Welcome back to Ulta Beauty Strategies, Glossy’s series breaking down the latest strategies of the retailer and its most popular brands.
Ulta Beauty’s highly-anticipated digital marketplace, called the UB Marketplace, has officially launched.
“Internally, we call it the second floor of the E-comm store, [or] a digital mezzanine,” Josh Friedman, svp of e-commerce and digital at Ulta Beauty, told Glossy. “[It’s filled with] the things you would expect or hope you would find on ulta.com that we typically haven’t carried before [due to space constraints].”
Ulta’s team hopes to supercharge its online business by offering thousands of new products from trending and emerging brands and categories without the consumer recognizing any difference in the online or app shopping experiences.
“The goal was to make it feel as seamless as possible and to make the brands feel integrated to our experience,” said Muffy Clince, Ulta Beauty’s director of marketplace category management.
The team quietly launched the marketplace earlier this month with the consumer journey remaining unchanged. For the consumer, the only differentiator for marketplace items is a line of copy on the product page that reads “Fulfilled by a trusted brand on UB Marketplace.” Shoppers cannot filter by marketplace items; all products are presented the same way online, and everything can be returned through the mail or in-store through returns logistics company Happy Returns.
Brands can apply to sell their own products on the UB Marketplace online — however, distributors and resellers are not allowed — for 18% commission plus shipping. For context, Amazon starts at 15% commission and can increase to 30% for its luxury beauty category.
Products are drop-shipped directly to the consumer from the brand and will arrive in separate boxes from the rest of their online order. Another difference: Marketplace items cannot be picked up in-store.
The company partnered with Mirakl, a French marketplace platform leader that launched marketplaces for Lowe’s and Best Buy in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
UB Marketplace is starting with 100 brands, including Ogee, HeLight, Manucurist, Apotheke, Atwater, Oars + Alps, Babe Lash, Nuxe and Saturday Skin. Brands provide their own imagery, which is edited by the Ulta team to fit seamlessly on the product pages.
Clince plans to use the marketplace to test brands and categories for omnichannel onboarding, as well as assortments for brands in the omni pipeline. Ulta is also onboarding every brand from its Muse Accelerator program.
“[Speed has been] one of the biggest wins,” Clince said. “Having this flexibility has been phenomenal.” For example, Clince can now welcome a new brand to the marketplace — from initial meaning to launch — in just four to six weeks. Prior to the new marketplace software, it normally took 12-26 weeks for e-commerce onboarding.
“We have seven key categories we’re really leaning into,” said Clince. “The first one, which has been near and dear to us over the last 18 months, is really wellness.” Within wellness, Clince is interested in products in holistic wellness, sleep, feminine care and ingestibles.
The other six buckets on her mind include men’s grooming, beauty tech, general personal care, luxury, artistry hair and color cosmetics brands, and what the company calls “discovery,” which includes global beauty finds like K-beauty.
Ulta’s loyalty program, which is the industry’s largest with nearly 46 million active members, is one reason why shoppers may easily be diverted from big box stores, online marketplace sites or local drugstores.
The program allows shoppers to collect and redeem points for shopping, and all marketplace items are eligible for the program. “The loyalty program is an unlock for them,” Clince said.
So far, wellness and color cosmetics have been top marketplace performers. “We’re watching it by the minute,” she said. “As you can imagine, it’s very exciting.” Clince has been with Ulta for two decades.
Friedman told Glossy that the executive team began working on the project at the end of last year, a few months before Steelman took over as CEO and unveiled her “Ulta Unleashed” business growth plan. Friedman joined Ulta two years ago. His CV includes digital leadership roles at Neiman Marcus Group, JCPenney and Dell.
“There’s no ceiling, and there’s also no floor; it’s not a quantity target, it is only a quality target,” Friedman said. “We only want authentic brands. We do not have any intentions of bringing on resellers, distributors or anything that could be perceived as not being authentic. Our guests have told us loud and clear: ‘we want the real stuff.’”
