What’s driving Sephora China’s 21-month traffic growth streak?

China’s beauty retail landscape has been quickly evolving at the intersection of digital discovery and offline experience — two forces that once pulled in divergent directions, as consumers engage beauty in a less linear, more fluid way. A scroll on a social platform may gain momentum through peer validation long before making its way into a physical store. It’s within this shifting terrain that the world’s largest beauty retailer is sharpening its focus on how local consumer behavior is reshaping product curation and store formats — all ultimately feeding into how beauty itself is experienced. Sephora’s offline traffic has grown at a double-digit rate since Q4 2024. Behind that growth is a global strategy in which China is no longer seen as a huge commercial market alone but an increasingly important market where deep consumer insights, reinvented retail experiences, and the rise of local brands continue to shape the beauty landscape. That’s also part of a broader shift from an omnichannel distribution retailer to a trend-absorbing, experience-led ecosystem operator. In this model, China has gone far beyond a site of scale to a source of insight. From scale to insight: China as a source of retail innovation Since opening its first store in the Chinese mainland in Shanghai in 2005, Sephora has been expanding its physical footprint and, in more recent years, accelerating its digital penetration. By the early 2020s, China has grown into its second largest market globally, after the US. Meanwhile, China’s role in the French multinational retailer’s global mapping is extending beyond that of a lucrative downstream market to an important market for the company’s long-term exploration of retail innovation. This commitment is reflected in Sephora’s evolving “Makeup Playground” approach, which reimagines stores as spaces for beauty exploration through product discovery, Beauty Advisor expertise, trend-led experiences, and member engagement. While China’s rapid ascent as a fertile source of entrepreneurial talent, breakthrough products in ingredients and efficacy, and advanced digital technologies notably AI helps account for its emergence as a market characterized by rapid innovation in beauty and retail, a couple of intertwined dynamics offer a more nuanced look at the forces shaping this transformation. Recent years have seen Chinese women — the primary driving force behind the country’s beauty consumption — harboring boundless possibilities of womanhood with a stronger sense of agency and seeking an ideal of female beauty defined by inclusivity and individuality. The redefinition of femininity has far-reaching influence upon the beauty and fashion industries in addition to facilitating a nuanced observation of beauty trends. Moreover, this demographic, in line with broader consumer sentiment, is moving more fluidly between a highly developed digital ecosystem and curated in-person experiences. Hence a livestream, a short video, or even a text post on content platforms such as Rednote and Douyin may quickly gain traction through peer recommendation and validation, reshaping how today’s beauty trends emerge and scale. That’s where Sephora steps in. Using Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote) and Douyin as discovery engines feeding the brand pipeline, it translates these signals into brand curation and structured consumer guidance. As Global President and CEO of Sephora Guillaume Motte put it at a recent closed-door press conference in Shanghai, “when we select a brand or an assortment within a brand, we always look at: Has this brand got a point of view on beauty? Is it bringing something to the discussion? Is there great product innovation? And at last, is there a community to whom this brand is naturally speaking?” Long-termism and a commitment to continuous product iteration are also among Sephora’s key considerations when selecting a brand, according to Ding Xia, the company’s managing director for Greater China. The curation is already visible in gifting, with several homegrown brands becoming go-to choices for consumers seeking distinctive local culture and aesthetics. This curatorial role doesn’t end once a brand is stocked by Sephora. In China, the company has launched a Smart BA program since the early 2020s, as part of Sephora China’s customer relationship management operations. The program, underpinned by China’s mature digital infrastructure and technology-savvy consumers, allows BAs, short for “beauty advisors,” to engage consumers one-on-one through WeChat by contextualizing new products and routines to help them make more informed, efficient choices. In this way, digital members become part of the driving force in the company’s omnichannel retail model. “We have over 3,000 BAs connecting with our 5 million active members here,” Ding told Jing Daily and several other media outlets, adding that this China practice can be then rolled out to the U.S. and France. ‘Exciting retail’: A reinvented brick-and-mortar experience Despite a hyper-digitalized chain in China’s beauty market, consumers are placing greater value on physical experiences. Multiple data sources point to renewed interest in immersive offline shopping for the emotional value it offers. The experience economy in China has surpassed 18 trillion RMB ($2.6 trillion) in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 22.6%. Sephora sees beauty retail as more than transaction. Its stores are designed to foster connection, with Beauty Hubs across its global network allowing customers to discover and test products as well as seek personalized advice. “We believe in offline. Boring retail is dead and exciting retail is live and kicking,” said Motte. Sephora now operates over 320 stores across 104 Chinese cities, spanning first- to fourth-tier cities. Its store traffic has grown for 21 consecutive months, and its business returned to growth in the first quarter of 2026, which Ding attributed to the rising demand for hands-on beauty experiences, pressure-free play with products from different brands, and immediate, professional guidance from BAs. In addition, members can earn points across any brand in store, breaking down the silos of single-brand loyalty programs. “This shows