Wal-Mart Woos Teens With New Makeup Line

June 25 -- It's just become cheaper for more girls to get the smoky-eyed look of Christina Aguilera.

That's because Wal-Mart Stores is moving into the cosmetics aisles, ready to battle for billions in teen dollars.

Wal-Mart recently decided to expand its "No Boundaries" line of low-priced cosmetics for teenagers and tweens — children in the 8- to 14-year-old age group who are hovering between childhood and adolescence — into 1,500 of its 2,600 stores.

Wal-Mart first introduced the makeup line, an extension of the chain's private label brand of apparel, shoes and accessories of the same name, in selected stores in March. The retail giant will also continue to roll out the line in new and renovated Wal-Mart stores that have a high percentage of teen customers, says Wal-Mart spokeswoman Suzanne Decker.

Lipstick at a Bargain

Priced at $1.74 for nail polish and $2.74 for other cosmetics such as mascara and cheek stain, Wal-Mart's cosmetics line will compete with higher-priced mainstays of teen cosmetics as Bonne Bell and jane, which are also sold in Wal-Mart.

To compare, the average price of nail polish sold in supermarkets, drug stores and mass merchandisers is currently around $2.37, while other facial cosmetics cost an average of $4.55, according to Information Resources Inc.

Wal-Mart's move reflects the growing interest among retailers in attracting teens and tweens (see sidebar, below). With youth customers accounting for $5.6 billion, or about 20 percent of the $28.4 billion cosmetics and toiletry market in the United States in 1998, according to market analysis firm Datamonitor, cosmetics are a particularly attractive area for sales in the teen market.

"Teens are a big segment of the population right now with a lot of disposable income to spend," says Adelle Kirk, principal of the global strategy group at Kurt Salmon Associates, a consulting firm specializing in the consumer products, retail and health-care industries.

What's more, the teenage market for cosmetics and toiletries is growing. Datamonitor estimates that youth spending on cosmetics in the United States will grow at a rate of almost 8 percent a year until 2002. In contrast, overall U.S. sales for cosmetics and toiletries grew at an average of 3.3 percent from 1994 to 1998.