Ulta Beauty, Inc. (ULTA) Business
This page reproduces the company's own Item 1 Business text from the linked SEC filing. It is filer text, not grepcent analysis, scoring, or investment advice.
Informational only - not investment advice. See Disclaimer.
Item 1. Business
Overview
Ulta Beauty, Inc. (“we,” “us,” “our,” “Ulta Beauty,” or the “Company”) is an international specialty beauty retailer and a premier beauty destination for cosmetics, fragrance, skin care products, wellness products, hair care products, and salon services. The Company was founded in Illinois in 1990 as a beauty retailer at a time when prestige, mass, and salon products were sold through distinct channels – department stores for prestige products; drug stores and mass merchandisers for mass products; and salons and authorized retail outlets for professional hair care products. The Company developed a unique specialty retail concept that offers a broad range of brands and price points, select beauty services, and a convenient and welcoming shopping environment. The Company’s target consumer is defined as a
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“beauty enthusiast,” a consumer who is passionate about the beauty category, uses beauty for self-expression, experimentation, and self-investment, and has high expectations for their shopping experience.
The Company’s U.S. operations (“Ulta U.S.”) make it the largest specialty beauty retailer in the U.S. In addition to its U.S. operations, the Company has expanded its international presence through its subsidiary, Space NK Limited (“Space NK”), a luxury beauty retailer operating in the U.K. and Ireland, its joint venture in Mexico, and its franchise in the Middle East.
The Company’s vision is to be the most loved beauty destination of its guests and the most admired retailer by its associates, communities, partners, and investors. Its mission is to use the power of beauty to bring to life the possibilities that lie within each of us — inspiring every guest and enabling each associate to build a fulfilling career.
Across the Company’s portfolio, key points of strategic differentiation include:
Differentiated Assortment. Guests are offered a differentiated assortment of established and emerging brands across a variety of categories and price points. The Company’s wide selection of beauty and wellness categories, from entry-level to luxury price points, spans across cosmetics, fragrance, skincare, bath and body products, haircare, salon styling tools, and wellness products.
Convenient Omnichannel Footprint. Products are offered through the Company’s stores, digital platforms, and partnerships. The Company believes that sales in one channel are not independent of the others and seeks to provide its guests with seamless omnichannel shopping experiences that enable channels to complement one another. With a bright and open store environment, the Company makes it easy for guests to discover new products and services in-person. The store design, fixtures, and open layout provide the flexibility to respond to consumer trends and changes in our merchandising strategy. Through the Company’s websites and mobile applications, guests are offered convenient, immersive, and personalized digital experiences. The Company’s digital channels enable always-on shopping and discovery, and our diverse fulfillment options, including buy online pick-up in store, buy online pick-up curbside, ship from store, ship from distribution center, and same-day delivery, provide guests with value and convenience.
Best-in-Class Loyalty Program. The Company’s best-in-class loyalty programs offer members unique benefits, including exclusive gifts, and enable guests in many locations to earn points for product and beauty services purchases. Additionally, the loyalty programs provide a deep understanding of our guests and their preferences, enabling us to personalize experiences, recommendations, and promotions.
Great Guest Experiences. The Company cultivates human connection with warm and welcoming guest experiences across all of our channels. Our knowledgeable and approachable store associates, differentiated service offerings, and efforts to create relevant, compelling digital content are competitive advantages and enable us to build strong engagement with guests.
The following description of the Company’s business should be read in conjunction with the information contained in the Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations included in Item 7 and the Financial Statements and Supplementary Data included in Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
The Company’s strategy
The Company focuses on beauty enthusiasts across multiple demographics and shopping behaviors. Beauty enthusiasts have a deep emotional connection with beauty and, historically, this connection has not diminished in softer economic environments. Despite a dynamic operating environment, proprietary consumer research confirms engagement with the beauty category remains healthy. Healthy engagement paired with increasing use of social media and the convergence of beauty and wellness has invited even more consumers into the beauty category and expanded the addressable market. At the same time, the beauty landscape and guest expectations continue to evolve, which will require continued innovation and investment to maintain and further the Company’s leadership position.
