Benefit

A make-up brand owned by LVMH runs more than 3,000 in-store brow service bars globally. Each bar performs around 20 services a day. Each service takes 7 minutes. The service margin is not the point. Jean and Jane Ford opened a tiny make-up boutique in San Francisco in 1976 and sold their eponymous brand then called FacePlace to LVMH in 1999. Under LVMH ownership, the brand leaned into what it called the brow bar, a mini salon inside every counter where a trained benefit artist would wax, tint and fill a customer's brows for around $30 to $40. The service runs at breakeven or slight loss after counting artist wages, product cost and the retail space. The brow bar does not need to be profitable. It needs to pull new customers into a 7-minute one-on-one conversation with a trained brand specialist.