Okay, one more minute. Okay. Next up, we have Ulta Beauty. I'm very excited from management to have Amiee Bayer-Thomas. Amiee is the Chief Retail Officer at Ulta Beauty, has been with Ulta Beauty for almost 10 years, got promoted to Chief Retail Officer just this January. Congratulations. In this role, Amiee oversees all aspects of Ulta Beauty Store and Services operations, and that includes more than 1,400 stores across the country, as well as the Ulta Beauty with Target. Great to have you. Thank you so much for making it to the conference. I wanted to kick this off. You've been with Ulta Beauty for almost a decade. A lot of changes in the business during that time. Talk about your journey with Ulta Beauty.
Yeah, no, thank you, Anna, for having me. Thank you all for your interest in Ulta Beauty. I'm thrilled to be here today. You know, I've been doing this a long time. I'm a 30-plus-year retail veteran. I've led large strategy and transformation work. I've garnered expertise across business functions from merchandising, operations, supply chain, stores, services. The last almost decade at Ulta Beauty has definitely been a highlight of my journey. I started at Ulta Beauty almost 10 years ago in the field as a Regional Vice President, and then was quickly promoted into the Senior Vice President role, leading the West Division, which was roughly about 60 to 65% of our stores, 60+% of the volume. During that time in that role, I took on some additional scope, taking over corporate store operations and services operations.
In early 2020, I was asked to lead our COVID response team, a large cross-functional team, as we all know what happened in March of 2020. I worked cross-functionally with a lot of partners to drive our COVID response efforts. Summer of 2020, I was promoted into the Chief Supply Chain Officer role, where I led the team through our first peak during a pandemic and simultaneously stood up a five-year large transformation strategy for the supply chain, of which I led the supply chain through for the first three and a half years of that transformation, taking on additional scope during that time, leading loss prevention and corporate enterprise continuous improvement. Last year, I was transitioned over into the Chief Store Operations Officer role, where I led stores, loss prevention, continuous improvement, and the Ulta Beauty at Target partnership.
As Anna mentioned, eight months ago in January, I stepped into the newly created Chief Retail Officer role, where I maintained everything I had in the Chief Store Operations Officer role, but then took on the responsibilities of real estate growth and development, store design, visual merchandising, brand education for retail and services, as well as the broader, larger guest experience work that happens collectively through the omnichannel efforts for the enterprise. It's been a wild ride. I love what I do. I love the people I get to work with, and I love that I get to do it at Ulta Beauty.
That's quite a journey and quite a wealth of experience in those not even 10 years. Thank you so much for that. As you think about the learnings so far from the Ulta Unleashed plan that Ulta Beauty unveiled last fall, this past quarter the business saw a nice inflection. In fact, the best comp Ulta Beauty has seen in, I think, two years. Can you talk about what elements of the plan are working maybe ahead of expectations? As you expected, some of them seemed like working faster as well. Conversely, you know, some of the areas still of opportunity as you look out for the business.
Sure. Let me start with, you know, at a high level, our Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy really is designed to, one, drive our core business growth, which is execution across the enterprise, personalization, brand building, and digital acceleration. The second pillar of our Unleashed strategy is really around building and scaling new, creative businesses. This includes our marketplace, as well as our Ulta Beauty UB Media, International, and Wellness. The third component of the strategy is around realigning the organization for future growth. This is driven by cost optimization, improved ways of working, as well as cost optimization, ways of working, and our culture, reigniting our culture, which is so critical and really a key secret sauce, I guess I would say, of Ulta Beauty. We're very pleased with the progress that we've made on the strategy.
I will share that while the initiatives that support the strategy are not different from what we shared last October during our analyst day, what is different is the clear vision, the clear strategy as we're outlining it, really simplifying the message for our teams. It's translating from leadership all the way, permeating throughout the organization. We have a higher level of collaboration that's happening. We have a higher level and faster decisioning that's happening. We're seeing us take faster action as well. We have alignment at all levels of the organization. We know what we need to do, and we know how we're going to do it.
When I think about what within those three pillars that we're focused on and what's working and where we have some opportunity within the driving growth, we have seen us launch, and you all, I hope, have seen, we've launched new brands, several new brands, 43 new brands, many of which are exclusive brands to Ulta Beauty. Our in-stock levels are better than they have ever been. That has really been driven by process changes upstream and collaboration that's happening within our corporate teams, within merchandising, marketing, and retail operations, which we refer to as our go-to-market team, as well as process changes that are happening within our stores around unified workflow. We've launched and we executed 30,000 events in our stores this last quarter and are tracking to do over 70,000 events this year, which is 40% more than we executed against last year.
