Key Takeaways:
Forget stop the scroll. For brick-and-mortar retailers, the challenge is even greater: How do you get viral products on store shelves before they even go viral?
In a world where TikTok trends move faster than shelf resets, retailers are under constant pressure to stock shelves with trending products before the hype fades. Facing increased competition, declining brand loyalty, and a shrinking divide between scrolling and shopping on platforms like TikTok Shop, the retailer-brand relationship has never been more important for both parties to win at the brick-and-mortar retail level.
Identifying trends is easy enough, but developing products and delivering them to stores across the country before the fad fades is no small feat. Many retailers are “in the kitchen” with brands, collaborating on product launches based on consumer insights, but this kind of partnership requires a careful balance of speed and strategy to succeed.
Target’s trend forecasting approach is designed to identify what’s next—and get it on shelves fast. Through a combination of data analysis, consumer insights, and close collaboration with brand partners, the mass retailer moves with agility and speed, predicting what beauty shoppers will crave next long before the trend hits TikTok.
Two years ago, Target recognized fragrance as a major growth driver in beauty, with consumers increasingly viewing it as a core part of their self-care routines. Within fragrance, consumers gravitated toward gourmand notes—dessert-like scents that are reminiscent of food and evoke comfort, warmth, and a sense of sweet nostalgia. Popular notes include vanilla, chocolate, and caramel, but Target identified the consumer demand for scents that were more sophisticated than sweet. The retailer turned to pistachio, a nutty flavor most often found in bakeries and as a secondary note in niche perfumes.
Rather than waiting for the trend to mature, Target acted. The retailer tapped eos to co-create Crème de Pistachio Body Lotion, designed to capture the emerging craving for sweet, cozy scents. Within its first four weeks on shelves, it became the #1 selling beauty item at Target.
“With Crème de Pistachio, Target was in sync with our vision from the start, creating a true trend collaboration,” eos President Soyoung Kang told BeautyMatter. “They believed in the idea, leaned in with conviction, and brought it to life through a strong hero-item launch and premium in-store experience."
Trendspotting: From Signals to Shelves
For Amanda Nusz, Senior Vice President of Merchandising for Essentials and Beauty, at Target, the pistachio moment was no accident. It was the culmination of years spent refining Target’s ability to forecast trends, translate insights into product strategy, and collaborate with brands to move faster than competitors.
“Trend forecasting is one of our superpowers,” Nusz told BeautyMatter. “We’re constantly listening to our guests to better understand what matters most to them.”
According to Nusz, trendspotting is both an art and a science. It starts with quantitative data gathered through social listening, focus groups, online reviews, surveys, and more. But all that consumer research would be worthless outside the broader cultural context.
“By combining those insights with broader cultural signals from social media, runways, and street style, we’re able to spot emerging trends and respond quickly to what’s resonating.”
For a mass retailer like Target, speed and partnership are critical. Once the team identified pistachio as a rising fragrance note, they shared the insight with eos, a longtime brand partner at Target best known for its sensory-driven formulations. Last year, the brand went viral for its innovative “lotion lock” packaging design, sparked by a viral TikTok video praising the scent of eos’ Vanilla Cashmere Body Lotion.
Eos’ Crème de Pistachio lotion was sparked not just by internal insights but also by Target’s awareness of Fine’ry’s Pistachio Please scent, another Target-exclusive hit. The success of that fragrance signaled a clear opportunity to extend the pistachio moment into bodycare. Eos’ teams were open and receptive to feedback on this emerging trend and on creating this viral item. Together, the teams moved quickly from concept to product development, ensuring the lotion hit shelves right as gourmand scents hit their cultural peak.
“That combination of early insights, collaborative development, and vendor expertise enables us to move confidently from trendspotting to delivering a product that truly resonates with our guests,” said Nusz.
The retailer often looks beyond beauty to rising trends across other categories, including apparel, accessories, and home, to create a beauty assortment that feels fresh, relevant, and connected to what’s happening across culture.
The Power of Brand-Retailer Partnerships
Nusz described Target’s relationships with its vendor partners as highly integrated, often beginning in the early stages of product ideation. “It’s always a collaborative process,” she said. “We look to our brand partners for their product expertise, and we also bring to the partnership a deep understanding of our consumer, the industry, and emerging trends, which allows us to curate or even help develop an assortment that feels fresh, relevant, and uniquely Target.”
