M&S and Sephora plan beauty areas in 100 stores from spring 2027

Marks & Spencer and Sephora have agreed to put Sephora-branded beauty areas in 100 M&S stores from spring 2027, giving shoppers another place to browse the retailer’s products in person. Sephora employees will staff the areas, and its products are also due to be sold through the M&S website. The agreement extends Sephora’s reach beyond its own UK shops while adding a specialist beauty offer to M&S stores.

The plan was reported by The Guardian on 29 September. It is a future rollout: the companies have not identified the 100 branches or given a more precise opening date. The report also did not disclose the financial terms of the agreement. Those details will matter to shoppers deciding whether their local M&S will carry Sephora products and when they can buy them online.

How the partnership will work

The branded areas are intended to bring Sephora’s beauty advisers into M&S stores. Sephora UK managing director Sarah Boyd said the agreement would take the retailer’s curated beauty offer into more communities where customers already shop. The Guardian reported that the online element will use the M&S website, extending the arrangement beyond visits to the participating stores.

John Lyttle, M&S’s managing director for fashion, home and beauty, described beauty as a category with the potential to attract new customers and encourage existing ones to shop more often. That is the company’s aim, not an observed result of the partnership. Lyttle also said M&S would continue investing in its own-label beauty ranges alongside the Sephora offer.

Sephora’s wider UK expansion

Sephora’s presence in Britain has changed substantially since its return in 2023. The retailer had closed its earlier UK stores in 2005, according to The Guardian. Its latest expansion has included its own stores, and the M&S agreement adds a different way to reach customers: a staffed area within another retailer’s premises rather than a separate Sephora shop.

In a July interview with TheIndustry.beauty, Boyd described Sephora’s UK strategy as a combination of larger stores and smaller boutiques. The publication reported that Sephora was pursuing an ambition of 20 UK stores by the end of 2026. That target concerned Sephora’s own store estate; the newly announced M&S areas are a separate plan with a spring 2027 timetable.

Boyd told TheIndustry.beauty that the smaller boutique format was designed for customers fitting beauty shopping into everyday routines, while larger stores remained places for more extended visits. She said customers still wanted to discover products, try them and receive advice in person. The planned M&S areas, with Sephora employees on hand, add another setting for that kind of shopping, although the companies have not detailed their format or range.

The same interview described boutiques on London’s Carnaby Street and at Old Spitalfields Market as additions to Sephora’s larger-format stores. Boyd said the company was focused on establishing those boutiques while continuing to expand its other locations. That earlier account provides context for Sephora’s approach to physical retail; it did not announce or describe the later M&S agreement.

What remains to be announced

The Guardian said the partnership could increase competition for beauty and health chains Boots and Superdrug. It reported no measured effect on either rival. Likewise, M&S’s hope of attracting more shoppers remains a stated commercial rationale: the planned areas have yet to open, so their effect on customer numbers, visits or sales cannot be assessed from the available reporting.

Customers have been given a season and a store count, but not a branch list, a product range or a specific date for the online launch. The companies have also not set out prices or the deal’s financial terms in the reporting reviewed. Further rollout information would determine how widely shoppers can use the offer when it begins in spring 2027.