The Beauty Treatment : Sears--Yes, Sears--and Penneys Are Giving Cosmetics Areas a New Look by Adding Lines, Mega-Counters and ‘Advisers’
Women aren’t the only ones who get makeovers. Cosmetics counters do, too. In hopes of wooing women away from such stores as the Broadway and Robinsons-May, mass merchandisers known more for their microwaves than their mascara have gussied up their cosmetics departments.
Where only a few hutches of makeup once stood unattended at the Sears in Torrance, for example, two huge glass and chrome display islands now house 12 makeup and skin-care lines: Revlon, L’Oreal, Almay, Flori Roberts, Frances Denney Classic, Frances Denney Sensitive, Color Me Beautiful, Cosmyl, Eco-Suisse, Dermablend, EB 5 and Exclusives by Georgette Mosbacher. The Mosbacher line, a complete makeup system, is sold only via TV and at Sears.
“We haven’t upgraded these cosmetics counters so much as introduced them,” says Sears spokeswoman Jan Drummond. “It’s part of our strategy to focus on the woman--the CFO, or chief financial officer, of the family.”
Mega-counters (3,000 square feet or more) featuring everything from eye liner to eye creams were rolled out late last year in seven Sears stores (Buena Park, Cerritos, Costa Mesa, Montclair, Oxnard, Torrance and Westminster), with more scheduled over the next three years.
Full-time “beauty advisers” staff the departments. They receive training from individual suppliers but don’t push any one brand. Customers can even serve themselves at the Revlon and L’Oreal counters, 12-foot-long display units packed vertically with foundation, eye makeup, nail polish and lipstick. (The only drawback to self-service: “Some of the customers think the open stock are testers,” one adviser says.)
On a recent Sunday at the Sears in Torrance’s Del Amo mall, a gaggle of teen-agers hovered around the Flori Roberts makeup testers. Two of the girls worked their magic on a third, who started to look like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
They might have consulted Georgette Mosbacher’s how-to video playing on the adjacent Exclusives counter. The self-contained $89.99 Exclusives line involves a step-by-step system based on skin tones (light, medium, tan and dark). It contains lip, cheek and eye colors; tinted moisturizer; foundation; mascara; concealer; pencils; powder, and makeup tools. The color schemes lean toward the traditional, not the trendy.
But “younger kids are wearing brown or red lipstick--that’s why you’ll find them over at Revlon or L’Oreal,” says beauty adviser Patti Sakimoto. With a lipstick in either line costing $6.25, price is also a draw.
Competitor JCPenney also recently revamped its cosmetics counters in selected stores (Glendale, Culver City, Torrance, Northridge). Out went the old standbys--Max Factor, Almay, Coty and Revlon--and in came the new: Ultima II, Charles of the Ritz, New Essentials, Payot, Cosmyl, Flori Roberts, Color Me Beautiful, Dermablend, Fernand Aubry, Mavala, and Frances Denney Classic and Sensitive, along with dozens of designer perfumes. Other Penney stores carry five or six of these lines, except for the cosmetic-less Santa Monica and Granada Hills stores.
“We’ve changed our whole image. Because that’s where the demand is--customers want better cosmetics and fragrances,” says Gloria Smeal, cosmetics specialist for the JCPenney in Torrance.
Is brand-name makeup less costly at Sears or Penneys than in higher-end department stores? An informal survey shows prices are comparable. Says Sears’ Drummond: “The product lines are value-priced, but they’re not discounted.”
