“Once we know where those elements are on the face, we can then know where the lipstick or eye shadow should go.” “We have essentially trained a program that can measure where the lips and eyes are in real time and track those facial feature points,” he added. The core of the technology is the ability to track facial features accurately, Aarabi said. Since launching in 2016, every four months, ModiFace and Sephora add in more features or expand to other platforms. “A few years ago, Sephora realized that the technology had come to a certain level of realism and quality that they felt it could impact their business in a dramatic way,” Aarabi said. “But we found that in a beauty space, there was a need for this visualization, and that’s how we got started.”įor the past five years, ModiFace and Sephora experimented with AR. “We are based on technology developed at Stanford University and included face tracking and computer vision,” said Parham Aarabi, CEO of ModiFace. Sephora worked with ModiFace to develop the technology. “It can be overwhelming coming into our stores or shopping online, but this makes it easy to help you find your favorite shade and save you time.” “Sephora Virtual Artist is a really good example of where there was a real customer need,” Laughton said. Virtual Artist is available in the Sephora app as well as in select stores. A new feature called Color Match taps AI to help customers find the right color shade for their skin tone via an uploaded photo. It also lets users go through beauty tutorials on their own face digitally to learn how to achieve certain looks. Perhaps its most innovative and accessible mobile offering is Sephora Virtual Artist, an AR tool that allows customers to try on thousands of shades of lipstick, eyeshadow, false lashes, and many other makeup products sold at Sephora. It also invested early in mobile as more than just a place to make purchases. The company launched its website in the US in 1999, and kept moving forward in digital. The company now operates some 2,300 stores in 33 countries worldwide, with more than 430 stores across the Americas. Sephora’s beauty retail concept was founded in France by Dominique Mandonnaud in 1970, and acquired by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton in 1997. Here’s an inside look at how the company has digitally transformed the beauty space to better meet the needs of customers and dominate the market–in a rapidly-changing retail environment. “That’s how we approach things, and as long as we’re doing it through the lens of our customer and finding ways to simplify and enhance their shopping experience, we’re willing to put focus there.” “It’s about being open to new ideas, and working with partners to develop the right solutions–and being willing to do things that maybe our clients don’t even know that they want yet,” Laughton said. While other cosmetic companies rely heavily on department store sales, Sephora offers customers a number of tech options that allow them to personalize their shopping experience by trying on makeup virtually using AR, matching their skin tone to a foundation with AI, and sampling a fragrance via a touchscreen and scented air.įurther, in Sephora’s Innovation Lab, launched in 2015, a team of executives hired from the marketing, product development, and technology industries source, develop, evaluate, test, and ultimately launch new offerings and technologies for shopping in the store and online. So we know to be successful as a retailer, we’ve got to be where our clients are, and give her tools and experiences that meet her needs.” “We are very focused on our customers, and we know that her life is increasingly reliant on digital. “Digital and innovation have always been part of our DNA at Sephora,” said Mary Beth Laughton, Sephora’s executive vice president of omni retail. It’s Sephora, the industry-leading chain of cosmetic stores that has leveraged digital transformation to take pole position as the number one speciality beauty retailer in the world. Like many Silicon Valley startups, its team develops and pitches cutting-edge solutions and customer service experiences, promising to make life easier for its consumers.īut, this is no robotics company or maker of self-driving cars. In San Francisco’s Dogpatch district, a research laboratory explores new products that tap augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), and RFID technology. Here's an inside look at its successful digital transformation. How Sephora is leveraging AR and AI to transform retail and help customers buy cosmeticsīeauty retailer Sephora followed customer technology trends to command the cosmetic industry worldwide.
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