Our guests are telling us they're noticing our NPS scores are growing year over year, and our guests are taking notice and loving what we're doing. Within the creative business category, we launched and expanded Wellness in over 370 doors, expanding our linear square footage from 30 feet to 45 feet. We soft opened our first Mexico store and acquired Space NK from an international expansion component. From a realignment around our structure and our organization, we completed our culture survey in June of this year, and we had record high participation. We have now reached 60,000 associates across our stores, and we are seeing it resonate what we're doing with our associates because engagement is really at an all-time high. When I look ahead to what's coming, we are launching our marketplace this quarter.
We will be opening 10 locations in Mexico by the end of the year, one to two locations in the Middle East, and we are expanding Wellness in another 50 doors with specialized fixtures. Sales is really the ultimate KPI here, but I would say we're also seeing lifts in conversion in our loyalty member growth, as well as our NPS scores. We are doubling down on our Ulta Beauty Unleashed program because we know that coupled with our unique model, it is going to deliver success and growth for not just this year in 2026, but for years to come.
Yeah, no, really exciting times for the business. Thank you so much for stacking all of this up for us. It sounds like the diminishing kind of a headwind from the additional distribution that got added to this industry for the last couple of years is now becoming a factor in your improving top-line trends, but it's just one factor. Again, everything that you've discussed so far, obviously the fundamental changes of the business, that's where you're seeing the inflection. Can you talk about what are you seeing also at the stores that were affected the most by this additional distribution? It sounds like overall, there's still some impact from this, but it's diminishing pretty significantly.
Yeah. Competition, the beauty category is a sought-out, highly sought-after category, and it is definitely a competitive category. There is no shortage of people trying to get into the category for sure. What we are focused on through the Ulta Beauty Unleashed program is what differentiates Ulta Beauty from the competition. We are really leaning into what we do in stores, how are we looking from a clarity of offer, guest experience perspective, in stocks, as I talked about, and really leaning into what makes us special and unique through that human connection that only we can bring through that omnichannel experience. When you look at the competitive landscape, and as you mentioned, Anna, yes, we saw in the last couple of years quite a bit of competition come into surge into the market. We have started to see that flow.
When we look at our stores, we are seeing consistent and solid performance across our entire fleet. 90% of our stores experienced a point of competitive distribution, one or more show up in close proximity to them in the last two years. That means 10% did not. When we look at the 90% versus the 10%, we are seeing an equal amount of strength in the performance of that 10% as we are to the 90%, which tells us that the Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy and all of the things that we're doing are working.
That's great. No, that's really great to hear. You mentioned go-to-market a couple of times, and that's a pretty significant needle mover in terms of what Ulta Beauty is doing differently now. I think for investors, there's still questions, you know, what does that mean exactly? There is a big event that you're running currently, the 21 Days of Beauty. I think it would be really helpful to understand, you know, how you've changed the process and what are you doing differently now versus historically.
Sure. When we refer to go-to-market, as I mentioned earlier, part of the third pillar of our strategy is around realigning the organization for future growth and success. My role is a perfect example of that in creating the Chief Retail Officer role, where all things retail are now underneath one umbrella, which has really enabled us when you think about from where we choose to build a store to what we put into that store, to how we execute against the experience in that store, all the way through to how we connect the omnichannel experience to that, all falls underneath my area of responsibility. It has enabled us to remove friction, drive synergy, be more nimble, make decisions quicker, and move faster, learn fast, and then apply our learnings really quickly and keep moving.
From a go-to-market perspective, my role coupled with the Chief Merchandising and Digital Officer and the Chief Marketing Officer, we like to refer to ourselves as the trifecta. We are the go-to-market team. Different in how we're operating is we are operating collaboratively and collectively together versus operating singularly within our functions. What that means is we come together weekly, our teams come together, it starts at leadership and it trickles down through the teams. We have processes in place now where those three functions, our three parts of the business, and those are pretty significant parts of the business. We have processes where we connect on a weekly basis, bi-weekly basis, on a quarterly basis. We are planning much further out and we're applying and taking learnings as we go and applying them as we go, I would say. An example would be our 21 Days of Beauty.
