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How Ulta Beauty Quietly Built an $11 Billion Empire in Strip Mall Corners

MarketDash Editorial Team
22 hours ago
While luxury brands chase prestige and niche players focus on Instagram aesthetics, Ulta Beauty carved out an $11 billion business by doing something surprisingly simple: selling everything to everyone. Here's how the strip mall stalwart became beauty retail's unlikely powerhouse.

Ulta Beauty (ULTA) is one of America's largest beauty retailers, but you'd never guess it from the real estate. Tucked into strip mall corners and small-town shopping centers across the country, the chain has quietly assembled a 1,500-store, $11 billion empire by being, well, boring. And that's precisely the point.

Spotting the Gap

The Ulta story starts with two guys working at Osco Drug's corporate offices. Richard George and Terry Hanson noticed something odd about the beauty industry in the late 1980s: if you wanted both high-end and drugstore products, you had to shop at multiple stores. Department stores carried the prestige brands but turned their noses up at mass-market items. Drugstores stocked the affordable stuff but couldn't get luxury labels.

So they decided to build the store that carried everything. In 1990, they opened their first five locations under the name Ulta3.

It sounds obvious now, but back then, mixing CoverGirl with Chanel was radical. "The toughest part was convincing the prestige product companies to take a chance on us," Hanson told the suburban Chicago Daily Herald in 2017. Luxury brands worried their products would lose cachet sitting next to drugstore alternatives.

The Home Depot Approach to Lipstick

Fast forward to today, and Ulta's stores still operate on that original insight. The retailer stocks more than 30,000 products from over 600 brands, according to reports. You can grab a $7 e.l.f. Cosmetics mascara two aisles over from a $550 Dyson hair dryer or a $110 Chanel fragrance. Each location typically spans about 10,000 square feet of product variety.

While competitors niche down or chase trendy categories, Ulta CEO Kecia Steelman is doubling down on the everything-for-everyone model. "It's really important to me that we carry everything across the entire spectrum so that we have something for everybody," Steelman said. "I want to be the destination of a lifetime."

Why People Still Show Up

Here's the puzzle: in an era when you can buy directly from almost any beauty brand online, why does Ulta still matter? Oliver Chen, a managing director specializing in retail at investment bank TD Cowen, says it comes down to authority and trust.

"Beauty is a powerful industry with a lot of newness at one time, and you need a trusted authority," Chen explained. That authority is what keeps customers coming back.

The numbers back this up. Ulta's loyalty program has 46 million members who account for 95% of all purchases at the retailer. That's not just impressive customer engagement, it's the kind of loyalty that most retailers would kill for.

What Comes Next

That trust translates into real money. Ulta reported more than $11 billion in revenues at the end of their last fiscal year. In November, the company celebrated opening its 1,500th store.

But Ulta isn't just expanding its physical footprint. In October, the company launched UB Marketplace, a third-party platform designed to compete directly with Amazon (AMZN) and Walmart (WMT) in the beauty e-commerce space.

"UB Marketplace allows us to deliver more newness, faster entry into emerging subcategories and trends, and deeper category authority – while keeping the guest experience unmistakably Ulta Beauty," said Lauren Brindley, Ulta Beauty's Chief Merchandising and Digital Officer.

The company plans to "quickly scale" the platform over the next 12-18 months, potentially creating an entirely new revenue stream. For a company that built its business by being the unassuming workhorse of beauty retail, it's a bet that quiet competence can win in the digital arena too.

Back to News

How Ulta Beauty Quietly Built an $11 Billion Empire in Strip Mall Corners

MarketDash Editorial Team
22 hours ago
While luxury brands chase prestige and niche players focus on Instagram aesthetics, Ulta Beauty carved out an $11 billion business by doing something surprisingly simple: selling everything to everyone. Here's how the strip mall stalwart became beauty retail's unlikely powerhouse.

Ulta Beauty (ULTA) is one of America's largest beauty retailers, but you'd never guess it from the real estate. Tucked into strip mall corners and small-town shopping centers across the country, the chain has quietly assembled a 1,500-store, $11 billion empire by being, well, boring. And that's precisely the point.

Spotting the Gap

The Ulta story starts with two guys working at Osco Drug's corporate offices. Richard George and Terry Hanson noticed something odd about the beauty industry in the late 1980s: if you wanted both high-end and drugstore products, you had to shop at multiple stores. Department stores carried the prestige brands but turned their noses up at mass-market items. Drugstores stocked the affordable stuff but couldn't get luxury labels.

So they decided to build the store that carried everything. In 1990, they opened their first five locations under the name Ulta3.

It sounds obvious now, but back then, mixing CoverGirl with Chanel was radical. "The toughest part was convincing the prestige product companies to take a chance on us," Hanson told the suburban Chicago Daily Herald in 2017. Luxury brands worried their products would lose cachet sitting next to drugstore alternatives.

The Home Depot Approach to Lipstick

Fast forward to today, and Ulta's stores still operate on that original insight. The retailer stocks more than 30,000 products from over 600 brands, according to reports. You can grab a $7 e.l.f. Cosmetics mascara two aisles over from a $550 Dyson hair dryer or a $110 Chanel fragrance. Each location typically spans about 10,000 square feet of product variety.

While competitors niche down or chase trendy categories, Ulta CEO Kecia Steelman is doubling down on the everything-for-everyone model. "It's really important to me that we carry everything across the entire spectrum so that we have something for everybody," Steelman said. "I want to be the destination of a lifetime."

Why People Still Show Up

Here's the puzzle: in an era when you can buy directly from almost any beauty brand online, why does Ulta still matter? Oliver Chen, a managing director specializing in retail at investment bank TD Cowen, says it comes down to authority and trust.

"Beauty is a powerful industry with a lot of newness at one time, and you need a trusted authority," Chen explained. That authority is what keeps customers coming back.

The numbers back this up. Ulta's loyalty program has 46 million members who account for 95% of all purchases at the retailer. That's not just impressive customer engagement, it's the kind of loyalty that most retailers would kill for.

What Comes Next

That trust translates into real money. Ulta reported more than $11 billion in revenues at the end of their last fiscal year. In November, the company celebrated opening its 1,500th store.

But Ulta isn't just expanding its physical footprint. In October, the company launched UB Marketplace, a third-party platform designed to compete directly with Amazon (AMZN) and Walmart (WMT) in the beauty e-commerce space.

"UB Marketplace allows us to deliver more newness, faster entry into emerging subcategories and trends, and deeper category authority – while keeping the guest experience unmistakably Ulta Beauty," said Lauren Brindley, Ulta Beauty's Chief Merchandising and Digital Officer.

The company plans to "quickly scale" the platform over the next 12-18 months, potentially creating an entirely new revenue stream. For a company that built its business by being the unassuming workhorse of beauty retail, it's a bet that quiet competence can win in the digital arena too.