Sephora to Open Third U.K. Location Next Summer in Manchester
LONDON — Sephora is heading north next summer to open its third U.K. location in Manchester’s popular shopping destination Trafford Centre.
The LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton-owned beauty retailer said the opening of the 5,380-square-foot ground-floor store reinforced the pivotal role that major regional cities like Manchester play in shaping and influencing the beauty industry landscape.
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Touted to be “the ultimate destination for those seeking the latest and most coveted beauty products in the North,” the store will bring a range of exclusive offerings to Manchester for the first time, such as Makeup by Mario, GXVE by Gwen Stefani and Haus Labs by Lady Gaga.
Sarah Boyd, managing director of Sephora U.K., said: “We are extremely excited to bring Sephora to Manchester, one of the most vibrant cities for beauty in the U.K. Expanding our presence beyond London is something that consumers have been screaming out for, and we are listening hard to them when deciding where to go next.”
“The Trafford Centre, known for its iconic atmosphere and diverse retail offering, is the perfect location for our third store,” Boyd added.
Russell Loveland, managing director at Pradera Lateral, Trafford Centre’s asset managers, said the shopping complex’s social media has been blowing up with enquiries from customers about the opening of the iconic beauty giant with “a cult following.”
“It will be a fantastic success and a great addition to our strong international brand lineup,“ added Loveland.
The retailer opened its first U.K. store in 2000 in Bluewater shopping center in Kent, opening nine doors overall. But in 2005, they were shuttered, as Sephora struggled to break through in the market amid intense competition from Boots and others.
Sephora made its return to the U.K. this March with the opening of a 6,000-square-foot store in London’s Westfield shopping centre at Westfield White City in west London. Last month, it opened another store at Westfield Stratford City in east London.
In an earlier interview with WWD, Boyd said the U.K. is home to “the most exciting dynamic beauty lover in the world.”
“It’s a really exciting place to work in beauty and to think about beauty and to look at the fashion. It’s also a very big market,” she said. “The timing has been a question of really finding the right way to enter the market and when we purchased Feelunique just over a year ago now, that was the perfect time to be able to come back in.”
The openings this year followed Sephora’s earlier purchase and rebranding of the e-commerce site Feelunique, which it had been using to feed, and monitor, the high demand coming from the U.K. market.
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