set of challenges.

“[Our channel focus] is changing. We’re in Walmart now — we have an awesome Gen-Z buyer for Walmart now, and she rocks,” said an independent beauty brand’s head of marketing, speaking off the record.

“Plus, we’re in Publix now. We’re in places we didn’t think we would ever be because the innovation is there, and it’s changing how the shopper shops for your day-to-day stuff,” she said.

The same executive described the cost of competing for mass-channel space: “Once you’re in and excited to be there, it’s like, ‘Let’s play a money game. Who’s going to spend the most for the end cap for the holidays?’ And I can’t afford that.”

Many mom-and-pop shop owners were upset when her brand entered Target because they saw the new channel as competition, she said. “Our mom-and-pop shops are still our bread and butter, because we can just do what we want with them; we can update our assortment every two weeks.”

In Target, the brand limited its assortment to best sellers. That left mom-and-pop partners free to sell seasonal and bolder products as exclusives, according to the executive.

Another executive from a subscription-based beauty box company said mass-channel entry creates spillover. “There’s a brand awareness halo that happens from Target that then drips into these smaller retailers, and they’re going to see the return,” she said. “Entering mass doors makes a brand feel more established.”

She said the visibility can encourage shoppers to find the brand’s products in other channels. As retailers gain the trust of popular beauty brands, the subscription company is using a mystery box as a lower-risk entry for labels not ready for mass retail, she said.

“Our company is showing up in Walmart this holiday season with a mystery box of beauty products,” she said. Walmart wants more beauty brands, but not every beauty brand is ready for that space, she said.

“We’re sort of the umbrella that keeps them safe but also allows the retailer to have these more interesting curations within the shop,” she said. She said it was likely only a matter of time before the included brands were ready.

For suppliers, the immediate work is less glamorous: package for a beauty setting, integrate retail media into smaller budgets and preserve room for specialty assortments. The aisles are getting a makeover. The economics still have to work.