There’s a typical adage in relation to gross sales: Go the place the persons are.
Plainly’s what Ulta Magnificence’s doing after its March 17 launch on TikTok Store, changing into the primary specialty magnificence retailer within the nation to launch on the platform the place scrolling and discovering new merchandise is inspired. Now, should you’ve ever scrolled via a TikTok video and puzzled what basis that particular person is utilizing, you’ll be able to scroll via Ulta in app and buy it for your self.
Ulta’s transfer onto the platform comes as retailers rethink what actually is the entrance door of retail. It additionally comes as TikTok’s industrial future in America was stabilized following a landmark cope with the Trump administration.
The backdrop to Ulta’s launch is as a lot political as it’s industrial. Earlier this month, the Trump administration finalized a deal permitting TikTok to proceed working within the U.S. in alternate for a reported $10 billion brokerage price paid to the U.S. authorities, in accordance with The New York Instances. Buyers together with Oracle, Emirati funding agency MGX, and Silver Lake (which every personal 15% of the corporate) can pay the U.S. authorities $10 billion for brokering the deal, $2.5 billion of which was already paid in January. The deal comes as a decision to years of nationwide safety issues over the app’s Chinese language mum or dad firm, ByteDance, and successfully resolved the uncertainty that hung over TikTok since 2020, giving manufacturers and retailers a clearer runway to put money into the platform’s commerce capabilities. Ulta introduced its expanded TikTok integration simply days after the deal’s phrases have been finalized.
Go the place the viewers is
TikTok isn’t a spot manufacturers try to construct an viewers—it’s the place an viewers of historic scale is already purchasing. It’s additionally the place new potentialities within the shopper house are rising, together with the flexibility to reinforce purchasing with AI.
“We are excited about the opportunities, both on social and AI-enhanced commerce platforms, to bring our undeniably Ulta Beauty experience and assortment to life,” Ulta Magnificence CEO Kecia Steelman stated through the firm’s This fall 2025 earnings name. “We will initially launch with a thoughtfully curated assortment of only-at-Ulta brands, which will add another exciting tool to our brand-building playbook.”
It’s unsure how the AI-enhanced commerce platforms will work. Nevertheless, Ulta’s strategy to TikTok is a part of an overarching recognition by the sweetness retailer that sees “firsthand how discovery is happening everywhere today–and social platforms play an increasingly influential role in how guests engage with brands,” Lauren Brindley, chief merchandising and digital officer at Ulta Magnificence informed Fortune in a press release.
“Partnering with TikTok Shop is a strategic and complementary extension of our discovery ecosystem,” she added. “It allows us to meet guests in the moments that inspire them, reduce friction between content and commerce, and drive incremental growth by welcoming new-to-Ulta Beauty shoppers into our community.”
Steelman made related feedback within the earnings name, including it’s assembly customers the place they’re. TikTok Store is “where guests can purchase immediately as they engage with content from Ulta Beauty and our brands on the platform.”
The info backs her up. TikTok Store logged greater than 103 billion U.S. searches with e-commerce intent in 2025, and whole transaction quantity on the platform rose practically 80% year-over-year, in accordance with information shared immediately from TikTok to ModernRetail. There at the moment are 71.4 million lively social consumers on TikTok within the U.S. alone, up 24.5% from 2024, and 45.5% of all U.S. TikTok customers made no less than one social commerce
The corporate has been increasing its use of generative AI, together with agentic AI instruments and an inner AI Middle of Excellence, to personalize advertising and marketing throughout its 46 million loyalty members. The TikTok Store launch, in that context, is the consumer-facing results of a back-end transformation years within the making.
It additionally arrives alongside certainly one of Ulta’s strongest latest quarters: $3.9 billion in This fall 2025 gross sales, an 11.8% year-over-year achieve, with comparable gross sales rising 5.8%. Steelman, who took the CEO function in January 2025 after 11 years on the firm, has been clear concerning the turnaround.
“We had to get our swagger back,” she stated. “I felt like we lost our swagger just a little bit, and I feel like we’ve got our swagger back.”
Nevertheless, some are cautious to laud the partnership out of worry of what has occurred repeatedly with self-conscious customers (who’re primarily underage) on social media platforms. Yale Drugs dermatologist Dr. Kathleen Suozzi, who has researched the skincare routines and purchases of children and teenagers as influenced due to social media, questioned if “this strategy is capitalizing on the impulsivity” of a youthful cohort, particularly given her work whereas “looking at behavioral patterns in teens and tweens around skincare.”
“I think this really targets teens and tweens in a major way,” Suozzi informed Fortune, including that as a result of TikTok Store all happens in app, it’s simply that a lot simpler for all customers, no matter age, to impulse purchase.
“We see really everything related to social media and kids, it’s that chasing of this idea, this false idea of perfectionism, this representation of what skin should look like, and chasing these beauty ideals that are not realistic or appropriate,” she added. “That’s really what this is feeding into.”
Suozzi talked about how much less refined customers may not be capable to discern between what’s a sponsored advert as in comparison with an everyday consumer on the app not touching up their look. This “comparing your skin to these influencers that have filters and lighting, and the pressure to follow multi-step routines—this is contributing to increased anxiety about your appearance and compulsive product use. And that’s also what this integrated platform is going to feed even more. You see something, you immediately want it, you buy it.”
Magnificence’s broader wager on TikTok
Ulta will not be alone in recognizing TikTok’s pull on the sweetness trade. Though it doesn’t have an official retailer on TikTok Store, Sephora beforehand partnered with the platform to pioneer a creator program connecting rising manufacturers from its Speed up incubator with content material creators.
Ulta’s TikTok Store launch takes that conviction additional, turning discovery right into a direct buy second fairly than a brand-building train. TikTok Store’s Head of Magnificence, Ajay Salpekar, framed the partnership as additive fairly than disruptive:
“TikTok is where culture, commerce, and discovery come together in a seamless way, so it makes sense for retailers and brands to be part of our ecosystem,” Salpekar informed Fortune in a press release. “For Ulta Beauty, TikTok Shop offers the power of discovery, helping to reach new shoppers for the release of exclusive launches and to support the scale and growth of new-to-market brands.”
