I'm so excited that there is a Sephora that just opened so close to my home. Normally I have to go to the faux-Sephora inside the JCPenney or travel 30 min to get to a real one. All Sephoras are pretty consistent. If you're on vacation and enter a Sephora, you'll feel at home.
This Sephora:
This Sephora is no different, albeit it's brand new and just opened this weekend. As I enter, I see the familiar black and white stripe theme, the same sales associated with different faces, the shelves organized with signs displaying the brand that they hold, fun and lively music and atmosphere. The difference here (at least for now) is that everything is neatly in its spot, almost all testers just freshly opened, amenities such as tester mascara wands and cotton pads fully stocked. Sales associates are abundant. In fact, I was approached somewhere between 5-10 times by an associate asking if I needed anything, some asking multiple times. Normally, in a Sephora, the associated are talking to each other and you need to flag someone down.
I received an email inviting me to the grand opening this weekend (Fri-Sun) at this Sephora, promising fun prizes, scratch off cards (with purchase) among other festivities.
Unfortunately, I went on Sunday and after I made my purchase, there were no prizes, no scratch off cards, no spin the wheels. The cashier told me the grand opening festivities ended yesterday (Saturday)! I was disappointed.... At least I was able to get my gift (tote bag that I probably won't use) with $100 purchase.
Sephora vs Ulta:
As a comparison to Ulta, the Ulta rewards program is significantly superior than Sephora....significantly! Ulta's gift with purchases when buying on-line is also 1000x superior than Sephora. There is almost no incentive with Sephora's reward program. The trade off is that shopping at Sephora is a more lively experience with sales associates who are knowledgable and provide recommendations. Ulta associates are not trained on the products. I prefer to google search than spend time for the associate to read the package description to me. The other problem i have with Ulta is the brands they carry. They have both drugstore brands and limited high end brands. Sephora carries mostly higher end brands. The problem is that if you buy drugstore brands at Ulta, they charge so much more than your local pharmacy and they don't carry enough high end brands to buy the things I am looking for. You don't have that problem with higher end brands because their prices are fixed but Ulta only carrries the higher end brands that are old school, traditional....similar to the ones at dept stores, none of the newer, up and coming or trending products like k-beauty. I've made this suggestion to them many times but they aren't listening!! For that reason, I usually end up buying from Sephora (although I want to buy from Ulta). read more