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Sephora integrates semiotics and psychology to both engagement and sales. The strategic use of color, store layout and impulse buying strategies represents the brand where shopping feels essential. The tactics Sephora uses help with product display and they shape the behaviors by influencing purchasing decisions. By understanding these strategies, we gain knowledge of the ways that brands like Sephora strategically guide their customers in being involved with their brand identities. Recognizing these techniques allows us to better navigate the relationship between the consumer and branding.

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Sephora’s checkout line at stores is designed to increase impulse purchases by having travel-sized or lower cost items to look at as the customers are waiting in line. These last-minute purchases are reinforced by the “just one more thing” effect. Another strategy is to have less cashiers, which extends wait times and increases customers' exposure to products, eventually boosting the chance of an impulse purchase. Sephora takes advantage of the impulse buying checkout psychology to help customers experience joy because they feel they are getting a product for a good price. By these techniques, Sephora does not only encourage purchases but also reinforces the values of self-care and improves the customers' behaviors with the store’s identity.

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Sephora’s store layout uses some common psychological techniques to guide customers through the store, ultimately to the high-end products. One of those methods, the decompression zone, keeps the store entrance open and welcoming to help customers transition from the outside world to the inside. In addition, best-selling items and even those with support from social media influencers are commonly placed at eye level to draw buyers' attention. Another strategy has the expensive brands placed in the front of the store so customers see these high-end products as they walk in the store. As a first impression, this layout helps the customers view Sephora as a high-end beauty store. One analysis explains, “Their window displays provide elaborate scenarios conveying not only what the [item] is but what the [item] means” (Norton). This reinforces Sephora’s branding as a high-end beauty company which influences customers to identify the products with luxury.

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Sephora has strategically used color and light to draw attention to their target audience, who are women aged 18-24 years of age. The black and white color scheme is modern and high contrast which creates a sense of privilege. The brighter colors used in the displays make them pop, or stand out against the black and white. Psychology suggests that the color black is used to create a high-end atmosphere in the store. Bright lighting and backlighting are used to draw the buyers' eyes to the products. The store aesthetics make customers feel valued and encourages them to purchase products as a way to enhance their sense of self care. “For a semiotician (one who practices semiotic analysis), a shirt, a haircut, a television image, anything at all, can be taken as a sign, as a message to be decoded and analyzed to discover its meaning” (Maasik). This concept of interpreting visuals extends Sephora’s use of color and light where customers explain these signs of exclusivity.

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Sephora is known as a beauty store, but it’s also much more than that. It’s an experience that was created to influence customers into buying products that they didn’t think they needed. The layout of the store, the color schemes and checkout psychology not only motivate and influence customers to buy their products but also instill a sign of quality and exclusivity.