However, there are now questions if giving such attention to child customers increases the psychological pull of beauty products.
When younger customers enter Mecca, staff routinely spend time talking to them directly – not their parents – and teaching them how to apply makeup.
Karen Johnston was taken aback when her daughter Billie asked for gift vouchers to Mecca and its competitor Sephora, as well as a Barbie, for her eighth birthday in October.
However, after hearing about her experience when her daughter went to spend the gift card, she began to realise why her daughter now wants to work at Mecca when she grows up.
“She went into Mecca with my husband, but … [Billie] was just lapping up being shown all the attention, being made to feel special like a princess,” Johnston said.
‘Psychological addiction’ and the ‘TikTok generation’
Mecca, founded by Jo Horgan in 1997 with its first store in Melbourne’s South Yarra, has grown to become the largest cosmetics retailer in the country, with more than 8000 employees across Australia and New Zealand and 110 stores.
These include the colourful Maxima stores aimed at younger customers, the higher service Cosmetica shops, and the MECCA stores that incorporate both offerings.
Its annual revenues top $1.3 billion, and it commands 21.4 per cent market share, according to IBISWorld analysis. This masthead understands that in one day during the peak Christmas shopping season last year, Mecca sold $10 million in gift cards alone.
Much of its growth has been thanks to the cult-like following it has fostered. Its Beauty Loop loyalty program is one of Australia’s most popular. As of May, there were more than 4.5 million members across Australia and New Zealand. About 11 per cent of Australia’s adult population are members, according to market research firm Honeycomb Strategy.
Lights are on and the young feel at home: A Mecca shopfront.Credit: Eamon Gallagher
Adults may be the main game – Mecca said the average age of customers is “well above 30” – but teenagers are fast becoming a key demographic for brands. About 5 per cent of Mecca’s 4.5 million loyalty members are under 18. Gen Z, comprising ages 13 to 28, account for 24 per cent of all members, Honeycomb said.
While anyone can join for free, customers start receiving rewards when they reach Beauty Loop’s Level 1 tier – a minimum spend of $300 a year. Level 4 members, who spend more than $3500 a year, get extra entitlements, including invitations to exclusive events.
Renata Freund, Honeycomb’s director, said Mecca’s loyalty scheme brings “delight, surprise and overdelivery” and that going into a store to pick up a quarterly box of free products has created shared rituals that have built community – whether that is through friends or following social media influencers unboxing them.
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“It creates a rhythm of collective participation that reinforces group belonging,” she said. “This psychological addiction where people are really excited about it, it locks them in.”
Freund said that social connection encourages spending. “Buying a friend a Mecca product benefits them, but it also benefits me as it pushes me up to the next tier.”
Conversely, linking the brand to social identity risks exclusion for some.
“If all of your friends are tier three, you don’t want to be tier two, you want to spend more so you can share the social elements too,” Freund said.
“They all go into Mecca together to collect their reward boxes, so if you’re not part of that ecosystem, you’re not part of the friendship group.”
‘Skinfluencers’, tutorials and gift cards
Enjoyable aesthetics have traditionally drawn shoppers into cosmetics shops, but with Gen Z and the cohort succeeding it for those born after 2012, Gen Alpha, the most likely to shop online, retailers are having to adapt.
Much of that is seen online. Cosmetics retailers now target “the TikTok generation” through social media platforms and online tutorials, IBISWorld has found. Mecca is one of many beauty brands that pays influencers to spruik its products in posts. All influencers it engages are over 18. Customers will also organically post videos unboxing and reviewing their Beauty Loop gifts.
Additionally, retailers are investing heavily in their in-store experiences. In August, Mecca opened the world’s largest beauty store in Melbourne, a 4000-square-metre showpiece on Bourke Street.
Mecca founder Jo Horgan opens the brand’s new flagship store in the Bourke Street Mall in August.Credit: Simon Schluter
For Johnston’s daughter Billie, the combination of an alluring instore experience where she’s shown attention like an adult, as well as YouTube makeup tutorials and social conformity, has spiked her interest in Mecca.
Johnston, who lives in Sydney’s West Pennant Hills, said that while her daughter was only in year two, visits to Mecca had become Billie’s most popular request. Gift cards to the store had become common presents at classmates’ birthday parties. Only when cards are redeemed do they count towards a customer’s Beauty Loop spend.
“She is wanting to put on mascara to go to school. I thought it was quite early for her, but all of her friends are the same,” Johnston said. “I’ve seen parents put makeup on their kids for school photos and that shocked the hell out of me.”
Her most sought after products were available more cheaply at pharmacies, for example, but Johnston said Billie prefers to buy from Mecca. “It wouldn’t have the same buzz as buying from another shop.”
That instore experience treating children as adults is effective, Freund believes.
“Fifteen-year-olds don’t think of themselves as kids,” she said. “They don’t want to buy products for tweens, they want products for someone in their 20s,” Freund said.
Damaging ‘perfect skin’
That attitude combined with so-called “skinfluencers” on social media can have hazardous consequences.
A study published in the journal Pediatrics in June set up new TikTok accounts as 13-year-old girls, and analysed what the algorithm generated. It found TikTok served the users young skincare influencers. The top 25 most-viewed videos contained as many as 21 potentially irritating active ingredients for kids.
Billie Johnston, 8, applying makeup. The primary school student has told her mother she wants to work at Mecca when she grows up. Credit: Edwina Pickles
Daisy*, a 14-year-old from inner-Sydney, damaged her skin after she purchased a Mecca product containing alpha hydroxy acid, a harsh chemical exfoliant designed for older skin that can cause irritation and dryness.
“They told her it would help her skin, but it dried it out, it was totally inappropriate,” her mother said. “I took it back to the store and they agreed it shouldn’t have been sold to her.”
Her mother, who requested using a pseudonym to keep her daughter anonymous, said that Daisy began desiring products from Mecca at 11 and quickly “became quite addicted”.
“It was part of the cultural experience of being a pre-teen,” her mother said.
Daisy joined Mecca’s Beauty Loop scheme at 11 – able to register for it without her mother’s consent. Soon, Daisy was a level two member – with $140 moisturisers paving the way for her to easily spend more than $600 annually – and was determined to reach the $1200 threshold for level three membership.
“It’s an insane amount of money, but to her, she became quite obsessive about it,” her mother said. “She was even putting pressure on her grandmother to buy her products.
“I didn’t think you could have more perfect skin than she did as an 11-year-old. I’d say the products she used made her look worse.”
Daisy’s interest in Mecca only intensified. Months later, the tween stole her parents’ credit card and went on a shopping spree at various stores, including Mecca. Ex-staff who spoke to this masthead said it was common for child customers to pay using their parents’ credit cards.
Staff at Mecca’s new Melbourne flagship store on Bourke Street.Credit: Eddie Jim
Children’s desperation is also on full display on the Mecca Chit Chat Facebook group that the company administers, which has 262,000 members who share advice and product feedback.
In one recent post, a teenager makes a glowing review of a $782 LED face mask device that promises to fight wrinkles and acne. “Afterpay it, borrow it, bribe your parents, whatever it takes. You won’t regret it,” she said.
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