Sephora's global CEO Guillaume Motte has big plans for India

“India has a combination of very high growth potential, a very high young population, and it’s very receptive to make-up. Some markets are only about skincare, some about fragrances. Here, make-up is, in a lot of ways, part of the culture... the eyes, the lips."

Sephora is known for a wide range of beauty products, so much so that #SephoraHauls, a hashtag dedicated to content creators showing their shopping haul, has millions of views on social media, reflecting the insatiable appetite for all things beauty and skincare. Sephora is among the highest revenue-generating brands in conglomerate LVMH’s universe that owns Louis Vuitton, Loewe, Guerlain and Dior.

Over a year ago, Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd acquired exclusive rights to Sephora’s India business, helping the world’s biggest beauty retailer that works with prestige, and not mass brands, open more stores in the country. As part of the partnership, Reliance, which launched its beauty platform Tira (it has a different curation of international and homegrown brands) in 2023 to take on Nykaa, took over the operations of Sephora’s 20-plus stores from Arvind Fashions Ltd, which used to be the Indian partner. “The transaction has been done at enterprise value of ₹216 crore toward the sale of the entire equity stake and repayment of loans," according to a November 2023 Mint report. The purchase consideration for the entire equity stake was reported as ₹99.02 crore.

Since then, Sephora, which entered India in 2012, has opened four stores, in Ludhiana, Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad, putting the total brick-and-mortar retail count at 29. The aim is to reach 100 stores within the next few years. It has also launched its mobile app and brought close to 100 international brands, including Kylie Cosmetics, Milk Makeup and Laura Mercier to India, besides offering homegrown brands Kama Ayurveda and Forest Essentials (they plan to add more India-born brands soon).

The interest is understandable if you consider the remarkable growth of India’s beauty and personal care industry, especially after the pandemic. The market will reach $34 billion by 2028, from $21 billion two years ago, as per Statista, a provider of market and consumer data and rankings. Reasons: Disposable income, perception shift towards beauty products from a special occasion want to an everyday need, stronger desire among younger consumers to express their individuality, consumer savviness (Gen X was happy with one moisturiser, Gen Z and Alpha are choosing between colours of pimple patches), and exposure to social media trends.

Pre-covid, India wasn’t “hot". It was a “low priority for (international) brands", as Motte puts it. “Two effects make India attractive: the beauty market is growing, and within this, prestige beauty is growing faster." He offers the example of Sephora’s 2023 India launch of Rare Beauty, a brand founded by singer-actor Selena Gomez. Its best-seller blushes ( ₹3,200 a piece) and tinted lip oils ( ₹2,800 a piece) often sell out as soon as they reach the shelf, both online and offline.

“India was the second-best country in terms of launch and performance; the US was the first. Not France, not Canada, not the Middle East, not the UK, not Australia, but India. China’s slowing down is also helping India. Now, the list (of interested brands) is very long. People are curious; some are fully committed. Nobody has no interest, which is a big difference."

For context, Sephora, which operates in 35 markets, has over 3,000 points-of-sales globally, a third of which are in the US. The top three markets for Sephora are the US, followed by Western Europe and Asian countries like China. India will take at least five to 10 years to develop, predicts Motte. “It’s just getting started."

Before becoming Sephora’s global head in 2023, Motte, 53, was deputy CEO for LVMH’s fashion group, managing brands like Celine, Loewe and Givenchy for two years. Prior to this, he was president for Sephora in Europe and the Middle East from 2018-21, managing 1,100 stores across 20 countries, bringing years of experience working in leadership positions at French menswear retailer Celio and Dubai-based lifestyle retail company AI Tayer Trends.

One thing is clear—his absolute love for beauty. Motte swears by Sauvage, Dior’s woody-with-an-ambery-base perfume, and follows a one-step skincare routine (cleansing). “Beauty is pleasure, it’s joyful, it’s deeply personal, and you are touching a purchase (as a brand, or an industry) that involves a lot of the personality of your customer," he says. “And there’s so much innovation, which drives excitement... and demand."

