Walmart is staffing its beauty aisles with trained specialists who can match foundation shades to a customer’s skin tone, identify lipstick colors that flatter different complexions, and flag the moisturizers trending on TikTok. The move breaks from the discounter’s traditional no-frills model and comes as chains from Sephora to Target pour investment into personalized, in-store experiences.
The “beauty expert” roles have already been filled at 22 stores in Arkansas and Texas, and the company expects to extend them to more than 400 of its 4,600 U.S. namesake stores by the end of the year, Vinima Shekhar, Walmart’s vice president of beauty merchandising, told the AP. The expansion is part of a broader initiative to remodel 650 locations, move beauty departments toward the front of stores, and install displays spotlighting products that are gaining attention on social media.
“We’re not trying to be an Ulta or Sephora,” Shekhar said. “We have the breadth of assortment that no one else has. We have convenience that no one else has. What we also then want to do is layer on a level of service for both our associates and our customers.”
The company has added more premium brands over the last year, including French pharmacy skincare line La Roche Posay, Australian natural makeup brand Nude by Nature, and FHI Heat hair tools. Some La Roche Posay sunscreens retail for just under $40 for a 1.7‑ounce bottle — a price point that signals Walmart is pursuing higher-income shoppers who are looking for inspiration, not just everyday staples.
The human touch is central to Walmart’s bet. Department stores and specialty beauty chains have long employed cosmetics assistants, and pharmacies CVS and Walgreens introduced similar roles roughly a decade ago. But the discounter’s entry highlights how retailers with physical stores are leaning on face-to-face guidance to distinguish themselves from e‑commerce platforms and chatbots.
Whitney Hunt, Walmart’s vice president of U.S. operations, said experts could eventually appear in other departments, such as electronics. Target announced in early March that it would launch Target Beauty Studio in 600 stores this fall, partly replacing the in‑store Ulta shops that operated under a partnership ending in August. Target also began a “baby boutique” concierge experience in nearly 200 locations last month.
While artificial intelligence threatens jobs across industries, online postings for beauty experts and advisers have held relatively steady. Cory Stahle, an economist with the research arm of jobs site Indeed, said listings for those roles were virtually flat between February 2020 and this month, while postings for marketing and software development jobs fell more than 20% over the same period.
The median hourly wage for beauty expert roles was $19.54 in March, about $2 above the median for all other retail jobs, according to Indeed data. Walmart said its beauty experts earn $14 to $35 per hour depending on location, a range comparable to the $14 to $37 spread for all of the company’s hourly workers. Advisers receive a day of training at a company academy plus ongoing instruction on products, seasonal trends, and customer interaction. They do not apply makeup on shoppers or perform makeovers, unlike some department‑store and specialty‑chain employees.
Helena Bacon, a 21‑year‑old University of Arkansas biology student, went through the training last fall and now works the beauty section of a Fayetteville Walmart store. She said the education left her feeling more empowered to help customers. “I was kind of everywhere before,” Bacon said. “But now that I’m just in my section, if someone does come up to me and asks for a recommendation for something, … I could go over with them into that section and say, ‘This what I know is good for the problem you’re trying to fix.’”