Sephora is stepping directly into the $250B creator economy with My Sephora Storefront, a platform that will let U.S.-based creators build personalised storefronts within Sephora’s ecosystem. The play is clear: lock in beauty creators by giving them affiliate commissions, analytics, and seamless shoppable integration into the retailer’s site, app, and loyalty programme.

But Sephora isn’t breaking new ground here. They’re up against creator-first incumbents like LTK ($5B annual sales, 40M monthly shoppers, 1M+ brands) and ShopMy (175K creators, 50K+ brands) - plus Amazon Associates, the biggest affiliate network in the world. So the strategic question becomes: can a retailer, even one with Sephora’s cultural cachet and Hailey Bieber–level launch track record, muscle its way into a space that was built for creators, not retailers?

📊 Supporting Stats

Influence vs advertising: 61% of consumers say they trust influencer recommendations more than brand marketing (Sprout Social, 2025).
Sephora proof point: Hailey Bieber’s Rhode pulled in an estimated $10M in two days at Sephora (YipitData, 2025).
Scale of competition: LTK drives $5B in annual sales with 40M monthly shoppers; ShopMy links 175K creators with 50K+ brands; Amazon Associates boasts 900K affiliates worldwide.

🧠 Decision: Does It Work?

Not yet. Sephora’s move makes sense strategically - it wants to capture sales directly at the intersection of creator culture and checkout. But the platform’s success hinges on whether it can flip traffic into audience. Unlike LTK or ShopMy, Sephora isn’t a place where people go to hang out, discover, or spend time; it’s where they go to transact.

Where Sephora could win: integrating creator video directly into product detail pages (the moment of purchase intent) and rewarding creators with visibility to Sephora’s Beauty Insider base (one of the most loyal programmes in retail). Where it risks falling short: failing to make creators feel like brand partners rather than an outsourced salesforce.

📌 Key Takeouts

The play: Sephora is launching its own affiliate network (My Sephora Storefront) to capture creator-led commerce within its owned ecosystem.
The challenge: Sephora has traffic, not audience - unlike LTK and ShopMy, which are community-first platforms.
The edge: Seamless integration with product pages + loyalty programmes gives Sephora a direct conversion advantage.
The risk: If creators feel the platform is purely transactional, they’ll keep prioritising LTK/ShopMy, where their identity isn’t tethered to a single retailer.
The signal: Beauty retail isn’t content to just sell product — it’s moving aggressively to own the creator revenue stream.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next

Expect Sephora to lean hard into exclusive brand incentives (early drops, higher commissions, loyalty tie-ins) to lure creators onto its platform. If Sephora can make its storefronts aspirational - a badge of prestige like being featured on a brand campaign - then it stands a shot at pulling creators from LTK and ShopMy.

But the ceiling is real: creator commerce works best where audiences already spend time. Unless Sephora finds a way to build real discovery, not just shop integration, My Sephora Storefront risks being a bolt-on tool in a world of ecosystem giants. The upside? If Sephora nails conversion-first video commerce, it won’t need to “beat” LTK - it just needs to redefine what creator-driven beauty retail looks like.