The third quarter online was another healthy one for Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance Inc., as the beauty supplies retailer continues to add more features and functions to its e-commerce site.
For the third quarter ended Nov. 1, Ulta, No. 227 in the Internet Retailer 2014 Top 500 Guide, reported:
- E-commerce now accounts for about 5% of total sales. Based on that percentage Internet Retailer estimates that web sales totaled about $37.3 million. Ulta did not break out a metric for the prior year.
- Total sales increased 20.5% to $745.7 million from $618.8 million in the prior year.
- Comparable-store sales, which include e-commerce, grew 9.5%.
- Net income was $59.1 million compared with $45.4 million in the third quarter of 2013.
Ulta continues to enhance its web site as the retailer works toward a goal of having e-commerce represent about 10% of all sales within five years, CEO Mary Dillon told Wall Street analysts on the company’s recent earnings call, based on a transcript on SeekingAlpha.com. “E-commerce is expected to represent about 5% of total sales this year, on our way to our goal of growing to 10% of our business in the next five years,” Dillon told analysts.
As part of making better use of Ulta.com, the company has added features that allow visitors to book beauty appointments online at an Ulta salon, chief marketing officer David Kimbell told analysts. “We are pleased to see acceleration in new guest acquisitions throughout the quarter, supported by our new online booking capability,” Kimbell told analysts. “During the quarter, 36,000 appointments were booked online and more than 80% of those were new salon guests.”
Ulta also added new video technology that enables visitors to watch the video and click through the video to order a product. “We’ve also implemented a new technology on Ulta.com to enable video commerce or shoppable videos, where guests can click to buy merchandise shown in videos that are created by passionate Ulta bloggers,” Kimbell said.
Ulta also recently rolled out a new iPad app and introduced live chat sessions with representatives of various beauty brands. “We continue to add more content and enhance the site performance, and we also expect to see improved fulfillment capabilities as we execute our supply chain project,” Dillon said.
For the first three quarters:
- Based on the estimate that e-commerce now accounts for about 5% of total sales, Internet Retailer estimates that web sales totaled about $109.5 million. Ulta did not break out a number for the prior year.
- Total sales increased 21.7% to $2.19 billion from $1.80 billion in the prior year.
- Comparable-store sales, which include e-commerce, grew 9.3%.
- Net income was $169.8 million compared with $132.2 million in the third quarter of 2013.
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