It is a great example of one large tentpole event of ours where the collective team of the go-to-market team came together and we looked at one, what did we do last year? What worked? What didn't work? What resonated with the guests? When we go back to hear from the guests, what from them, the feedback from them. We also applied those to our spring 21 Days of Beauty, which we have reported out against, so I can say it was wildly successful. From our spring 21 Days of Beauty, we applied our learnings to fall 21 Days of Beauty, which we're in right now. Some of the things differently that showed up in our 21 Days of Beauty that did not show up even in the spring or years past are things like how we are marketing the event.
From a social perspective, from an online perspective, how are we marketing the event? How are we messaging it to the guests? How are we becoming more relevant and getting that message out there? From the deals and the brands that we work with on a daily basis, what makes the most sense? The three of us meet with the brand. Rather than the Chief Merchandising and Digital Officer going on their own to meet with the brand, the three of us go together. We meet with the brand. We talk about how we can bring a holistic view to the brand, to an event. We approach it with a 360-degree view on it. We look at not just the assortment, not just the offer, but how are we bringing it to life in store through eventing. Previously, we didn't do eventing around 21 Days of Beauty.
You saw yesterday, some of you were in our store yesterday. We had DIBS in the store. We had Live Tinted, two of our brands. We had a founder in yesterday. They're supporting 21 Days of Beauty through eventing in our store. We released the steals early to our guests so they could get excited about it. They could start to plan the days that they want to come in. We as well have a flyer in store. Our visual merchandising and marketing components changed and became a little bit more robust, a little bit more obvious as we thread it throughout the store. Those are some of the things that we have done to really bring to life our events in a much more meaningful way. The other thing I would just add is we're also looking at where we're not productive. We're looking at what can we eliminate.
More is not always more. We're really thinking about how do we streamline, how do we simplify, how do we clarify, how do we drive more effective promotionality? How do we drive more effective eventing? How do we do that from a place of strength? Because we have that position, we are positioned from a place of strength in the market.
Yeah, thank you for that. Eventizing, let's call it that.
I like that. I think I'm going to take that.
Sure, take it. It's an area that we're really excited about. I think it just makes so much sense to highlight the 1,400 brick-and-mortar stores that Ulta Beauty has, which makes the business so unique. As you look out to the back half and the fourth quarter, especially, you did have a nice holiday result last year. You do have slightly more difficult comparisons coming up. A lot of changes to the business, obviously, resonating really nicely. Can you talk about how you view the 4Q opportunity? What are you doing differently this holiday season versus last year? Consumer, we always get a ton of questions about consumer. I think resilient beauty category is how I would categorize it. The consumer still does feel pressured. Your thoughts on that would be great.
Sure. Holiday is our Super Bowl in retail, and it certainly is our Super Bowl at Ulta Beauty. We plan all year long for holiday. When holiday ends, we start immediately taking our learnings and applying it and planning for the next one. We have been planning for this particular holiday season for quite some time. We are excited about what we have teed up for holiday this year. I'll start and pull back just a little bit at a higher level and share that, one, we believe the category is going to continue to grow. We do believe we will continue to see in the back half of the year, the beauty category continue to grow.
We also know that while the consumer is still feeling maybe a little pressured or maybe they're feeling a little pinched or they're a little uncertain about what the back half is going to hold, we also know the beauty enthusiast is spending money on beauty. They are very excited about beauty, and they are ensuring that they are continuing to get their beauty buys. We believe that the beauty resiliency that you're talking about will show up in the back half of the year. As I mentioned, we've been planning all year long for holiday. As we think about what we have, we have a very exciting lineup of newness coming. I cannot say anything other than that, as I'm sure you can appreciate. We are excited about the newness that we have continuing to come in the pipeline.
We are thrilled with what we have teed up from an eventing perspective. 80% of our volume comes through our stores. When you couple that with what we do from a fulfillment perspective in our stores, 51% of our e-com orders were fulfilled through stores in Q2. That is a record high. That means we have traffic being driven in with buy online, pick up in store. We've got same-day delivery and ship from store happening in our store. There is a lot happening in our brick-and-mortar stores. When we talk about always-on activation, the eventizing that you just coined today is an always-on component for us. You're going to see us show up in really big and bold ways in the fourth quarter connected to holiday.
