Pure Beauty

Sephora makes major investment in Mexico’s booming beauty market

By Becky Bargh | Published: 16-Sep-2021

The LVMH-owned retailer will invest $7.5m in the region, with five new stores tipped to open before the end of the year

Sephora, the LVMH-owned beauty retail giant, is betting on Mexico’s lucrative beauty market with a major investment.

In an interview with Forbes Mexico, Darío Aguilar, the CEO of Sephora’s Mexican business, said that despite the ‘roller coaster’ year it has experienced, the retailer will back expansion in the region with a MX$150m (US$7.5m) investment.

The funds are earmarked for five new stores, expected to open by the end of 2021.

“Mexico is a very competitive market for Sephora in Latin America; along with Brazil, it is one of the most important in beauty, which is why it is very important to continue to have a presence and continue to grow,” he told the publication.

Mexico’s beauty and personal care market, worth US$8.4bn in 2021, is expected to grow annually 5% up to 2025, data from Statista shows, with 12% of total revenues generated through online sales.

Covid-19 has also accelerated Mexico’s e-commerce, according to the Mexican Association of Online Sales, which said the country’s online retail market has advanced a decade since 2020, growing 81% compared with 2019.

And Sephora is capitalising on the digital revolution with online sales representing 30% of sales, up 20% on the year before.

“We not only want to continue entering physical stores but also e-commerce where we have investment plans for 70m pesos,” added Aguilar.

“We have already invested a lot in our platform and what we are doing is promoting updates and in the future we will be incorporating new features, such as augmented reality to test the virtual training products, and we launched our app a week ago in Mexico.”

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