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In 2025, management unveiled the Ulta Beauty Unleashed plan designed to accelerate the Company’s performance and drive long-term profitable growth. The plan outlines three strategic priorities:
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| ● | Drive Core Business Growth through operational excellence and an elevated go-to-market approach. |
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| ● | Scale New, Accretive Businesses by capitalizing on key growth opportunities to ensure relevancy in a rapidly changing world. |
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| ● | Align Its Foundation for Future Success by optimizing the Company’s ways of working, streamlining its cost structure. and cultivating an engaging, associate-centered culture. |
Drive Core Business Growth
Ulta U.S. operates within the large and growing U.S. beauty products and salon services industry. In 2025, this market represented approximately $126 billion in sales according to Euromonitor International and IBIS World Inc. Ulta U.S. competes across all major categories as well as a range of price points by offering prestige, mass, and salon products. Based on the Company’s consumer insights research, management estimates there are approximately 140 million beauty enthusiasts in the U.S.
The Company’s first strategic priority is to drive core business growth through operational excellence and an elevated go-to-market approach that incorporates best-in-class store execution, digital acceleration, brand building and merchandising innovation, and enhanced marketing efforts and personalization.
Best-in-Class Store Execution
The Company is dedicated to delivering a best-in-class experience for its guests by having inviting, well-staffed and -stocked stores. Ulta U.S.’s member data and customer research suggests its guests prefer to transact in physical stores, where they can discover and interact with products and other beauty enthusiasts. In the fiscal year ended January 31, 2026 (“fiscal 2025”), 73% of Ulta U.S.’s loyalty members transacted solely within stores.
Ulta U.S. operates more than 1,500 retail stores in the U.S., located predominantly in convenient, high-traffic locations such as power strip centers. The typical store in the U.S. is approximately 10,000 square feet, including approximately 950 square feet dedicated to a full-service salon. In addition, Ulta U.S. has a smaller footprint store prototype ranging between approximately 5,000 and 7,500 square feet, which provides increased flexibility to enter smaller markets or shopping centers.
The Company’s real estate objective is to make Ulta U.S. accessible and convenient to more consumers across a variety of markets. The Company believes that, over the long term, it has the potential to grow its store footprint to more than 1,800 freestanding Ulta U.S. stores.
Ulta U.S. leverages a variety of insights to identify the best new store locations and optimize its current store locations, including beauty market share information and insights from its loyalty members. This insight-led, analytical approach to site selection has resulted in a high performing real estate portfolio. The average investment required to open a new Ulta U.S. store is approximately $2.4 million, which includes capital investments, net of landlord contributions, pre-opening expenses, and initial inventory, net of payables. The net investment required to open new stores and the net sales generated by new stores may vary depending on a number of factors, including geographic location and store size.
Digital Acceleration
In addition to its store expansion, Ulta U.S. continues to enhance its digital capabilities as more guests choose to engage across physical and digital platforms. In fiscal 2025, 19% of loyalty members shopped both in Ulta U.S. stores and through its digital platforms. Omnichannel guests are extremely valuable, historically spending over three times as much as store-only guests.
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As part of its digital store transformation, Ulta U.S. continues to develop and add website and mobile features and functionality, marketing programs, new products and brands, and omnichannel integration points. Ulta U.S. continues to grow its digital business by providing its guests with a unique, rich, online experience, personalized recommendations, expanded assortments, engaging experiences, including virtual try-on and analysis capabilities, and social media content.
Ulta U.S. continues to improve its online order fulfillment capabilities with increased speed of delivery through existing distribution centers, market fulfillment centers, one fast fulfillment center (e-commerce only), and select retail stores, through more efficient processes designed for e-commerce order fulfillment. In addition to ship to home order fulfillment, Ulta U.S. offers guests “Buy Online, Pick-up in Store,” “Curbside Pickup,” and “Store 2 Door,” which provides the ability for guests to order in-store and have products delivered to their homes. In addition, Ulta U.S. offers same-day delivery for e-commerce orders in virtually all markets.