High on his to-do list at the present job is expansion and curating brands fit for individual markets—the latter being a crucial part of Sephora’s success. The brand achieved double-digit growth in revenue and profit, as revealed in LVMH’s full-year 2024 earnings; no specific numbers were shared.

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Motte, too, doesn’t give any numbers. Instead, he offers some principles that have helped Sephora worldwide. First, product differentiation. “We bring brands that are only at Sephora. It’s not necessarily a brand that is exclusive to us, it can be a range, it can be a product that is launched first with us," he says. “We’re not in the business of launching brands, we’re in the business of partnering with brands and growing them. Otherwise, we would have been dead. Our job is to offer consumer choice."

A large part of product differentiation is also the curation of brands. While helping brands get ready for a new market, the retailer “cooks in the kitchen" with the brand. Essentially, using Sephora’s consumer insights, the brand, whether established or emerging, develops a new product suitable for the respective market. “You can have a successful brand and, suddenly, you enter a market, and it doesn’t resonate. We’ve seen this. Then you think, ‘What did I do wrong?’" Motte explains. The answer is a mix of right timing and doing enough homework—“when consumer understanding is better, when the size of the market is better, and when you have a partner whom you trust, the acceleration is normally very fast."

Sephora has an in-house collection of make-up products that comfortably occupy aisles crowded with the likes of Nars, Dior and Bobbi Brown. Motte, again, doesn’t share any numbers but says if he were to reveal the number of units Sephora Collection sells, people “would fall off their chair". It is the most affordable brand under the Sephora roof, with eyeshadows starting at around ₹600 and lip stains at ₹1,300. “It acts as an entry point to prestige beauty," Motte explains the marketing strategy.

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What about competition between an in-house brand and outsiders? “That’s cool," he smiles, fixing the collar of the crisp-white shirt he’s paired with navy- blue trousers. “It’s all good, as long as consumers are getting exposed to different experiences at our stores."

Sephora puts emphasis on retail store experiences. The brand has put a “beauty hub", a well-lit station with mirrors and high chairs, in the middle of its physical space across the world so that customers can pick up any product and try it on their own or with the help of the ground staff.

“Digital is good for convenience, yes," Motte says. “But it’s not good for product discovery, it’s not good for excitement."

The other reason he offers for the Sephora’s global growth is his team of 50,000-plus people across the world. Not a surprising answer given that retail is, after all, a people business. “You have to have a strong diverse team who knows their business and their customers," he says. “At the end of the day, you want to see every customer in your store who wants to use make-up to celebrate their beauty."

The diversity part extends to the aisle as well. For instance, 15% of the shelf space in the US Sephora stores is dedicated to brands funded by people of colour. “The reality of the world is they have less chance of getting funding than someone who is white. That’s a fact," he says. “In China, we want to grow C (Chinese) beauty. Same for India."

He doesn’t believe Sephora has any competition as yet on a global scale, but there’s one thing that sometimes keeps him awake at night. The attrition rate. “Retail is not always the most attractive sector, especially for the frontliners," he says. “There is no working from home; you have to be in the store during weekends. That’s my challenge, how I can give the frontliners better opportunities, better salaries, better scheduling of work, find more ways to listen to them better."

Active listening is a must for any leader, he says. “It doesn’t mean you’re passive. Listening can be very active, especially when you listen to the frontliners, who are the soul of any brand. They can tell you the health of the brand since they directly speak with the customer."

The other must-have ingredient while building a successful team is diversity. “If you listen to a diverse team, it enables you to take more right decisions because of the diverse perspectives they bring, especially when you work in this (beauty) industry," says Motte. Sephora’s leadership team comprises two men and eight women across seven nationalities.

The other people he listens to closely are his three daughters. “They are active consumers; they are on social media. They will say, ‘Papa, this is good, this isn’t.’ If I want to know about something, I call them up."

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