A CRO Audit of the Sephora Website
Note: this site audit is a repost from a series I run via my newsletter, Add to Cart. Enjoy - and, if you like what you read, make sure to subscribe to the newsletter to get these audits directly in your inbox!
Welcome to issue #9 of the Style to Sales Audit! In this series, I pick a real e-comm brand and conduct a CRO (conversion rate optimization) audit on their site. This includes reviewing the site’s UX, technical specs and more, as needed. My goal is to show exactly how I’d work with the brand to improve their conversion rate - as in, turning more of their site’s browsers into buyers.
Today we’re auditing Sephora. I’m not a huge makeup girlie myself, and my main feeling whenever I land on the Sephora site is one of overwhelm. Why are there so many banners?? What am I supposed to make of all these promotions? The online experience feels stressful compared to Sephora’s physical stores, which I generally find quite nice. So, I knew it was time to do more research.
I hope you can pull some useful takeaways from this guide that may apply to your brand’s own site. Sephora is a giant, but they’re making lots of UX decisions - and mistakes - that could be relevant to your own site! And always remember - A/B testing is key for any CRO adjustments you make.
Okay, on to the audit.
Homepage
When I land on Sephora’s mobile homepage, it feels so cluttered and busy:
A few things that immediately stand out (in a bad way):
Multiple banners offering different discounts
A horizontal product category menu that’s separate from the site’s main menu
A hero image that’s redundant with one of the (multiple!) sale banners !!!
… all in, there’s a total of five CTAs within the space of one mobile screen. Yikes. It’s a lot, and if I had to guess, I’d imagine this site immediately loses a LOT of potential first-time buyers. (Not that Sephora’s web strategy necessarily cares about newcomers! More on this hypothesis later.)
If I worked at Sephora, here’s how I’d clean this homepage up:
Remove the horizontal category menu since it’s redundant and takes up valuable mobile real estate
Majorly streamline CTAs down to one main objective - in this case, let’s say the objective is to get users to shop Sephora’s haircare sale:
I’d move the banner about the haircare sale to populate at the very top of the page so that it stays visible on scroll (and is clickable to a sale landing page)
I’d keep the haircare sale hero image, but update the microcopy from “Shop Now” to “Shop the Sale”
I’d add in shoppable products directly below the hero image - in this case, let’s go with some haircare bestsellers that users can click into directly.
Remember: a primary goal of ecommerce UX is to get users to customers to shoppable products in the least amount of clicks possible. Getting straight to the point with bestselling products on your homepage is a great way to make that happen.
Menu
I immediately appreciate that Sephora’s mobile menu has a very minimalist design - it’s honestly a breath of fresh air after trying to make sense of their homepage. I also like the seasonal “Summer, SPF & Minis” category - cute!
Similar to both H&M and Zara, though, I’d say Sephora is suffering from a bit of “menu bloat,” which is a really common issue for brands with huge product offerings. Here’s how I’d clean up the primary menu screen:
Move the “Offers” category to the top of the menu, under “Brands,” and remove the “MySephora Sale” category since it’s redundant with “Offers”
The “MySephora Sale” category can be slotted in as a subcategory of Offers!
Remove “Account” subheader and elevate the “Log In” button by highlighting in the branded red color
Once I’m in a subcategory, the options multiply:
At this point, I’d simplify further by removing the “CLEAN AT SEPHORA” and “Organic & Natural” categories - not because they aren’t important, but because they should be filters on each collection page, rather than menu options. (Guys - don’t forget about filters!!)
I also wish Sephora would use drop-down subcategories, à la Fenty Beauty, as they’re a lot easier to navigate in and out of and (at least to my brain) feel less overwhelming to sort through:
When I click into some sub-categories, I see blog posts are displayed prominently. I think this is a really interesting strategy - not only do they look visually appealing, but these guides could be a great reference point for overwhelmed shoppers who don’t know where to start:
Loyalty Integration
The more time I spend on the Sephora site, the clearer it becomes to me that this shopping experience is not built for first-time customers, which is echoed by my (very smart) LinkedIn friends:
….so I couldn’t help but wonder, does the site experience improve at all if I create a loyalty (aka Beauty Insider) account?
The answer, dear reader, is: not really. Nothing substantively changed, other than loyalty badges at checkout letting me know I’m getting close to my next reward:
The main benefit of the loyalty program is, of course, order discounts and free gifts at various purchase tiers. And that’s clearly visible at the cart level, but I was also hoping for a more personalized and streamlined overall shopping experience. It would be great to see browsing options like “Favorite Products Near You” or invitations to dig deeper into more personalized product recommendations by skin type.
Collection Pages
Once again, Sephora’s collection pages have a lot going on, and a lot of information taking up valuable mobile real estate:
First things first, I really don’t like the redundancy of having horizontal-scroll category options (IE “Oily & Combination Skin”) when we’re already on a subcategory page! If these are really necessary, add them to the filters!! (Sorry, but I actually have to scream a little bit at this point because this is all confusing as hell!)
I do like that some explanatory copy is included from both a customer (and SEO) perspective but think there could be a better way to integrate it. In comparison, here’s how Drunk Elephant is incorporating copy into their PLPs - I like this more integrated way of adding in informational “highlights”:
More thoughts on how to make Sephora’s collection pages more effective:
Implement “Quick Add” functionality so that users don’t have to click into each individual product page!
Use more product badges - the only ones I see currently are these “only at Sephora” icons - but what about sustainability, or best-seller badges?
I also want to point out that I saw lots of Reddit comments complaining about how it’s hard to tell which products are actually available at a given time - and based on Sephora’s collection, I totally get the concern. I clicked into an assortment of random products and found that many were sold out of one or more colorways, but there’s no way to tell that at the collection level.
Product Pages
I’m sure you’ve heard me say this before, but: above-the-fold mobile real estate is so critical to maximize. And, unfortunately, Sephora isn’t nailing theirs.
Here’s what a typical product page looks like (note that there’s once again a double CTA about the brand’s sale taking up soooo much space):
First off, this page is in desperate need of a floating “Add to Bag” button so that users can add products to cart no matter where they are on the page. Also, why are all the product page images.. Vaguely blurry??
I’d also like to see at least a bit of product information above the fold. Doesn’t even have to be much - just a line or two of copy that allows customers to understand the product.
In contrast to the Sephora site, check out the amount of information Drunk Elephant is able to pack in above the fold, including multiple (crystal-clear) images, a description and even subscription options (!!):
I do see that some products have “Clean” badges on their product page - again, I’d love to see this bag at the Collection Page level so that it’s really easy for customers to spot:
Also, I notice that Sephora’s quite good at displaying product reviews (including AI-powered summaries, which are a helpful way to sort through a lot of information fast, imo) - but they don’t have any UGC visible.
By contrast, Fenty Beauty shows off tons of user- and influencer- created image and video content:
UGC is always important to display, but especially for a really sensitive category like beauty - products you’re putting directly on your body - it’s really critical. I’m surprised Sephora doesn’t want to show this stuff off!
Checkout
To be honest, guys, this audit is already getting a bit deranged-ly long so I’m going to keep it short and sweet with my feedback at this point:
It is 2025, and your site’s checkout shouldn’t take four pages to complete. Shopify does it in one page. Get in, girls, we’re simplifying our checkout process!!!
Okay, fin.
Have questions? Need help optimizing your own site’s UX? Get in touch. I answer all messages personally.
And, if you liked this audit, check out my other ones on Uniqlo, Zara and H&M.