Brand Building and Merchandising Innovation
Ulta U.S.’s core assortment offers one of the most extensive product and brand selections in its industry, with approximately 30,000 products from approximately 600 well-established and emerging beauty and wellness brands across all categories and price points offered to guests across Ulta U.S.’s stores, Ulta.com, and mobile applications.
To support long-term growth, Ulta U.S. is focused on leveraging its unique advantages to be the retail partner of choice to launch, build, scale, and globalize brands. Ulta U.S.’s merchandising team continually monitors beauty and wellness trends, sales trends, and new product launches to keep its product assortment fresh and relevant and to ensure that its assortment reflects the diversity of its guests. Ulta U.S.’s top ten brand partners, such as L’Oréal and Estée Lauder Companies, among others, represented approximately 51% and 54% of its total net sales in fiscal 2025 and the fiscal year ended February 1, 2025 (“fiscal 2024”), respectively. Ulta U.S works with its brand partners to be a significant distribution channel for growth and brand enhancement, and works closely with these partners to market both new and existing brands.
In addition to its partners’ brands, Ulta U.S. offers both private-label and third-party brands that are sold exclusively at Ulta Beauty. The Company’s private label brand, Ulta Beauty Collection, is an important opportunity for growth and profit contribution. The Company’s objective is to provide quality, trend-right private label products to continue to strengthen its guests’ perception of Ulta Beauty. The Company manages the full development cycle of these products from concept through production to deliver differentiated packaging and formulas that enhance the Company’s brand image. Ulta U.S. also offers a number of third-party brands and products that are exclusive for a limited period of time or are offered in advance of its competitors, such as Cécred and Peach & Lily, as well as products that are exclusive to Ulta Beauty on a longer-term basis. Ulta Beauty Collection and long-term Ulta Beauty exclusive products represented approximately 4% of the Company’s net sales in fiscal 2025, while these products combined with short-term exclusive products represented approximately 11% of the Company’s net sales in fiscal 2025.
All brand partners and respective subcontractors and their facilities are subject to the applicable Ulta Vendor Standards, which set forth the ethical, legal, social, and workplace standards that must be met to do business with the Company.
Enhanced Marketing Efforts and Personalization
Ulta U.S. employs a multi-faceted marketing strategy to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to its stores, website, and mobile applications, acquire and retain loyalty program members, improve guest retention, increase frequency of shopping, and increase spend per member. Ulta U.S. communicates with its guests and prospective guests through multiple vehicles, including digital and social media, television, radio, and print advertising. These vehicles highlight the breadth of Ulta U.S.’s selection of prestige, mass, and salon beauty products, new products and services, and special offers, as well as build an emotional connection with guests. Ulta U.S.’s comprehensive public relations strategy enhances its reputation as a beauty destination, increases
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brand awareness, and drives awareness of new products, in-store events, and new store openings. In 2025, Ulta U.S. unveiled its new brand platform, “Beauty Happens HereTM,” designed to reinforce that Ulta Beauty is not just where beauty is discovered, but where it is ignited, with the intent to further fuel loyalty and long-term brand love.
The Ulta Beauty Rewards® loyalty program is an important tool to increase retention of existing guests and to enhance their loyalty to the Ulta Beauty brand. Ulta Beauty Rewards® enables guests to earn points based on their purchases at Ulta U.S. stores and through its digital platforms. Points earned are valid for at least one year and may be redeemed on any product sold or service provided in Ulta U.S. stores or through its digital platforms. With more than 46 million members as of the end of fiscal 2025 and approximately 95% of total sales coming from members in fiscal 2025, Ulta U.S. is uniquely positioned with a deep understanding of its guests and their preferences, enabling it to personalize experiences, recommendations, and promotions through its Customer Relationship Management (“CRM”) platform and support its brand partners’ growth. Ulta U.S.’s CRM platform enables sophisticated analysis of the customer data as well as greater personalization of its marketing campaigns, digital experiences, and day-to-day communications. Its data demonstrates that loyalty members spend more per visit as compared to non-members. To enhance Ulta U.S.’s loyalty program, co-branded and private label credit cards are offered. The credit cards drive higher wallet share and greater loyalty from rewards members, provide increased consumer insights, and offer attractive economics.
