The beauty category is seeing significant growth for cruise ship retail concessionaire Starboard Group. Sales this year are reaching their highest level since Covid, according to Director of Merchandising, Karla Nedeski, who has been with the company for nearly 20 years in a variety of buying and merchandising roles.
“The growth we are seeing this year in beauty is off the charts. My Beauty team has done a phenomenal job tapping into consumer trends and capitalizing on what consumers are looking for,” Nedeski tells TMI’s Lois Pasternak during an in-depth discussion.
While beauty sales were affected from the lack of Asian cruises since the Covid pandemic – Asian cruisers accounted for a big piece of the overall onboard beauty business, Nedeski recounts that the Starboard beauty team has rebuilt the channel by understanding consumer trends and preferences, offering a wide range of products to cater to all levels of consumers, introducing innovations from cruise-exclusive sets to interactive activations, and launching first-at-sea boutiques.
“Shopping on a cruise is very different than shopping on land, and the Starboard team understands this. Convenience, promotional items, items not typically found in local retail, go a long way. Products or brands that offer that elevated experience also make a difference when shopping onboard cruises,” she says.
Echoing what Starboard CEO Lisa Bauer likes to say, Nedeski notes that “We are living in a moment when everything that ends, with ‘i-o-n’ — personalization, activation, innovation, creation –drives the business. This is what we have been doing for the past three years, when this category went through a major reinvention at Starboard.”
Fragrance #1 in sales
Fragrances are the number one source of sales within Starboard’s beauty category.
“The team has done a fantastic job offering something for every single guest that steps inside the beauty shop. We have a ‘Good, Better and Best’ assortment. This is a two pronged approach that focuses not only on how much the product costs, but also on who the target is. We explore having products at the entry price point – beginning with the promotional price point, so it can be used for gifting, and a better price point, with items that you would find in your local beauty shops.”
Within these assortments, Nedeski says that travel exclusive sets and cruise exclusives outperform because of the value that they deliver. But it’s not enough anymore just having travel exclusive sets that you would find in airports, she warns.
“Cruise exclusives have put us on a different level. My buyer Yasemin Kuloglu did a really good job introducing cruise exclusive sets. Starboard was the first to do this. We are also exploring creating cruise exclusive hair-care sets, as well the fragrance sets. This is the next level of innovation that this team is bringing to the table.”
Looking at the “best” category, Starboard is also seeing significant growth with niche fragrances in the $500 – $600 price range.
“People are willing to splurge on a gift or on themselves,” says Nedeski. “We are seeing the rise of luxury throughout the industry overall. Pre-owned Lux goods are performing extremely well. But with beauty and niche fragrances, consumers can tap into the luxury bracket without spending $6,000 on a handbag.”
The assortments offered onboard go beyond price points, however. It is critical to understand who the consumer is for each specific cruise line.
“We have families cruising. We have multi-generational guests sailing. It’s very important that everyone feels seen and feels they have something they can purchase –whether they be five years old or 100. We want to be very diverse and inclusive with our offering,” she says.
“We offer something in beauty for any age or any race. For instance, we added tailored products for kids: face masks, lip glosses, these are very trendy and all over social media. Teens and tweens love it. Brands like Sol de Janeiro and Jean Paul Gaultier are hits. This generation is really social media savvy, and we want to make sure that we are tapping into everything that is happening on social media within our ships.”
The rise of niche fragrances
Starboard was the pioneer in carrying high-end niche fragrances onboard. They first launched Parfums de Marly a few years ago, which opened the opportunity for other brands to come along.
“We now have quite a comprehensive offering of niche fragrances. These currently include Parfums de Marly, Initio, Creed, Amouage, Montale, Mancera, Xerjoff, Tom Ford, Jo Malone, Kilian and Balmain,” says Nedeski.
“We were the disruptors. Starboard was the one who brought in niche fragrances
“More than 20 ships across Starboard’s fleet will be carrying niche fragrance brands by the end of this year. These are select, high-performing locations, delivering consistent year-over-year growth.”
Nedeski explains the complexities of carrying such high-end fragrances onboard.
“This is a category where more does not necessarily mean more. We are very intentional where those brands are offered. We are cognizant about brand equity and presentation. Starboard works closely with these brands to understand their adjacencies requirements, visual merchandising, and storytelling. We also keep in mind that guest expectations are not the same when purchasing a fragrance that is $500 than if they were purchasing an $80 fragrance.
“It’s all about the experience,” she says.
“We must communicate what makes each of these fragrances special. To do this, we work very closely with the brands on comprehensive training.”
Starboard hosted a virtual beauty week dedicated to niche fragrances training, where all these brands and all the ships participated in virtual trainings. The staff were fully immersed in the brand story, how the fragrance is special, scenting, layering and so on.
Activations: immersive, interactive, memorable and cross-category
In addition to the intensive training, Starboard has staged several very successful activations for niche fragrance.
“During our ‘Find your Fragrance’ program, which is fully dedicated to niche brands, passengers are invited to experience different scents and notes, to discover those which resonate the most with them. It’s a journey through scents. We have a special table displaying objects like flowers, wood, citrus, aqua, etc. Afterwards, our Beauty Specialists help the shopper try different fragrances that fall into each of the scent categories,” she says.
Starboard also recently held a cross-category activation on 15 ships for Mother’s Day.
“We staged Scents and Sips, where we paired scents from fragrances with sips from spirits. It was a great way to bring along your significant other and have a ‘couples activation.’ It tapped into the elements, the senses, the tastes, and beauty. Everything was intrinsically in alignment,” she explained.
In addition to blurring lines to bring beauty to other categories, Starboard also can blur the lines within the beauty shop.
“One of our most successful programs was the recent Sol de Janeiro Badalada launch on all four Virgin ships, using a pop-up outside the shop that provided a full sensory experience.
“Called ‘Cheirosa Your Way: A Mist for Every Mood,’ it was a vibrant, interactive scent journey designed to help passengers discover the Cheirosa mist that matched their vibe. Guests are guided through four mood-based fragrance worlds — Warm, Amber, Floral, and Fruity — complete with hands-on testing, playful storytelling, and personalized scent discovery. The campaign was enhanced with complimentary sangria, creating a boutique-lounge atmosphere that turns shopping into a moment. The activation also featured sampling, GWPs, and event-exclusive offers, and was interactive, emotional, experiential and fun,” says Nedeski.
Starboard is now scaling the activation to Carnival and Royal Caribbean.
First-at-Sea stand-alone boutiques
Starboard has also been active launching first-at-sea stand alone boutiques. Since last year, the concessionaire has opened the first-at-sea stand-alone boutique for Dior onboard Celebrity Xcel; another for Chanel onboard Star Princess and a Clarins Boutique onboard Virgin Brilliant Lady.
“These boutiques are another key differentiator for Starboard. We are the disruptor in the cruise ship beauty industry, bringing the best-in-class vendors. Suppliers love to partner with us on those first-at-sea exclusive opportunities. We are the preferred partner to bring those new concepts to life. We have high expectations and high standards for beauty within the next new builds,” says Nedeski.
Personalization
Starboard also understands the importance of personalization in tying retail into the overall cruise experience.
“Cruise ship guests are not buying products as much as they are buying a memory,” says Nedeski. “Personalization helps make a product one that people remember. In beauty, personalization can mean so many things. From engraving a bottle to the one-on-one service from our beauty specialists to a consultation from our AI tool SkInsight.
All of these tap into the personalized experience guest receive when they visit our shops,” concludes Nedeski.
