To mark CEW France’s Beauty Day 2026, a round-table discussion brought together Catherine Spindler (President of Sephora for Europe and the Middle East) and Hubert de Malherbe (Director of the design agency Malherbe Paris) to address a single question: what will the shop of the future look like in ten years’ time? Their answers both centre on experience and emotion.
For Catherine Spindler, physical retail outlets have a future more than ever before. Provided, that is, that you know how to nurture them. Sephora has over 300 shops in France and more than 900 across Europe. Ensuring such a network operates at the right level remains an ongoing challenge.
To succeed in this task, she believes there are two key factors. Firstly, advice must be as accurate as possible. Secondly, it is essential to be creative and have the ability to surprise the customer. “When a retailer achieves this, customer numbers explode,” she observes.
A good retailer must know how to advise
The brand is investing in its in-house training centre, Sephora University. The focus will be primarily on skincare, a category where support still needs the most development. A new skin diagnostic tool has been developed. It will take time for the teams to get to grips with it.
Catherine Spindler highlights another responsibility. More and more very young female consumers are entering the beauty market. She cites the phenomenon of “Sephora Kid”, children aged 10 to 12 who buy products intended for mature skin. The challenge is to guide them and “ensure that social media …