Ulta U.S. is directing a growing percentage of its marketing expense towards digital, social media, and streaming advertising to drive effective communication with existing guests and consideration amongst those who have not yet shopped with Ulta U.S. In social media channels, influencers and affiliates play an important role in beauty, and Ulta U.S engages talent from the UB Collective, its annual class of influencers, Ulta Beauties, its associate ambassador program, and UB Creates, its affiliate program, to support its social media marketing efforts. Ulta U.S.’s digital marketing strategy includes search engine optimization, paid search, mobile advertising, social media, display advertising, and other digital marketing channels. Digital marketing, coupled with its national TV and radio advertising, has helped Ulta U.S. increase brand awareness and consideration among those not familiar with it, which is believed to have resulted in new guests.
Scale New, Accretive Businesses
The Company believes it can drive incremental profitable growth through the implementation of its strategic initiatives: accelerating its focus on wellness; expanding its e-commerce presence through UB MarketplaceTM, an integrated online marketplace allowing Ulta U.S. to offer a broader array of products to its guests; expanding its international presence; and enhancing its retail media network, Ulta Beauty Media (“UB Media”).
Wellness
The definition of traditional beauty is expanding as wellness and beauty converge and as consumers deepen the connection between how they express themselves to their overall self-care and wellness. The Company believes Ulta U.S. is well-positioned to capture this growth opportunity and support its guests’ wellness journeys. Leveraging its position as a trusted guide, Ulta U.S. has expanded its business into the growing wellness category through the addition of new brands as well as in-store expansion efforts, including elevated fixtures.
Wellness by Ulta Beauty extends Ulta U.S.’s product offering to include nutrition & supplements (such as vitamins, supplements, and fitness-related tools); intimate care (such as feminine hygiene, as well as period, prenatal and postnatal, and menopausal care); rest & reset (such as aromatherapy, spa essentials, and sleep support); and essential routines (such as oral care, wearables, and devices).
UB MarketplaceTM
In fiscal 2025, the Company launched UB MarketplaceTM, an integrated online marketplace accessible through Ulta U.S.’s e-commerce channels. The marketplace enables Ulta U.S. to expand its assortment for its guests and offer a broader and complementary array of beauty, wellness, and lifestyle products from both established and
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emerging brands with minimal inventory risk to its business. UB MarketplaceTM brands fulfill guest orders directly and the Company earns a commission on these sales.
As of the end of fiscal 2025, UB MarketplaceTM offered more than 200 brands and 5,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) through Ulta U.S.’s digital channels. UB MarketplaceTM brands span multiple complementary and adjacent categories, including: beauty tools and tech (such as hair tools, skin devices, and body gadgets); discovery (such as global beauty and social media-driven trends); grooming (such as tools, haircare, and skincare); luxe (such as niche perfumery and prestige skincare); personal care (such as oral care and bath and body products); pro (such as stylist-related products); and wellness (such as spa, home fragrance, and fitness).
