When the Australian retailer Mecca opens the doors to his new Melbourne flagship in May, he will claim to be one of the world’s largest brick and mortar shops. Located in a 150 -year -old Terracotta -coated building that was once an ancient arcade book in 299 Bourke Street, covers 4,000 square meters in three levels, with a cavernous floor of atrium of 11 meters high and mezzanine. More recently, the facilities of the male clothing department of the Australian retailer David Jones, the site has been restored to his glory of dedication. The details of Art Deco of Mexican inspiration and the arched windows are configured against the stairs of the style scissors LE bon marché.
“We wanted this subliminal theatricality to have,” says the founder of the MECCA, Jo Horgan. At 56, and about 28 years after creating the business, he still has open eyes on the prospects of Mecca. “How do you celebrate art? Let’s put a great beauty Carusel in the middle, let’s put a beauty laboratory, a Mecca workshop that makes makeup, hair and nails at the same time, so you will enter and leave an hour. “Together with the products, the new store will also have a study of drilling of María TashA apothecary section aimed at holistic beauty, an aesthetic clinic that offers complete dermal treatments that include lasers and injectables and a “350sq ode to the spectacular magnificence of fragrance.” Horagan adds: “It is a high -level luxury service.”
Opening is a field participation for Horgan, who, since it was established as the main Premium beauty authority in Australasia, wants to bring its global vision. And she is on the way. The MECCA served 4.5 million customers in the last year, and has 110 stores between Australia and New Zealand, using more than 7,000 people. Sale products of more than 200 brands, about 80 percent of which are exclusive. A high -end offer that includes Lick111skin and Augustinus Bader appeals to a larger population group and money, while the best -selling products of GonnaDrunk elephant and GLOSDOR – That Mecca introduced into the Australasia market, they are aimed at a younger buyer. The MECCA also has its own range, Mecca Max, launched in 2003, as well as the Cosmetica Mecca line. His hero is the To save the spf50+ superscreen face -A rose -dyed cream with a natural finish, first launched in 2007 and launched in the United Kingdom in 2023, which is consistently the best -selling product throughout the company.
Mecca is privately owned by Horgan and her husband Peter Wetenhall, although speculation covers a possible sale. The company does not reveal sales figures, although it says it has grown ten times in the last eight years. In 2022, an IBIS report put Mecca’s revenues at about $ 1 billion (around 500 million), while a source of the industry estimates that the revenues are north of £ 750 million.
This figure pales compared to that of its main competitor, SephoraThe French beauty giant owned by LVMH, which recorded a two -digit growth in income and profits in 2024 (the company does not eliminate exact figures, but its selective retail arm, of which Sephora is part, recorded € 18 billion in income) and has more than 3,000 stores in 35 countries. However, in Australia and New Zealand, where Sephora has 32 branches, MECA has preserved market share. “MECCA is an incredibly successful cosmetic retailer in Australia, with large format stores that are real destinations and make incredible turnover,” says Craig Woolford, a senior analyst of MST Marquee consumers. “They have been able to see the threat of Sephora that reaches the Australian market. The destiny of cosmetics for most people is Mecca. ”
Today, Horgan is talking from a meeting room in the National Gallery of Victoria, where he is a member of the Board. Its outfit, yellow cardigan, pink and brown shirt and a large yellow chain necklace combines with its overwhelmingly sunny disposition. Your makeup today includes NARS -dyed moisturizer, Gucci Westman Highlight and Chantecaille lipstickas well as products of the mecca line itself, including eye shadow and lip eyeliner. Originally from the United Kingdom, he moved to Australia with his family when he was a teenager and worked in his 20 years as a marketing executive in L’Oréalwhere he admired “the way they placed different divisions to attract different consumers.”
Working in the world’s largest beauty company stimulated her to launch Meca, with the aim of interrupting an industry that, according to her, was no longer attending to customers. “It was this monopolistic approach where department stores dominated absolutely, had an 80 percent participation in Australia, and these mass global brands possessed the retail space, the waves … possessed everything.” She adds that, at that time, “the client was 99 percent female,” but many of the large companies were led by men who did not know how to serve that base and, on the other hand, depended on focal groups. “I felt that there was a more instinctive way to play it.”
Horgan opened the First Mecca store in South Yarra, MelbourneIn 1997, a space of 65 square meters with a 4 m facade that now describes jokingly as “retail suicide” due to its small size. She had persuaded seven brands to launch with her, including NarsStila, Urban decline and Benefitall of which were new in the Australian market, and whose size is now owed to the early support of Mecca. “We think of a clear vision to return control to the customer, bring these exciting emerging brands and niche [to market] and provide an environment in which brands have control of their experience, ”she says.
The key to MECCA’s success, which was not easy during the first four years, is the loyalty of the client, which Horgan attributes to exceptional service and education of the brand. “We have created a model in which we spend four percent of our turnover in education and” equipment commitment “, and I think that has honestly the main engine controller [of the business]. ”
Woolford adds: “The MECCA approach is to have a great store experience and generate many sales, not generate a great profit margin.”
This is reiterated on Bourke Street’s flagship with its new “Meccaversity” auditor Florals and financial education. “We have such a powerful opportunity to redefine what beauty means for a consumer already committed,” says Horgan. “I think that health and well -being are now part of this industry, and we have a broader responsibility to expand the knowledge of our clients about anything and everything.”
Much of the client’s exaggeration in MECCA is generated by its Loyalty program Burlewhich counted 2.9 million members last year. They are rewarded with a sampling box that arrives four times a year, whose value is determined by different levels based on annual expense. Level one, a “beauty discoverer”, is achieved by spending between $ 300 and $ 600, while level four is obtained by eliminating more than $ 3,500. According to some clients, there is also a five secret level, called “magic circle”, for those who spend more than $ 10,000 per year. “MECCA’s beauty circuit works extremely well with consumers due to the high perceived value of rewards and the extent that they delight buyers with ‘surprise’ gifts,” says Amanda Winchester, associated partner of McKinsey & Company. “In turn, this has allowed a natural community to form and believe rumors in the online program.”
Beauty Loop’s reward is an alternative to the discount, what Mecca does not do, to dismay some buyers. “Our philosophy is that we are ‘Add value’, no ‘value off’,” says Horgan. “I think everyone else is running to the bottom. Amazon is a transactional experience totally free of friction, incredible and transactional at one end of the spectrum, and we want A trial in 2020, although it retired in 2023. The launch of its product to the United Kingdom and Europe is another international test, as well as a means to build brand recognition.
Horgan is still “noodles” about how global expansion will be seen, but its mission is clear: “[The goal] It should be the beauty fate number one of Australasia, ”she says. “Now we have changed it to be the most loved beauty fate in the world. And although we want everyone to make the pilgrimage to Meca Bourke street, Going International follows. It almost feels like a social responsibility to take what I think is a genuinely differentiated global beauty experience. ”