On Sunday, Amazon wrapped up its fourth-annual Summer Beauty Event. Over two weeks, Amazon tempted shoppers with discounts of up to 50% on everything from makeup to vitamins. Even prior to the sale, the retailer did not seem to have trouble courting the beauty consumer. According to data from e-commerce agency Front Row, Amazon cleared $8 billion in U.S. beauty revenue in the first quarter of 2026. But Amazon wants more than just a place to snag beauty at a discount; it wants to be known as a premium beauty destination. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, hosts Lexy Lebsack and Sara Spruch-Feiner are joined by senior beauty reporter Emily Jensen to discuss the strategy around the e-commerce giant&#x27;s beauty sales and assortment, and how it&#x27;s attempting to position itself as a prestige beauty retailer on par with the likes of Sephora and Ulta Beauty. For Amazon, that means not only upping its brand assortment, which has grown to include everything from K-beauty favorites like Medicube to Puig-owned Charlotte Tilbury in recent months, but also encouraging consumers to use its AI-powered shopping assistants in lieu of in-person sales associates. According to Amazon, 300 million customers used its AI shopping assistant Rufus in 2025. On Wednesday, after the recording of this episode, Amazon announced it would replace the Rufus AI assistant with Alexa for Shopping.

Amazon wants to be a beauty powerhouse. Is a big beauty sale the answer?

The Glossy Beauty Podcast

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** The Glossy Beauty Podcast

## Participants

- **Lexy Lebsack** (Glossy)
- **Sara Spruch-Feiner** (Glossy)
- **Emily Jensen** (Glossy)

## Transcript

It's just a way to convert those customers more meaningfully. So the same way that you sell through wholesale, the same way that you sell retail, the same way that you sell D to C is why not sell with AI? And as I mentioned, what we're seeing is a doubling in conversion, more time on site, more ownership of the data, and ultimately reduction in returns. That's Juan Pellerano Rendon, Chief Marketing Officer at Swap, our sponsor on this episode

of The Glossy Beauty Podcast. Later in the show, Custom talks with Juan about the different ways brands are thinking about agentic commerce and how they can leverage it as a net new sales channel. Hello, and welcome to The Glossy Beauty Podcast, a show about the business of beauty and wellness. I'm Lexi Lebsack. And I'm Sarah Spruch-Feiner.

This past Sunday, May 10th, Amazon wrapped up its fourth annual summer beauty event. For two weeks, Amazon ran discounts where shoppers could get as much as half off everything from makeup and skincare to fragrance and beauty tools. It was one of many spring beauty sales this year. Sephora's savings event ended on April 14th, and Ulta's 21 Days of Beauty went on for most of March. To learn more about how Amazon's first quarter sales went for beauty and what the retailer's

strategy is to compete with Ulta and Sephora's spring sales, we are joined by Glossy Beauty senior reporter, Emily Jensen. Hey, Emily. Hi, Lexi. Hi, Sarah. I love when you come on, Emily. You always have such great insights. We love having you here. Oh, thank you. It's fun to join you guys. Yeah. Well, you wrote about Amazon's approach to this big beauty sale, which I know went well for them. What did you learn? What are their goals?

Yeah, it's interesting with Amazon. In the past couple of years, as we've reported on and elsewhere, they've really upped their beauty assortment. Tons of brands from the Estee Lauder portfolio, the Pooge portfolio, L'Oreal have joined the Amazon beauty offerings in recent years. And earlier this year, they hosted in New York a little preview event for their summer savings event for beauty, just highlighting some of the brands they'd be offering, what products were there.

Sure. While I was there, I spoke with Camille Nordby, who is the premium beauty category leader at Amazon US stores, just to learn a bit more about, yeah, like what is their strategy with beauty? Because I think we're in a phase now where you can buy these beauty products in like so many places now. Like a lot of the brands that are available on Amazon, it's like you can buy them, you know, at Sephora and Ulta. You can buy them at Target. You can buy them DTC. You can buy them on TikTok shops. So the question is like, why should consumers go to Amazon to buy beauty as opposed to

elsewhere? And what they had shared is, you ...

Amazon wants to be a beauty powerhouse. Is a big beauty sale the answer?

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.

Amazon wants to be a beauty powerhouse. Is a big beauty sale the answer?

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.