International Expansion
Beauty is a global growth category, and the Company believes there is opportunity to drive profitable growth through strategic targeted international expansion. In Mexico, the Company has a joint venture partnership with Grupo Axo, whereby the joint venture licenses the Ulta Beauty brand name and operating model from the Company to launch and operate Ulta Beauty-branded stores in Mexico. Grupo Axo is an experienced operator of global brands with substantial expertise in the consumer market in Mexico. In the Middle East, the Company has a franchise partnership with Alshaya Group, a leading international franchise operator with substantial expertise in the consumer market in the Middle East, whereby Alshaya licenses the Ulta Beauty brand name and operating model from the Company to launch and operate Ulta Beauty-branded stores in the Middle East. The Company earns royalties from sales generated by these operations. On July 10, 2025, the Company announced the acquisition of Space NK, a leading British beauty retailer. Space NK is a curator of some of the world’s most innovative beauty brands and a go-to destination for beauty discovery in its stores in the U.K. and Ireland as well as online. Space NK operates as a standalone subsidiary of the Company and continues to be led by its pre-acquisition management team.
As of January 31, 2026, the Company operates 84 Space NK stores located in the United Kingdom and two located in Ireland. Additionally, the Company has nine stores operated through the joint venture in Mexico and one location in Kuwait and one in the United Arab Emirates operated by its franchise partner in the Middle East.
UB Media
The Company has a deep understanding of its Ulta Beauty Rewards® loyalty members and their preferences. This unique understanding, combined with its ongoing investment in data analytics and CRM capabilities, has unlocked new ways for the Company to support its brand partners and drive additional revenue. In 2022, the Company launched UB Media to transform the way its brand partners can connect with beauty enthusiasts. UB Media offers brands a suite of media and advertising capabilities that enable brands to reach unique audiences across various advertising channels, including Ulta U.S.’s owned digital channels, support joint revenue growth, and drive the acquisition of new guests.
Align Its Foundation for Future Success
To successfully achieve its long-term growth ambitions, build upon its leadership position, and deliver value to stakeholders, the Company is focused on optimizing its ways of working, streamlining its cost structure, and cultivating an engaging, associate-centered culture. This work includes organizational and process changes to accelerate decision-making, remove friction, and align teams and resources around guest-centric goals. Additionally, the Company invests in new supply chain and technology capabilities to drive productivity improvement, enhance inventory flow, and increase network capacity.
Human capital management
The Company’s mission is to use the power of beauty to bring to life the possibilities that lie within each of us – inspiring every guest and enabling each associate to build a fulfilling career. The Company believes its
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associates, with their combined skills, knowledge, experiences, and commitment to serving guests, are among the Company’s most important resources and are critical to continued success. The Company strives to be a great place to work by establishing a culture of care for associates’ holistic well-being where all associates demonstrate integrity, authenticity, and inclusivity in their daily actions.
As of January 31, 2026, the Company employed approximately 65,000 associates in the U.S., 1,800 in the U.K. and Ireland, and 20 in Uruguay. Of these associates, approximately 32% were full-time and 68% were part-time. Employment levels may fluctuate throughout the course of the year due to the seasonality of the Company’s business. The Company has no collective bargaining agreements and has not experienced any work stoppages in the past. The Company strives to maintain an open and honest relationship with its associates.
The Company’s associates and management teams are essential to its strategy. The Company uses a combination of existing managers, promoted associates, and external hires to support its operations and bring necessary skills to execute its business priorities. As the Company continues to grow, it is building a bench of associates and leaders who can deliver for its guests, drive business success, and support its values-driven culture.
Culture and Core Values
The Company strives to provide rewarding careers, benefits, and a workplace culture where associates are empowered to be their authentic selves – drawing on their unique perspectives, passions, skills, interests, and experiences in their day-to-day jobs. The Company’s core values establish a strong foundation for its culture and represent the key expectations of its associates. These include the following:
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| • | Give wow experiences |
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| • | Improve always |
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| • | Win together |
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| • | Love what you do, own what you do |
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| • | Do what’s right |
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| • | Champion diversity |
Talent management
The Company’s success is dependent, in part, on its ability to attract, train, retain, and motivate qualified associates at all levels of the organization. The Chief Human Resources Officer, along with the entire executive team, is responsible for developing and executing the Company’s human capital strategy. This includes the attraction, acquisition, development, and engagement of talent and the design of associate compensation and benefits programs. The Company is focused on creating a winning team by recruiting and retaining great people, promoting collaboration, and fostering an enjoyable and rewarding work environment. The Company also strives to provide all associates with opportunities for personal growth, cross-functional training, job opportunities, and career advancement. Succession planning is conducted on an annual basis to identify suitable internal candidates for key positions within the Company.
