Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos is vocal about his desire to build market share in the beauty category. After all, as the former executive vice president and COO of Longs Drug Stores, Vasos knows the basket-building power of the category.
Dollar General’s latest salvo in the competitive cosmetics category is a private-label makeup line called Believe Beauty. The line joins Dollar General’s first private-label beauty line called Studio Selection, which launched last year in the hair and skin categories. Over the past few years, the value powerhouse invested in better lighting and an upgraded assortment in its beauty aisles.
Believe Beauty was developed by Maesa, the company behind Target’s Kristin Ess hair care and Walmart’s Flower by Drew Barrymore. The 140-SKU collection rolls out next month to 15,400 Dollar General stores. Believe Beauty is a full range including foundations, lip, eye and even artificial eyelashes.
“The formulas in this line are the equivalent of those that would cost up to $19,” Scott Oshry, Maesa’s chief marketing officer, said of the range which tops out at $5. Moreover, a specially created fixture offers an elevated experience that is more reminiscent of Ulta Beauty versus traditional value stores, Oshry says. “There is no reason a consumer can’t walk into a Dollar General, which is an amazing retailer, and find something that represents the latest of what is happening in beauty right now.”
Retailer’s exclusive brands are on the uptick, experts say, as a way to capitalize on consumer demand for indie brands that are typically sold only on the internet while also building loyalty for their stores. In just the past month, Amazon launched its own skin care called Belei and Walmart rolled out an ingestible exclusive collection with Bobbi Brown called Evolution_18.