That collaboration can dramatically shorten development timelines. “Some trends take months or even years to build while others move more quickly—but in every case, collaboration with our vendor partners is key,” Nusz said. “It enables us to quickly identify white space and bring unique products to market.”
To trend or not to trend: That is the question many retailers face, and they often spend too much time deliberating, sometimes missing the opportunity entirely. Some trends go out of style quickly, while others continue to evolve and expand. Nusz’s team takes a “layered approach,” prioritizing trends that they believe are worth investing in the long run.
“Sometimes it’s about leaning in to give our guests what they’re excited about right now, like introducing the eos Crème de Pistachio body lotion when we saw the gourmand scent trend start to take off,” she said. “Through this approach, we’re able to strike the right balance of bringing in what’s new and exciting, while making sure our assortment always feels relevant long term.”
Today’s beauty trends often start on TikTok, where attention spans last only seconds before viewers scroll on to the next dopamine hit. For Target, success depends on identifying which trends will resonate with the masses, not just online.
“We have decades of experience understanding what resonates with our guests, and that gives us a strong foundation for spotting trends with mass appeal,” Nusz said.
The Future of Beauty at Target
Consumers can’t get enough of fragrance: It’s the fastest-growing category in the mass market, up 17% based on dollar sales, per Circana. Target is betting big on the category, with a strong focus on accessibility. The retailer continues to expand its assortment with brands like Dossier, Fine’ry, Being Frenshe, and Kitsch, the latter of which entered Target as a hair accessories brand in 2024. Earlier this year, Kitsch launched a collection of hair mists designed to eliminate odor.
“These examples show how we pair our deep experience with real-time insights to deliver an assortment that sparks joy, discovery, and inspiration—and most importantly, truly connects with our guests,” Nusz said.
Fragrance shows no signs of slowing down, but Target has its eye on an even bigger prize: the integration of fragrance and wellness. In 2024, Target announced its commitment to the wellness category with the introduction of 1,000 new products, and earlier this year, the retailer doubled down on its commitment to wellness, sharing plans to introduce more than 2,000 new items across multiple categories, featuring more than 600 Target exclusives. As the retailer’s wellness stock grows, it is committed to staying accessible and affordable, with over half of the new items under $10. By riding the fragrance wave straight into the wellness boom, Target is well positioned to dominate the scent-led self-care segment.
“Beauty is deeply personal, and so is wellness,” Nusz said. “Self-care remains a cornerstone of our strategy in putting forth an assortment that has new products to explore and everyday essentials.”
Looking ahead, Nusz sees opportunity in self-care, K-beauty, and high-performing skincare. “We’re seeing strong momentum in lip care and effective skincare, especially with K-beauty, as guests seek high-performing, accessible solutions that fit seamlessly into their self-care routines,” she said. “Our focus is on curating an assortment that meets those evolving needs while delivering the inspiration and discovery Target is known for.”
That dual mission of accessibility and aspiration has long defined Target’s place in the beauty retail landscape. Target has cultivated a strong reputation for its exclusive beauty brand partnerships like Kristen Ess, Versed, and Fine’ry. The intersection of fragrance and wellness is ripe for innovation, particularly in the mass and masstige segments. Target’s ability to identify emerging brands and scale them to mass appeal gives the retailer a huge advantage in this growing beauty and wellness landscape, but internally, it faces significant challenges.
In October, Target announced a significant corporate restructuring that included eliminating approximately 1,800 corporate positions, following several quarters of stagnant sales and declining profits. The company’s stock price has fallen by nearly 30 % over the past year following its decision to roll back several DEI initiatives.
Earlier this year, Ulta Beauty and Target mutually decided to end their partnership, which began in 2021, with both companies citing underlying operational and strategic challenges. The collaboration will officially conclude in August 2026, leaving Target to reimagine its role in the evolving beauty and wellness landscape. The retailer’s trend-forecasting strategy is the blueprint for that reset, with fragrance and wellness playing leading roles in the future of beauty at Target.
In today’s social-media-driven retail marketplace, virality is both a goal and a gamble. To win at retail, Target has to play its cards right. “Trends are ever evolving, and with the nature of social media, we remain both intuitive and nimble,” Nusz concluded.
