SEPHORA SPRING SPECIAL – Las Vegas
First day at Shoptalk Spring in Las Vegas at the end of March, and already the most sensational announcement. Not only is Sephora joining forces with OpenAI, but the beauty brand is entrusting it with its most precious asset: the data of its Beauty Insider members.
What will “agentic shopping” look like for Sephora customers?
Decryption in this exchange between Anca MarolaGlobal Chief Digital Officer of Sephora and Mahak SharmaProduct Partnerships, Search & Commerce, OpenAI, led by Hilary Milnes, from Vogue Business.
THE CUSTOMER IS ON A MISSION
What is true at Walmart or The Home Depot is also true for a beauty purchase. Sephora goes from “search-based commerce” (in the search bar) to “AI-assisted discovery.”
- Customers no longer want to browse categories
- What they want is: “I have dry skin, I’m 40, I want a glowing complexion → what should I buy? »
- AI becomes a beauty advisor, not just a filter (unlike a chatbot)
And Sephora wants to be present in this intent-driven, conversational and contextual search.
CHATGPT: A DYNAMIC ORCHESTRATION OF PURCHASING JOURNEYS ACCORDING TO INTENTION
In this discussion, Mahak Sharma (Product Partnerships, OpenAI) showed how ChatGPT orchestrates very different purchasing journeys depending on the nature of the prompt. Example :
- High/Low consideration:
- a high-involvement purchasing journey (for example: electronics), where the user must carry out a lot of research and organize themselves
- a low-involvement shopping journey (e.g. clothing, fashion, beauty), where users want to make quick decisions
- Single basket (one product) vs. Creation of a complete basket (travel, organization of an evening)
- Visual search: the user uploads an image to search for a similar product.
THE ROLE OF SEPHORA IN CHATGPT
What Sephora understood, based on its store experience.
Sephora has always had a innovation mindset” and the brand would certainly not have 70M+ members in its Worldwide Loyalty program if this were not the case.
After having been a leader with its own digital platforms, with its app, obviously with its stores, why is Sephora moving so quickly with OpenAI?
Sephora recognizes that for the first time, the large language models (LLM) reproduce online what happens in a Sephora store – welcome, advice and customer service – elements that were previously siloed across the different digital touchpoints.
The objective of the brand
Sephora will always remain Sephora, with this ambition to continue to be this trusted beauty advisor for customers, whatever the channel used. Establish this expertise and authority in beauty that Sephora has everywhere.
Anca Marola insisted on this aspect “intelligence” in the American sense of the term – all this knowledge acquired about his client which allows him to gain his trust. Intelligence equals trust with the customer.
Sephora continues to develop its knowledge of the customer, telling her: “ We are the ones who know you best, because you came to our store, you had a skin diagnosis, you had a makeup trial with a camera, etc. And Sephora is able to remind you of all this when you log in to the site or go to the store.”
How does Sephora integrate its personalized advice into ChatGPT?
A lot of work upstream with OpenAI, that’s for sure. And more tactically, Sephora strives to make this AI Assistance as natural as possible. As is an in-store Beauty Advisor.
Anca Marola: “Users appreciate their AI assistant when they feel like they are receiving personalized advice and it fits naturally into the conversation.”
IMPORTANT ! AI will never replace beauty advisors (you just have to “experience” the atmosphere of a Sephora store, even in the middle of the week. A euphoria, a wish to discover, to experiment, to be advised by a human person who has the expertise.
SEPHORA ANNOUNCEMENT AT SHOPTALK SPRING
Its own SEPHORA application within ChatGPT.
Sephora announced to Shoptalk the launch of a Sephora App on ChatGPT with a feature that allows, when the customer asks Sephora for advice (for example: “ Help me, I have dry skin, recommend some products »), to offer not only the relevant selection, but also to encourage the customer to associate their loyalty account to benefit from advantages such as free delivery, samples, and receive ever more personalized advice thanks to this “intelligence” that Sephora memorizes for each Beauty insider, including purchase history.
Anca Marola: “We thus bring this intelligence and these very concrete benefits to the customer, directly where they are, within ChatGPT.”
The Massive Sephora Advantage: Beauty Insiders
We all know the fundamental importance of First Party Data. Sephora goes a step further: Sephora embeds its First Party data AND its Loyalty program in ChatGPT.
Sephora has
- Millions of loyalty program members
- Detailed data on purchases, preferences and skin profile.
This allows:
- Highly relevant AI-based recommendations
- Superior customization than the competition
- Loyalty benefits present from ChatGPT
In a way, Sephora on ChatGPT outperforms its competitors with this integration. We can legitimately think that other major retailers will do the same.
Why now – and so loudly?
Asked what pushes Sephora to take this step, before everyone else, Anca Marola answers: “The question on everyone’s minds right now is: Is this future bright? Are there any risks? First of all, I think that we cannot slow down progress. It’s a fact. Either we accept it or we don’t accept it. The risk is not accepting it. Test and Learn is very important”.
