Key Takeaways:
Ulta Beauty is stepping further into the e-commerce frontier with the recent launch of UB Marketplace, a curated online platform designed to expand its beauty and wellness offerings while maintaining the trusted Ulta Beauty experience. This new marketplace, powered by enterprise marketplace technology provider Mirakl, signifies a move under the company’s Ulta Beauty Unleashed initiative to scale new businesses and deepen consumer connection. It’s a significant evolution for the retailer, blending the breadth of an online marketplace with Ulta Beauty's hallmark curation and guest loyalty ecosystem.
UB Marketplace, now live on ulta.com and the Ulta Beauty app, offers shoppers an extended aisle of more than 100 brands across categories including luxury, wellness, grooming, professional tools, and global beauty. Early entrants include French skincare favorite Nuxe, nail care brand Manucurist, luxury home fragrance label Apotheke, and “clean” beauty brand Ogee, among others.
Unlike open marketplaces such as Amazon, UB Marketplace operates on an invitation-only model, a deliberate choice aimed at maintaining product quality, consumer trust, and Ulta Beauty's unified experience. Guests benefit from integrated rewards, shared carts and checkouts, and easy in-store returns, as this aims to position Ulta Beauty as a hybrid between digital convenience and in-store engagement.
“UB Marketplace allows us to deliver more newness, faster entry into emerging subcategories and trends, and deeper category authority—while keeping the guest experience unmistakably Ulta Beauty,” said Lauren Brindley, Chief Merchandising and Digital Officer at Ulta Beauty, in a press release.
Meeting Customers Where They Already Are
For beauty brands navigating an increasingly fragmented digital landscape, Ulta Beauty's move is a reminder that retail visibility must align with customer behavior, not simply platform presence. “Ultimately, if you listen to your customer and understand where they are, you make sure you are there too,” Amy Rudgard, SVP of Client Delivery at data-driven marketplace Market Defense, said to BeautyMatter. “That doesn’t mean being everywhere all at once. Brands should understand the role that different marketplaces play, from discovery to trial to repeat purchase.”
Rudgard emphasized that not all beauty categories behave the same online. “Shopping for fragrance or testing color makeup shades like lipstick or foundation may have marketplaces like Ulta playing a bigger role in customers' lives as they connect the in-store and online shopping experiences,” she explained. “There’s a reason brands that are winning in-store at Ulta or Sephora often see a more dynamic Amazon business. One feeds the other.”
In other words, Ulta’s UB Marketplace could become a bridge between physical and digital discovery both in-store traffic and online conversion. It’s a symbiotic retail loop that few marketplaces have been able to achieve at scale. “This thoughtfully curated model scales discovery and brand building for our partners, and ensures guests enjoy the same benefits they love—Ulta Beauty Rewards, easy returns, and a unified, trusted shopping experience,” Brindley said.
While the appeal of joining a platform like UB Marketplace is clear, including access to Ulta Beauty's over 45 million Rewards members, integrated infrastructure, and built-in trust, it also presents a new set of challenges, particularly for indie beauty brands. “For emerging beauty brands, one of the biggest risks is spreading themselves too thin and trying to be in all the marketplaces without the resources or budgets to support winning in each,” Rudgard cautioned. “The cost of entry might be low, but as algorithm-driven marketplaces become more dominant, paying to be seen or found will make operating across multiple platforms financially challenging.”
However, Rudgard also sees a silver lining in data and technology interoperability. “The technology already exists to easily translate what’s working in one marketplace and port it over to another,” she said. “If you want to be present across Amazon, Ulta Beauty, and Target, it’s getting easier and easier to leverage and share content, assets, and data between platforms. Recycle versus reinvent.”
One key differentiator that may help Ulta Beauty stand apart in the crowded marketplace race is its deep understanding of beauty’s emotional and tactile nature. “Ulta has always had a strong loyalty program, and their free samples and gifts with purchase will continue to resonate; something Amazon hasn’t figured out how to deliver,” Rudgard noted. “Trial is a big part of beauty, and these types of programs are always successful.”
By embedding these experiential touchpoints into UB Marketplace, Ulta Beauty expands its assortments and the brand experience itself. The integration of loyalty, discovery, and fulfillment under one digital roof reinforces Ulta Beauty's positioning as a trusted curator in an increasingly noisy retail environment.
A New Era of Curated Commerce
The rise of retailer-driven marketplaces like UB Marketplace is a good signifier of a broader shift in beauty e-commerce strategy, including maximizing both reach and relevance. Brands no longer simply choose between DTC, Amazon, or retail, as they must now strategically map how each channel serves a different part of the consumer journey.
Rudgard believes the trend is just beginning. “More marketplaces are sure to surface, some with fresh, compelling benefits that could be game-changers for the right brand,” she said. “They’ll have to compete with Amazon’s convenience and speed, but brands will need to think carefully about how to connect with customers during different phases of the shopping journey.”
As for what’s next, Rudgard pointed to TikTok Shop as the one to watch. “It might feel messy and full of discounting now, but it’s in an early phase of development,” she said. “It reminds me of the power of live, visual selling from the days of QVC. If TikTok can harness what made QVC so successful and translate that to the social commerce format, it could be a serious contender.”
With UB Marketplace, Ulta Beauty is extending its digital shelf and redefining curation in the age of algorithmic retail. By combining technology, trust, and tactile beauty experiences, the company is positioning itself as a marketplace with meaning; one that could reshape how beauty brands think about distribution, discovery, and digital storytelling.