The Company believes open and honest two-way communication is critical to maintaining strong associate engagement. The Company regularly conducts associate engagement surveys to determine associates’ satisfaction with their roles, their leaders, and the Company as a whole, which the executive team reviews and monitors. The Company’s leadership team also hosts roundtable sessions, as well as additional forums, including department town halls, store and distribution center visits, and other small group gatherings, to dive deeper on specific topics. The Company also engages in annual performance reviews and annual talent calibration conversations.
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Training and development
The Company is committed to continually developing its associates and providing career advancement opportunities. All Ulta Beauty associates in the U.S. participate in an interactive new-hire orientation through which each associate becomes acquainted with the Company’s mission, vision, and values. Through its learning management system and digital workplace system, the Company provides continuing education to associates throughout their careers at Ulta Beauty. Additionally, the Company’s leadership development program prepares promising future leaders for new levels of responsibility.
Compensation and benefits
The Company offers a competitive compensation and benefits package, which is designed to allow associates the ability to pick and choose which benefits are best for their and their family’s health and well-being. Depending on their employment and work status and location, associates in the U.S. may be eligible for:
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| ● | Health care coverage (medical, dental, and vision) offered to those who work more than 30 hours a week in any position; |
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| ● | 401(k) plan with up to a 4% dollar-for-dollar Company match up to the IRS deferral limit; |
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| ● | Disability and life insurance; |
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| ● | Company-paid short-term disability benefit at 80% of pay; |
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| ● | Additional insurance options, including legal, pet, home, and auto; |
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| ● | Tuition reimbursement program; |
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| ● | Paid time off, including an extended illness bank; |
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| ● | Parental leave and other family-building resources; and |
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| ● | Discounts on retail products and salon services. |
In addition, the Company believes wellness, like beauty, is more than skin deep, so it offers mental health resources, such as counseling services and access to mobile applications, financial wellness planning and guidance, and health mobile applications and educational resources for soon-to-be parents.
The Ulta Beauty Charitable Foundation supports the Associate Relief Program to assist associates facing unforeseen hardships. The Associate Relief Program provides short-term financial support to associates impacted by natural disasters, unforeseen medical conditions, domestic violence, and other personal challenges.
Workplace, Health, and Safety
The health and safety of guests, associates, and communities is the Company’s top priority. The Company strives to ensure that a safe and hygienic working environment is provided and that occupational health and safety practices that prevent accidents and injury are promoted. Throughout the Company’s stores, distribution centers, and corporate offices, the Company employs policies, procedures, and training to promote safe and healthy work environments.
Ulta Beauty’s Injury & Illness Prevention Program outlines safety expectations, but the Company also empowers its associates with knowledge and skills from various safety training courses during the onboarding process and on an ongoing basis through the Company’s learning engagement system with topics such as incident reporting, evacuation, active shooter response, hazardous materials, and heat safety. The Company continues to focus on developing and driving its safety-first culture through awareness, training, and actions to reduce the frequency and severity of safety incidents.
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Supply chain
The Company aims to develop and operate a dynamic and agile end-to-end supply chain that supports operational efficiency, performance, and guest experience and fuels organizational growth effectively. This includes enhanced systems and processes as well as a modernized distribution center network to support new store and e-commerce growth.
