Being a Bentley student, I am always thinking about benchmarking, capacity utilization, and measures of effectiveness—and being at College Fashion Week last Saturday night was no exception. It was an amazing event, and a great break from my studies—but there was one thing I noticed that I could appreciate on a deeper level in relation to business.
In the back of the Royale was Ulta Beauty’s Beauty Bar. It took up most of the wall, and had many aspects to enjoy. There were several steps for a girl to go through, and even though I didn’t personally get through all of them, I witnessed the results and was amazed.
It all started with hair. Stylists would braid girls’ hair and it looked gorgeous—the braids were so intricate! Next down the line was makeup, but the professionals would only do eyes, for the sake of time. There were two chairs for eyes, and two chairs for hair. After getting all dolled up, we walked further down the line for a photo shoot, where photographers gave us fun cutouts to hold as they took our pictures. Finally, we went to the station to submit our emails so we could receive our photos, which were turned into GIFs—so cute! The whole event was a blast, and we all had so much fun.
Back to the business perceptive though.
When it comes to operational management, I think that the Beauty Bar was well executed, but there were a few things that could have functioned better. There was a bottleneck at the hair station, because while it took longer than the eye makeup part, there was still the same amount of chairs/beauticians. This caused a longer wait time for the hair than anything else. However, this did not limit the capacity too much, since girls would just bypass this segment and move directly to makeup or just get their eyes done—which is what I did.
Instead, they could have had a third chair for hair, and only one chair for makeup in order to even out the lines. Space was limited, so adding another chair was not an option—but reallocating them for different functions would’ve been feasible. For the photo station, it was so convenient to be able to type my email into the device and receive my GIF immediately; if they could also use that email list for their mailing list for promotions and coupons, it may help with the sales after the show. They held a really fun raffle, and all I had to do was take a picture and use the #UltaBeautyBabe hashtag on Instagram to be entered to win—which was a huge (and free!) capitalization of social media marketing.
Holistically, the event was such a success that I saw girls who came already wearing makeup take it off to get a makeover, and girls who already had their hair done still have the Ulta professionals do it for them. I can’t wait to go back next year to experience this fun kick-off to College Fashion Week and enjoy Ulta’s Beauty Bar—and see how they improve their operations so I can do it all next time!