Ulta Beauty’s online marketplace is now live on the beauty retailer’s website and app. Plans to add a marketplace, built on the Mirakl platform, were first announced in March as part of the company’s Beauty Unleashed strategy, aimed at combating declining sales and market share losses.
Ulta has framed the move as a way to expand its online presence with a larger assortment and ramp up its speed-to-market within emerging and trending categories. The new marketplace is a key component of Ulta’s ongoing digital transformation push, one of three areas identified to drive growth under the Beauty Unleashed plan; the other two are brand-building and personalization.
Ulta Plans to ‘Quickly Scale’ Marketplace Assortment
The marketplace will incorporate offerings from beauty, wellness and adjacent lifestyle categories into Ulta’s online assortment and will be fully integrated into the online shopping experience with a unified search, cart and checkout. Shoppers will earn Ulta Beauty Rewards on eligible purchases, just as they do with first-party purchases, and will be able to return products at any of Ulta’s 1,400 stores. In-store returns are being powered by Happy Returns.
The marketplace is open by invitation exclusively to brands not currently carried by Ulta; third-party sellers will not be considered, in order to “ensure guests receive the exceptional product quality and experience they expect from Ulta Beauty,” said the company in a statement. Interested brands are invited to apply online.
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“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, Chief Merchandising and Digital Officer at Ulta Beauty in a statement. “This thoughtfully-curated model scales discovery and brand-building for our partners and ensures guests enjoy the same benefits they love — Ulta Beauty Rewards, easy returns and a unified, trusted shopping experience.”
More than 100 new brands are already available via the marketplace, including plant-powered nail care from Manucurist, luxury home fragrances from Apotheke, grooming essentials from ATWATER and Oars + Alps, lash and brow innovations from Babe Lash, French skincare favorites Nuxe and A313, organic makeup from Ogee and Korean beauty-inspired treatments from Saturday Skin. These new brands, and others that continue to be added, are showcased on the New Arrivals page.
Ulta said it plans to quickly scale its UB Marketplace assortment over the next 12 to 18 months while committing to keeping the experience “seamless and complementary” to its core offering.
Ulta Marketplace Launches as Target Partnership Winds Down
The marketplace also will help to offset any losses from the end of Ulta’s shop-in-shop partnership with Target, which was called off earlier this year and will be shut down by August 2026 when the partners’ current contract expires.
Ulta isn’t the only retailer to add a third-party marketplace this year; if anything, Ulta’s addition to the growing roster of retailer-operated marketplaces signals the increasing ubiquity of the model:
- Best Buy’s new marketplace (also powered by Mirakl) launched in August;
- Gifting brand Edible added a marketplace for non-perishable items in July;
- Tax-free travel brand DutyFreeZone launched an online marketplace in June; and
- Lowe’s expanded its Mirakl-powered marketplace earlier this year to include new furniture categories, home décor and more.
Ulta competitor Sephora doesn’t operate a marketplace (yet), but the company did launch an initiative last month that will allow creators to build curated storefronts on the Sephora app and website in a bid to ramp up creator-driven online engagement and sales.
