Andrea Harrison, VP Beauty and Personal Care, CVS Pharmacy

With a track record of rebooting beauty at 10,000 CVS locations, that are within 10 miles of 80% of the US population, Andrea Harrison, VP of Beauty & Personal Care at CVS Pharmacy, is a dynamic business leader for whom the pandemic brought radical growth optionality.

CVS Health has been growing rapidly over the last few years and forecasted to deliver over $300 billion of revenue in 2022. When so many retailers were closed, Andrea and her remarkable team had “the perfect sandbox” to explore how to connect with customers both #IRL and online and engage them in product trial. As Andrea sees it, we are in the midst of a whole personal exploration into the nature of “self-care” and CVS was able to meet the expanding needs of its customers, whether it was a drive through rapid test, something I did a few times, administering crucial vaccines or simply testing a new type of mascara or bath salt.

We are in a transformative period in retail health, beauty and wellness. What consumers think of in the category “has really grown and stretched in unanticipated ways,” she says. “Customers see health care and wellness as everything from sleep to nutrition to appearance to fitness. They’ve had a lot of time over the last two years to get to know products, ingredients, and test different things. There’s been so much conversation around self care and the importance of that. It’s opened the aperture on the beauty and personal care space for both the customer and the retailer. We think the customer definition of health and wellness is forever broadened.”

“CVS has a role to play to provide access to all of that self care and provide more accessible, easy ways to help consumers make good choices in that space.”

Even before the pandemic, CVS had big ambitions in terms of beauty. “Starting out in 2018 and 2019 we set out to try to shake up the mass beauty experience,” says Andrea “We wanted to do it in a way that was easy to get to and ensured that younger customers could find their way through mass beauty brands, with a little bit of the excitement they might find in other channels, but in a way that was on their corner. It’s also allowed us to create a sandbox to play with different experiences, different fixtures, different brands, different services, to see what works for our customers. Our goal is that we can test things … and if it works we can scale it throughout the chain.”

In an era where many are turning to technology to replace customer service, Andrea and CVS are seeing expanded roles for personal consultants in 650 of their stores. “We find that having a beauty consultant in the store actually can help customers navigate and find what’s best for them in a way that’s better than just product on a shelf. Our beauty consultants are educated on all of our beauty and personal care categories and actually can provide insight on anything from derm skincare to how to select the best power toothbrush. This is a bit of a unique position for us. We want to ensure that there is a person on site in those stores that can help customers make the best selection for them across a really wide range of what customers might define as wellness and beauty and personal care.”

Where does technology come to play? “Technology is helping us better train our consultants to figure out what to serve to an individual customer based on the needs they’re expressing,” she says. “We also find customers as a result of technology are smarter than ever. They’ll come in with a perspective on what they think they need. A retinol purchase might be influenced by a neighbor, or TikTok. The beauty consultant can then help steer them from 20 items to three. The consultant helps them get over those last couple of decision points in the process. That is one way in which that experience brings personalization.”

“We also have the benefit of years of data from our extra care program,” she says.  “That enables us to personalize offers as well. We’re getting better and better at trying to bring those experiences full circle, knowing that if a customer buys one thing they might like another. Technology informs how we think about making recommendations and sending you that next offer.”

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