L’Oréal Pushes for Store Shelf Accessibility to Fuel Walmart Beauty Acceleration

L’Oreal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus highlighted the challenges CPGs continue to face with anti-theft devices in retail stores. 

The remarks came during the beauty company’s most recent earnings call with investors yesterday, when the exec was asked whether Walmart’s recent beauty acceleration was significant for L’Oreal. 

While they haven’t yet benefitted, Hieronimus said Walmart is one of L’Oreal’s strongest partners in North America, and they are “absolutely determined to support them in their own desire to accelerate in beauty.” 

However, he noted that upon visiting a “beautiful” Walmart store a month ago, makeup and skin care products were locked up. 

“And, of course, that has a very negative impact on the sell-through of beauty,” he said, adding that year-to-date sell-out in Walmart wasn’t positive. 

See also: Learn how L’Oreal is accelerating content creation

Like multiple retailers, Walmart has been testing a variety of solutions to combat theft and improve employee safety in its stores. This includes locking up certain products on store shelves, which can hurt sales and customer experiences. Such heft prevention measures negatively impact in-store experiences, with 43% of consumers less likely to return to stores with such barriers, according to NIQ.

Despite the challenges, Hieronimus remained optimistic about the future. He said some Canadian retailers had tried this direction in the last year or two, but L’Oreal had ultimately proven to them that it was more detrimental than beneficial. 

“So right now, yes, Walmart is more into beauty, but if they want to sell beauty, which is partly an impulse purchase, having to call sales assistance that comes from the other side of the store to sell you, or to give you, a lipstick is not necessarily the best way to accelerate beauty.” 

“So that's part of the discussions we have with the Walmart team,” he added. “And I must say … they are very positive about working on these issues and developing the category because it is a big potential for us and for them.”