Ulta U.S. has developed a disciplined approach to procurement and a dynamic inventory planning and allocation process to support its merchandising strategy. Ulta U.S. centrally manages product replenishment to its stores through its merchandise planning group. This group serves as a strategic partner to, and provides financial oversight of, the merchandising team. The merchandising team creates a sales forecast by category for the year. Ulta U.S.’s merchandise planning group creates an open-to-buy plan, approved by senior executives, for each product category. The open-to-buy plan is updated weekly with point-of-sale (“POS”) data, receipts, and inventory levels and is used throughout the year to balance buying opportunities and inventory return on investment. Management believes this structure maximizes buying opportunities while maintaining organizational and financial control. POS data is used to calculate sales forecasts and to determine replenishment levels. Ulta U.S. determines promotional product replenishment levels using sales history from similar or comparable events. To ensure its inventory remains productive, Ulta U.S.’s planning and replenishment group monitors the levels of clearance and aged inventory in its stores on a weekly basis.
As of the end of fiscal 2025, Ulta U.S. operates four regional distribution centers and two market fulfillment centers that support both stores and e-commerce demand, and one fast fulfillment center that supports e-commerce orders only. Market fulfillment centers are smaller than regional distribution centers and focus on the most productive products, enabling us to improve service and responsiveness, especially in markets with high store and population density. In addition, over 1,000 Ulta U.S. stores fulfill e-commerce orders as part of a ship-from-store program.
Inventory is shipped from suppliers to Ulta U.S.’s distribution centers, market fulfillment centers, and fast fulfillment center, which use warehouse management software systems to manage inventory to support product purchase decisions. Product is delivered to stores using a broad network of contract and local pool (final mile) carriers.
Information technology
Ulta U.S. is committed to using technology to enhance its competitive position. Ulta U.S. leverages its technology infrastructure and systems to gain operational efficiencies through more effective use of its systems, people, and processes. In fiscal 2024, Ulta U.S. completed several multi-year strategic investment projects to upgrade key elements of its technology infrastructure, including upgrading its enterprise resource planning platform and refreshing its POS system in all stores, transitioning its digital store to a new architecture, and building a modern ecosystem for future analytics and data-driven decisioning capabilities. Collectively, Ulta U.S.’s investments provide a flexible and scalable operating environment allowing for greater business efficiency and enhancing the guest experience. The Company will continue to make investments in its information systems to facilitate growth and enhance its competitive position. Also see “Cybersecurity” included as part of Item 1C. of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Partnerships
Since 2021, Ulta U.S. has partnered with Target Corporation (“Target”) to create Ulta Beauty at Target, a “shop-in-shop” concept that offers a curated assortment of more than 60 established and emerging prestige brands across a variety of categories. As of January 31, 2026, Ulta Beauty at Target was available in over 600 Target locations and on target.com. On August 14, 2025, Ulta Beauty and Target announced a mutual agreement to not renew the Ulta Beauty at Target shop-in-shop partnership when the current agreement concludes in August 2026. Both companies remain committed to delivering a seamless shopping experience and product availability through the end of the partnership, as well as continuing to support their teams and partners during the transition.
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Sustainability
The Company strives to operate in an environmentally responsible manner in an effort to create long-term business value for its guests, associates, partners, and investors. The Company’s sustainability strategy focuses on advancing its commitments, improving operational efficiency, reducing waste, and leveraging its position to help drive progress across the beauty industry with regard to packaging, climate, and safer chemistry. The Company has established science-based targets to reduce Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions and work collaboratively with partners across its value chain to advance emissions reductions. The Company also invests in energy efficiency and renewable energy initiatives across its stores, offices, and distribution centers, promotes responsible packaging practices for the products that it sells, and engages partners upstream and downstream to enhance transparency and environmental performance.
Additional information regarding the Company’s sustainability goals, initiatives, and progress is included in the Company’s annual corporate responsibility reporting.
Competition
The Company’s major competitors for prestige and mass products include traditional department stores, specialty stores, grocery stores, drug stores, mass merchandisers, and the online capabilities of national retailers and brands, as well as pure-play e-commerce companies and online marketplaces. The market for salon services and products is highly fragmented. Its competitors for salon services and products include chain and independent salons.
