What Sephora’s TikTok Shop Launch Means for Beauty

In a coup for TikTok Shop, Sephora announced on Wednesday the upcoming launch of its storefront on the platform: the Sephora Drop Shop.

Sephora will sell limited-time items exclusive to the platform beginning Sept. 19. The digital storefront will introduce new products from one or more brands monthly, rather than opting for a permanently stocked assortment. A two-week sales period will follow celebrity- and influencer-hosted Sephora livestreams. Sephora’s in-house Sephora Collection line will be available on an ongoing basis; its inaugural brand launch partner is yet to be named, but the debut will kick off with a livestream featuring a founder known for being “well versed in social,” said Nadine Graham, senior vice president and general manager of e-commerce at Sephora US.

The move illustrates the growing influence of TikTok, which has itself become the fourth-largest beauty and health e-commerce retailer in the US, with an estimated $4.4 billion in beauty sales, according to NielsenIQ data. Competitors have come to see the platform as an ally rather than an adversary.

“Our customers always change. It’s a continuous shift of where they discover brands and purchase these brands,” Anca Marola, Sephora’s global chief digital officer, told The Business of Beauty.

“We knew that we don’t want to do a full catalogue, always-on type of approach because that’s not necessarily adding to the excitement. The logic is a very high level of curation right now.”

A similar curation is also the focus of Ulta Beauty’s TikTok Shop experiment, which launched in March and features a limited selection of brands with exclusive product bundles. Sephora’s Drop Shop will take an even more experimental approach, offering products that are not available at the retailer’s stores or online, but may be added to its permanent assortment at a later date if successful. Marola added that featuring brands not available at Sephora “could be something that we’ll do just to test and learn.”

TikTok Shop’s best-sellers list remains mainly stacked with new, formerly unknown market entrants that bypassed traditional retailers to gain their foothold in the US market on the platform. Retailers have been racing to stock them, with K-beauty juggernauts Medicube and Dr. Melaxin entering Ulta Beauty within the past year, while Sephora added Beauty of Joseon, Wonderskin and Thome to its lineup and Target launched tween-boy favourite Based.

“It’s probably going to be really helpful for the bigger brands that aren’t seeing their sales as much through TikTok Shop,” said Anna Mayo, vice president of beauty at NIQ, of mainstream beauty retail’s entry onto the platform. Rhode, for example, has significantly fewer TikTok Shop sales than brands like Medicube or Tarte.

Visibility will be a key measurement of success, no matter the retailer. Kecia Steelman, chief executive of Ulta Beauty, announced in the retailer’s earnings call last week that TikTok Shop had earned over 100 million impressions since its debut, and has become a launch channel for products such as the rapper Ice Spice’s forthcoming fragrance.

Embracing Change

Top retailers have historically managed to secure exclusive and often-limiting arrangements with brands due to their power.

Sephora’s dependence on independent lines eventually became a winning strategy after larger labels sold in department stores, like those from the Estée Lauder Companies, were precluded from its doors. Once specialty retail became the premiere channel for beauty, “Sephora brands” weren’t able to sell in competitors, especially Ulta Beauty. Target similarly also forbids its exclusives to be sold in Walmart. Even with the rise of shop-in-shops, like Sephora in Kohl’s or Ulta Beauty at Target, digital channels such Amazon and TikTok Shop have forced traditional retailers to make difficult decisions to protect their equity.

Because TikTok Shop is a standalone sales channel, retailers have grappled with the question of whether or not they see it as a competitor. For Sephora, the answer was ultimately no.

“It’s such a unique beast in itself that you can’t really put it in a box,” said Marola. “It’s playing a bit on all parts of the consumer journey, but I would say it skews towards a purchase occasion, which is more impulse buy.”

“We’ve worked really hard with TikTok to create a bespoke experience. So everything that we are building together is unique to Sephora,” said Graham. This includes talks to incorporate Sephora’s loyalty program in the future — a feat the retailer has already pulled off with third-party platforms Doordash, Uber Eats and Instacart.

For brands that have already seen success on their own TikTok Shop, retailers need to offer incentives to participate. Laura Geller Beauty, for example, has emerged as a top-selling makeup brand on the platform, earning the ranking of number two in the category for the six-month period ending in March 2026, according to TikTok Shop. While stocked at both Sephora and Ulta Beauty, the brand has not yet featured a product on Ulta Beauty’s TikTok Shop.

“When it comes to your own channel, of course, you’re just in more control,” said Sara Mitzner, vice president of marketing for Laura Geller Beauty.

But there is value in being featured on an established retailer’s page, including wider exposure with a variety of brands and high-calibre influencers as well as greater production value.

Although TikTok Shop has already become a clear beauty giant, the addition of major retailers also benefits the platform by helping to cement the legitimacy of a beauty assortment that has been known to heavily feature dupes.

“What’s really going to help is the expertise and the curation,” said Mayo. “We know that there’s this whole group of consumers, and most of them are Gen Z, that trust TikTok Shop and trust the creators. That’s about maybe 10 percent of the population.” The move may help TikTok Shop access older or more sceptical customers, Mayo added.

For Sephora, the impetus is on keeping up with, rather than resisting new technology and consumer habits.

“In the end, the customer today is everywhere, and you can’t really stop that,” said Marola.

Sign up to The Business of Beauty newsletter, your complimentary, must-read source for the day’s most important beauty and wellness news and analysis.