Sephora Will Open 100 Corners in Marks & Spencer Stores

"Beauty is an important category for M&S: it can attract new customers and give existing ones a reason to shop with us more often," Lyttle said.

For Sephora, the corners in M&S will serve as a tool for expanding its reach in the UK. The brand returned to the market relatively recently — a store opened on Carnaby Street in London this summer.

The American Experience

A similar Sephora alliance with Kohl's launched in the US in 2020. For several years, the department stores called the shop-in-shops a driver of traffic and sales. This year, however, Sephora corners have started to drag down Kohl's results.

Analysts believe there are few direct parallels between the two deals. M&S enters the partnership from a stronger starting position, including its appeal to younger audiences, noted Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData.

"M&S is in a strong position: the chain already has plenty of traffic drivers to its stores, especially the food business. M&S also has its own beauty assortment, albeit quite narrow," Saunders wrote in an emailed comment. "By comparison, Kohl's added Sephora to a weakening core business, and the offering clashed with the rest of the store. M&S's move is tactical: the chain had already been building trust with younger shoppers and sees Sephora as a targeted way to bring more of that audience into its stores."

Expanding the Strategy

The deal strengthens Sephora's ambitions in the UK: the chain is combining its prestige beauty expertise with M&S's offline infrastructure.

"Our UK launch was so successful that we wanted to move further and faster," the press release quotes Catherine Spindler, president of Sephora in Europe and the Middle East. "The partnership with M&S is the next step in this strategy. It introduces a retail model that complements our existing formats and allows us to build the strength of the Sephora brand in the UK."