Intellectual property
The Company has registered trademarks in the United States and other countries. The majority of its trademark registrations contain the ULTA mark, including Ulta Beauty® and two related designs, Ulta.com, and Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance (and design). The Company maintains its marks and monitors filing deadlines for renewal and continued validity. All marks that are deemed material to its business have been applied for or registered in the United States and select foreign countries, including Mexico and other countries in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
The Company believes its trademarks, especially those related to the Ulta Beauty brand, “All Things Beauty. All In One Place. ®”, “The Possibilities are Beautiful®”, and “Conscious Beauty at Ulta Beauty®” have significant value and are important to building brand recognition.
Government regulation
The Company is affected by extensive laws, governmental regulations, administrative determinations, court decisions, and similar constraints. Such laws, regulations, and other constraints exist at the federal, state, and local levels in the United States as well as internationally with regard to the Company’s non-U.S. operations. The products the Company sells, such as cosmetics (including products with cannabidiol), dietary supplements, food, over-the-counter (“OTC”) drugs, medical devices, and styling tools, including its Ulta Beauty branded products, may be subject to regulation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (“CPSC”), the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), state regulatory agencies, and State Attorneys General, as well as similar regulatory bodies in the international locations where we do business. Such regulations principally relate to the safety, labeling, manufacturing, advertising, and distribution of the products we sell. In addition, the salon services provided in the Company’s stores may be subject to state and local regulations.
Cosmetics, OTC drugs, medical devices, food, and dietary supplements have specific regulatory requirements, including but not limited to ingredient, labeling, manufacturing, and holding requirements. Products such as wrinkle reducing lights may be classified as medical devices and, in addition to being subject to labeling and manufacturing requirements, may also be subject to premarketing review by the FDA. Finally, products such as styling tools (e.g., blow dryers and curling irons) are regulated by the CPSC, which has strict requirements including the requirement to report certain product defects. The labeling and packaging of these products may also be subject to the requirements of the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act and state specific requirements.
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Further, statements the Company makes in advertising, including statements about the safety or efficacy of products, pricing, and environmental claims, are subject to federal and state consumer protection laws, which generally prohibit unfair or deceptive practices.
Federal, state, municipal, and local labor and employment statutes, laws, ordinances, regulations, mandates, and taxation laws, to which most retailers are typically subject, also impact the Company’s day-to-day operations. The Company is also subject to typical governmental and real estate land use restrictions and typical advertising and consumer protection laws (both federal and state). Its services operations are subject to state board regulations and state licensing requirements.
In its store leases, the Company requires its landlords to obtain all necessary governmental approvals and permits for the site to be used as a retail site, and the Company also asks them to obtain any governmental approvals and permits for the site’s specific use (but at times the responsibility for obtaining governmental approvals and permits for specific use falls to the Company). As applicable, the Company requires its landlords to deliver a certificate of occupancy for any work they perform on its buildings or the shopping centers in which its stores are located. If required by the municipality, the Company is responsible for delivering a certificate of occupancy for any remodeling or build-outs that it performs and is responsible for complying with all applicable laws in connection with such construction projects or build-outs.
Seasonality
The Company’s business is subject to seasonal fluctuation. Significant portions of its net sales and profits are realized during the fourth quarter of the fiscal year due to the holiday selling season. To a lesser extent, its business is also affected by Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day.
Available information
The Company’s principal website address is www.ulta.com. The Company makes available at this address under investor relations (at https://ulta.com/investor), free of charge, its proxy statement, annual report to shareholders, annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and all amendments to those reports as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. Information available on the Company’s website is not incorporated by reference in and is not deemed a part of this Form 10-K. In addition, the Company’s filings with the SEC may be accessed through the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. All statements made in any of its securities filings, including all forward-looking statements or information, are made as of the date of the document in which the statement is included, and the Company does not assume or undertake any obligation to update any of those statements or documents unless it is required to do so by law.