Sure, this is a gimmick, but it could be a very effective one. It’s not just Allure’s editors who choose star products — it’s also the reader base, and reviews have never been more important. This could be a winner.

Certainly an interesting concept of customer journey. But I wonder about the competences required to straddle publishing and retail. The store may not be profitable based on conventional metrics, but it could be a good reinforcement of the brand.

From the first Harper’s Bazaar to Elle, Marie Claire, Vogue, Glamour, et. al., haven’t fashion magazines driven product discovery to physical stores? Allure is a brand. This is a natural extension of that brand. If successful, it may outlast the magazine, as the trend for fashion influencing continues to increase “through media, through headlines, through influencers and content.”

Talk about shoppable content! Distinct stores and content from a trusted beauty authority like Allure can shorten the journey from product discovery to sale.

Media and retail are converging, as Amazon Live and Walmart and TikTok livestreams attest. Beauty is the ideal category for highly-visual omnichannel marketing, including influencers, to fill the gap as department stores and malls decline.

Coming from a different industry infers a fresh mindset. If Allure can also nail the retail basics with an experience that wows younger women, they’ll make a threatening new entrant.

The future of retail stores will be a lot more animated, fun, and interactive. There will be a merger between digital reality and actual reality, and only the physical store could offer a complete shopping experience that includes the best of both worlds. In the process of exploring what that could look like, there will be a lot of trials. The experiences that will stay are the experiences that shoppers enjoy the most. Allure is a trendsetter. I expect to see many more stores experimenting with different setups and experiences they could offer their shoppers, too.

Allure has given its seal of approval on beauty products for years. Many shoppers look for that stamp when they are selecting products. The idea that there is a whole store devoted to these vetted products is tremendous for beauty junkies (and those simply seeking a nice face cream). It’s as if Consumer Reports opened an electronics shop featuring its vetted products. Best of luck, Allure!

The sentiment that “many brick and mortar stores are facing challenges because they’re failing to deliver the product discovery customers have grown accustomed to online” is spot on! Every retailer needs to pay attention to Mr. Grindel’s playbook. Those discoveries will make it as demands on the sales floors.

I’m certainly intrigued by the leap of Allure from printed content to physical discovery in a retail setting. Conceptually, I love the idea of blending content, influencers, and media into a highly-experiential shopping journey. That said, shopping behavior (especially within beauty) has changed radically over the past 12 months and recent partnerships announced by Ulta and Sephora signal more change afoot.

Having worked alongside many of the cosmetic/beauty brands and retailers reinventing their beauty aisles across food/drug/mass, I strongly urge Conde Nast to align with themselves with partners that can help them navigate the physical brick-and-mortar space (fixture companies, graphics partners, and space management experts).

It will be fun to watch their entry and witness the enthusiasm and interest it generates.

Recommendations and product reviews have traditionally been an influencer of consumer purchases, especially for products that are complex or trendy. Consumers that follow fashion magazine editors that are in touch with the latest fashion trends will likely be influenced by their recommendations. While consumers won’t blindly follow the recommendations, it will help break a tie when deciding over two or three style choices. Influencer marketing is a growing trend, as according to a report by Harvard Business School, global spending on influencer marketing has increased from $2 billion in 2017 to about $8 billion in 2019, with forecasts of spending to increase to $15 billion by 2022.

This is the ultimate convergence of digital and physical retail space. Allure is not depending on either one alone. If there is a 2,900-square-foot store spanning two floors that feature the magazine’s recommendations, i.e., “around 300 makeup, hair-care and skin-care products,” it’s sure to deliver increased sales with potentially established and new customers. And with the in-store experience shoppers are going to see something they may have overlooked online but discover in-store and can try for themselves. Success will also be driven by the effectiveness of how the products are displayed and supported by staff. That’s one place where I see a potential weakness. But that should be easy to observe and remedy quickly.

One of the challenges that continues to persist for online beauty is the ability to try before you buy. The digital experience, seamlessness between channels, and high levels of consumer engagement are all becoming tablestakes and beauty brand leaders are constantly pushing the envelope but there are still some hurdles to solve: Returns, particularly with color items. Returns for apparel/footwear works because the merchandise can be marked down/resold but the same does not apply to lipsticks, eyeliner etc. Augmented reality has helped solve some of the discovery challenges of yesterday and now that the technology exists (e.g. Sephora), it should not be too long before other market leaders off it. While influencers and the media are an important communication and engagement channel, they lack the personalization aspect that shoppers get in-store which is so critical to beauty and skin care. Virtual selling through beauty parties did see an uptick during the pandemic (e.g. Bobbi Brown) and is a good compromise. Allure is able to get the best of both worlds if they channel discovery and… Read more »

Fashion is all about “the buzz.” Fashion magazines, designers, retailers, cosmetic companies live and thrive on “the buzz.” Internally, there is always gamesmanship on what is the newest and best trend, product, and on and on it goes, based upon extrapolated reasons why a product or trend is a best seller. Really though, the best sellers and the antidotal accompanying commentary really only exist in the minds of those so fully immersed in fashion passion, it becomes the idiom “the hill one wants to die on” guiding the internal selection process of what-gets-made-or-sold outcome. I know this from years of personal experience leading teams of designers and product developers. Allure is acting as a product filter, banking upon their brand and expertise as a platform to inspire, guide, and elevate Allure far beyond a magazine into a platform designed to further monetize the Allure brand. Whether products selected for an Allure store are consumer voted best sellers or not, it does not really matter. The Allure POV is the platform and new product discovery rarely… Read more »