Of course, with holiday, we always have really the great uniqueness, the exclusives that we have that you can only find at Ulta Beauty. We are preparing. We've been preparing, and we feel very confident that although the consumers might feel a little uncertain, we're doubling down on the areas that make us different. We are the place to shop from low to luxe, and we have that because of our model. We're going to be able to take care of any guest, and whatever it is that they need and the pressures that they're feeling from a gifting or a self-care perspective, they can come to us because that's what we do. We are low to luxe, and we can flex with the wallet of our consumer.
I like the low to luxe as well. That's a good one. I wanted to follow up. What are you hearing from the brands with so many changes in the organization? I mean, it sounds like brands are even more excited to partner with Ulta Beauty. You said you brought in more brands, I think, so far year to date than the entire 2024, the entire year. Within that, I would love to also talk about the exclusives. You just did an exclusive at Ulta Beauty event for the first time, I believe, in the second quarter. That just seemed like a huge opportunity for the business.
Yes, definitely. Our brand relationships are vital, and we love our brands. I think Ulta Beauty is historically known for being a great partner to our brands. Our brands are very engaged with what we're doing. As I mentioned with the go-to-market team, the three of us joining forces and going out to our brands, we're really able, because we are unified and we have so much synergy and we're looking at the business holistically, to serve up to our brands opportunities and options to continue to help build their brands and tell their stories in partnership with the Ulta Beauty story. Our brands are excited. They are incredible. They show up for us every single day. We saw yesterday, as I mentioned, DIBS and Live Tinted were in. We get a tremendous amount of support with the eventing strategy from our brands and their field teams.
We'll see that continue. I confidently say we will see that continue. As you mentioned, we launched 43 new brands, 43 brands this year compared to 29 last year. You'll continue to see us fuel that innovation. We're excited about getting in the kitchen with our brands. Whether it's our iconic brands with a Clinique, a MAC, a Lancôme, we're excited about getting in the kitchen with them and helping them drive new product innovation. Our teams are doing that. Then, of course, with new and emerging brands as well, Live Tinted and DIBS being great ones that are exclusive and emerging brands that we're working with to not only help build their brand because brand building is so important, but also as we think about helping them continue to innovate. The brands have been very supportive and a lot of engagement from the brands in that way.
Great. No, that's great. Within the exclusive portfolio, I know it's exclusive with existing brands, right? That's one way to think about it, but also with new brands. Maybe remind us what's the exclusive penetration currently and how do you think about that longer term?
Right now, our new brands, our exclusive brands penetrated about 8% of the business. It's a combination, as you mentioned, Anna. It is a combination of working with existing iconic brands on newness. A great example would be MAC, which is an iconic brand, artistry brand. We just launched new lips, right? The lip and face category are really strong right now. We've seen a lot of newness happening in some of those iconic brands. NYX on the mass side, we just launched Smooshie lip balm from NYX as well.
Great, thanks.
It is, right? It's fun. NYX is a fun brand. You are going to see us work with iconic brands on exclusives, and you will see us continue to pursue overall exclusive brands because it is an important part of the brand building function.
Great. Just in the last minute, I wanted to touch upon stores. You mentioned, I think you're not seeing drastically different results as the kind of a competitive threat moderates. You are tweaking the number of new door openings, right, for this year, which I think is prudent. Can you talk about just the thought process behind that?
Sure. I’ll start by saying we still see an 1,800 plus store opportunity for Ulta Beauty in the United States. I want to start with that. We have a very robust real estate approach to our real estate as we think about how we will continue to diversify our real estate. Our decision to go from opening 60 to 70 stores, which is the direction we gave last October, to 50 to 60 stores really is a combination of, one, the cost to build stores, prices, right, are going up. We want to be prudent in how we're thinking about that expansion, how we're timing that expansion coupled with all of the other investments that we're making. Really balancing the portfolio and ensuring that we're continuing to be disciplined and we're continuing to be prudent in how we're thinking about investments.
The second is, the prime real estate vacancy in a lot of the prime real estate locations, it's dropping. We're not just going to open a store to open a store. The vast majority of our stores are profitable. We have a high hurdle rate that we require. We're not just going to open a store to open a store because space is available. We want those premium locations. With the vacancy level varying out there in some of those prime real estate locations, we're going to make sure that we do our due diligence and do that in due process coupled with the investments that we're making.
Okay. All right. Terrific. This is a great place to end. Thank you again, Amiee, and thank you, everyone.
Thank you, Anna. Appreciate it.