Big W and the beauty middle: How retail is democratising desire

Not long ago, the beauty aisle was neatly divided. One behind glass counters, all fragrance and polished. The other lived under fluorescent light, lined with supermarket staples and low-cost alternatives.That language is changing, reshaped by retailers like Big W, Kmart and Chemist Warehouse. Their aisles now promote viral skincare once found in prestige halls, proof that glamour is no longer gated, just rearranged.A new prestigeBig W has added 420 new products from 22 brands, 72 per cent of which retail for under $25. Among them are names that dominate TikTok feeds, namely Frank Body, COSRX, Quick Faced, Boost Lab, as well as Big W’s own brand “Beauty Bar”, a collection of globally in-demand scented body products priced from $6 to $12.“Today’s beauty shopper is researching and gaining inspiration online, but still values the in-store shopping experience,” Taylah Gahan, Big W beauty category manager, told Inside FMCG.“We also know that there’s increasing demand from customers for luxe-for-less products, so we wanted to bring them the latest viral trends at low prices, in the convenience of a trusted retail environment.”Big W has turned convenience into aesthetic, redesigning its aisles into mini-boutiques and resonating the self-guided discovery of Sephora but translated through the grammar of value retail.“Beauty shopping is all about the joy of discovery,” Gahan explained. “The majority of our stores now feature a beauty shop-within-shop experience, which not only improves category navigation but also allows our customers to take the time to browse as if they were in a dedicated beauty retailer.”The practice of retail as a viable cultural translation of viral trends and consumer desire has now become the invisible infrastructure of the beauty boom.The influencer economy has turned every retailer into a curator of micro-moments from glass-skin serums and peptide mascaras to glazed-donut lip oils. But while social virality drives trial, it is the physical shelf that converts it into loyalty.E-commerce expert Shanthi Murugan noted that digital discovery has made beauty both emotional and cultural. “People don’t just want to buy what’s trending, they want to belong to it,” she told Inside FMCG.That belonging is now being translated into accessibility, a palpable form of digital desire. But Murugan notes that the real transformation lies behind the scenes.“Turning digital desire into something tangible will become a fine art of product development and stock control, knowing when to lean in, and when a trend has already peaked,” she said.“Just because something is trending on TikTok doesn’t mean it has longevity. Retailers will need to be courageous and deliberate about which digital discoveries they choose to invest in.”The business of emotional returnThe shift has elevated the buyer’s role from negotiator to cultural editor. Retailers like Woolworths Group, which owns Big W, have been investing in data-led curation teams able to bridge the gap between digital discovery and physical experience.It’s a balancing act of curating products fast enough to meet the half-life of a TikTok trend while maintaining credibility with shoppers who crave both novelty and consistency.Gahan describes this as “listening to feedback from our customers” and responding with precision. “Now, we’re giving them exactly what they asked for with more new products that deliver great quality without the high-end cost.”The result, evidently, is a beauty landscape that is both familiar and democratic, with the hierarchy of the counter collapsing, replaced by a cultural “middle shelf”.For discount and department retailers, the beauty category has become an antidote to margin fatigue. Compared with apparel or homewares, cosmetics offer high turnover, compact space and emotional payoff.As Gahan put it: “We wanted to create an experience that inspires customers to find new products that make them feel great.”Feeling is currency as beauty’s small luxuries now anchor foot traffic in big-box retail, turning necessity trips into moments of self-treat.Who else is in the mirrorBig W is not alone. Kmart continues to expand its OXX Cosmetics line, offering low-priced products that emulate current beauty aesthetics without the luxury markup. Aldi’s Lacura skincare range frequently resurfaces online through consumer comparisons with prestige brands, highlighting shifting perceptions of private-label beauty. While, finally, Coles and Woolworths are refining their beauty aisles with a growing mix of wellness and viral social-media brands, signalling a broader push to reposition supermarkets as credible players in the everyday beauty economy.The new beauty contractThere is a peculiarity in the way discount retail has become the new frontier of beauty innovation. By collapsing the distance between prestige and price, retailers are also redrawing their own identities from sellers of practicality to curators of trend.In this landscape, a category manager like Gahan has become more and more of an interpreter of taste, translating the language of digital beauty into something far more accessible.That may be the genius of Big W’s strategy; it recognises that beauty is about access. In practice, this could be a democratised counter, a scented bath bomb for six dollars or a shelf that speaks fluent TikTok.All product moves and gestures, big retail is redefining what value looks like when aspiration is mass-produced and trends are, literally, within reach.