that our retail model is gaining more recognition from customers,” Ding noted. In this model, Sephora has been transforming its physical locations from traditional retail spaces into more tactile, sensory beauty destinations. Since 2024, the retailer has been building a broader “Makeup Playground” vision in China — a multilayered experiential retail framework that spans permanent store concepts, city-specific activations, and large-scale beauty event. At the center of this strategy is the newly upgraded Xiangyang flagship in Shanghai, which nestled in the modern bustle of Nanjing West Road, reopened after renovation this April. Retail is on the first floor displaying established favorites alongside trending launches, extending the in-store ‘Makeup Playground’ concept, where open try-on stations, personalized beauty services, sampling opportunities, and interactive member experiences encourage consumers to engage with products in a more hands-on and playful way, while the experiential “Beauty Neighbourhood” is upstairs with occasional themed pop-ups. It’s noted that the entrance draws on the very Shanghainese Shikumen architecture. “Regarding the ‘Beauty Neighbourhood,’ we have two principles to follow: making beauty playful and grounding each Playground in local culture,” said Ding, adding that Sephora plans to bring the concept to other cities, adapting each iteration to local historical and cultural significance. Beyond brick-and-mortar stores, Sephora has also held events such as SEPHORiA and seasonal activations including the Chinese New Year beauty fair as engines of wider, loyal community engagement. The annual SEPHORiA will return to Shanghai, taking place at the iconic Zhangyuan from October 23 to October 25. The event is expected to showcase new products from over 50 brands through interactive settings. “Beauty is not a necessity, but more of an aspirational purchase that delivers emotional value, which can be conveyed most effectively through offline experiences. So we remain committed to investing in physical retail and enhancing in-store experience,” Ding emphasized. Integrating C-beauty brands and rebalancing portfolio logic Eleven Chinese beauty brands, including FLORASIS known for its Chinese aesthetics, joined Sephora this April, bringing its Chinese brand portfolio to 26 following a phased expansion since 2025. Earlier additions included CENSTO, Red Chamber and Joocyee, all known for their social-native scale. The growing portfolio reflects Sephora’s effort to strike a balance between global beauty leadership and local innovation, building a more diversified brand matrix that responds to evolving consumer preferences in China. Domestic beauty brands commanded a 57.4% market share in 2025, marking a fifth consecutive annual increase and giving them a majority stake in China’s 1.1 trillion RMB ($141 billion) beauty market, according to the China Association of Fragrance Flavor and Cosmetic Industries. Behind their meteoric rise are their quick adaptability to shifting consumer taste, agile supply chains, and strong cultural currency. However, Sephora has selected these labels not just because they have gone viral online or demonstrated commercial appeal which could be short-lived. Beyond their relevance to local consumer preferences and beauty needs, the company also evaluates them against the same rigorous curation standards it applies globally, including proven consumer appeal, sustained product innovation and iteration, product quality, and long-term alignment with Sephora’s vision of beauty, Motte and Ding both underlined. This approach reflects Sephora’s global curation strategy in action. Rather than creating separate standards for local and international brands, the retailer applies a consistent selection philosophy while continuing to deepen its implementation in the Chinese market. For these brands, in turn, onboarding Sephora amounts to a seal of trust: Once they have passed its selection process, they are seen as safer, more legitimate, and backed by reliable after-sales support. The expansion of its portfolio also supports Sephora’s effort to optimize its brand mix, creating a more balanced matrix of international and local brands. Rather than treating local brands as regional additions, Sephora views them as an increasingly important source of creativity, consumer relevance, and future growth. Beyond strengthening the position of homegrown names on the China market, Sephora also aims to increase their visibility overseas, according to Guillaume. Over time, Sephora sees opportunities to introduce high-potential Chinese brands that have been validated by the domestic market to consumers across its global footprint, allowing local innovation to participate in the broader global beauty conversation. FLORASIS is a case in point. Ding explained that the brand was selected for the way it distills Chinese aesthetics and cultural identity into products that are attractive to international visitors. “FLORASIS sells very well because it expresses the spirit of China so vividly,” she said, adding that its products have become popular gifts for foreign visitors to bring home. In this strategic design, local brands are no longer regional additions but structural components of growth, helping Sephora build a beauty ecosystem where global brands and local innovators can thrive side by side. The three shifts — China as an important market for long-term retail innovation, stores as experiential playgrounds, domestic brands as portfolio assets — are defining the beauty retail giant’s China strategy. In reshaping how beauty is discovered, interpreted, and experienced, Sephora is evolving into a curated ecosystem where brand origin matters less than cultural relevance, distinctive aesthetics, and the ability to speak to increasingly diverse expressions of beauty. In this sense, “the next China is China,” as Motte said. The market is not only a source of growth, but an increasingly important reference point for innovation in both products and retail, one that’s beginning to shape how beauty is curated, experienced, and scaled in its global playbook.

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What’s driving Sephora China’s 21-month traffic growth streak?

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