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Store of the Future

The sales associate training strategies used by beauty’s top specialty retailers

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By Lexy Lebsack
Jul 24, 2025

In this week’s Store Associates Strategies series, Glossy spotlights the high value of strong store associates amid consumers’ return to retail.

Best preparing sales associates for the highly competitive brick-and-mortar specialty beauty retail sector is an art and a science that can make or break a company’s success. 

“A lot of retailers invest in their corporate teams, but see retail employees as the most expendable, when actually, they’re the most important,” said Merrady Wickes, makeup artist, branding consultant and former longtime beauty retail leader. “When you’re chatting with a new customer, especially in a multi-brand store environment, the first thing anyone asks [the sales associate] is, ‘What do you use?’” 

Wickes spent more than a decade working across today’s top beauty retailers, including Bergdorf Goodman, Space NK and The Detox Market, and she was Violet Grey’s first store director. She also helped brands navigate retail success during a four-year tenure at beauty agency Créme Collective. 

“[Retail workers] need to feel seen, they need to feel taken care of, they need to feel like they get just as many perks as the people coming in from the corporate offices, because [sales associates] really do drive the business,” said Wickes. 

Sales associate retention is perhaps the best weathervane for how well a retailer is managing its brick-and-mortar staff. “We refer to them as ‘lifers,’” Wickes said. “They’re the ones who are still at that fragrance counter after 30 years because they’re happy and well taken care of. And they carry the whole business on their back because they have such a rich clientele [that keeps coming back to see them to shop].” 

Hiring, training and retaining star retail employees requires expert strategies based on high-touch onboard training, ongoing education, and a dynamic relationship with brands fueled by ongoing education, face time with brand reps, plentiful gratis and plenty of baked goods. 

“You’re not just training [a sales associate] to understand and learn — you’re also training them to educate [the customer],” Matthew Blythe, Goop’s vp of retail, told Glossy. “The successful measure of that training is how well that employee can then feel comfortable and confident in using [those learnings] with a consumer.”

Goop is currently in retail expansion mode with 20-30 new locations planned. When Blythe opens a new store, like he just did in Aspen last month, the company spends several days in rigorous training.  

“Within seven seconds of entering a store, you’re either going to start having a positive experience or a negative one, so making sure our store teams understand that initial impact is so important,” Blythe said. “I created something when I joined Goop called ‘the Goop experience,’ and it has five stages of a customer’s journey throughout the store.” 

This guide, along with Goop’s multi-day onboarding, helps new hires understand how to set the tone for the store through environmental elements, like music and conversation starters. It also delves into basic sales techniques known to convert browsers to buyers. A lot of these are simple, like remembering a returning customer’s name and where they work, and some are more complex, like getting a consumer to try something, share their contact information, or communicate their overall style or skin goals. “My North Star is listening,” Blythe said. “You won’t have any influence or understanding of a customer unless you can really, truly listen to why they’re there and what they’re doing.” 

Once sales basics and expectations are clear, Goop fliethe s in its corporate leads to connect with sales staff. For example, Goop’s lead for its in-house beauty and fashion lines, as well as its department buyers, recently visited Goop’s Aspen store ahead of its opening to connect with and educate the staff about the products. 

Goop’s trainings last several days and, once complete, new employees are matched with a mentor, different from their direct manager, whom they can ask questions, connect with regarding issues or concerns, and actively learn from. “It’s almost like a buddy program,” Blythe said. The same goes for Goop’s corporate team. The buddy program lasts around six months for new hires. 

Bluemercury, the standout beauty retailer owned by Macy’s, also spends several days training new store associates ahead of their first official day. When opening a new store, the company implements skill-based scenario selling.

“We will run a scenario, like, ‘Susie is walking in and asks you for this product that is either not available or we don’t sell. How would you handle it?’” Jenna Goldberg, head of stores, omnichannel and strategy at Bluemercury, told Glossy. “Another good example that’s very powerful is helping someone find a fragrance,” she said. Most customers struggle to articulate their fragrance likes and dislikes, so Bluemercury arms its staffers with useful tools for unpacking needs and locating solutions quickly.  

Ongoing brand training is also crucial, Goldberg said. “We know that our highest performing stores are the stores where the brand relationships and the brand training is fully entrenched,” she said. This includes in-person training where the founder or a rep spends face time with staffers, or video sessions where staffers can ask questions. 

Bringing sweet treats for the staff, like cookies or cupcakes, is an unspoken requirement ubiquitous across retail. It’s also a sign of respect in some retail circles. 

Glossy found that most top retailers offer a mix of digital and in-person educational sessions for associates, and most are between 30 minutes and an hour. 

It’s best for educators to focus on the product and leave tons of time for questions, said a New York City-based longtime manager of a top beauty specialty retailer who preferred to remain anonymous. 

“[Remember that] our job is to show [the customer] the product, tell them what it is, how it works, what it’s for, how to use it and how much it costs, as quickly as we can,” she said. 

A top mistake made by brand reps is to spend 75% of the time on the origin story, 25% on the products and no time on questions, she said. Instead, focus on the product and questions, with only a brief intro on the company at the top. Unlike digital selling strategies, store associates don’t make sales reciting the brand story, she said. 

 Every expert Glossy spoke to stressed the importance of gifting associates full-size gratis and food. 

“It is easier and more authentic to sell something you’ve experienced,” Goldberg said. “We encourage the brands to gratis the beauty experts. It is better for the brands, and it’s better for the beauty experts.” This can be done in brand training or through the retailer as a one-off upon launch. 

“If you can’t get a trainer into a store officially, even once a year to have face time, you’re going to be just another product on a shelf,” Wickes said. She recommends investing in field support to visit stores every few months. “You will see a measurable shift in your sales when you send in a freelance field team to ‘work shifts,’” Wickes said. “Whether it’s four hours or six hours, they’re checking stock levels, cleaning the displays, training any employee they can get their hands on, doing a quick little on-the-floor training, talking to customers and getting that face time with staff.” 

As far as creating longtime, successful employees — or maybe even ‘lifers’ — listening to staffers is crucial, Goop’s Blythe told Glossy. 

To retain someone, “progression is crucial,” Blythe said. But to promote someone, you must “truly understand where someone wants to go and what makes them [feel like they are] a success, and understand what they enjoy doing.” He calls this flexible leadership. 

“To be a true success in my role, you have to really flex to so many different personalities and different styles to understand what drives people and what motivates them,” Goop’s Blythe told Glossy. “When you get to that, you can have a much better understanding of retention.”

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