Profile: Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance, Inc. (ULTA.O)

Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance, Inc. (Ulta), incorporated on January 9, 1990, is a beauty retailer that that provides one-stop shopping for prestige, mass and salon products and salon services in the United States. Ulta focuses on providing indulgence to its customers by combining the product breadth, value and convenience of a beauty superstore with the environment and experience of a specialty retaile. The Company offers a combination of over 21,000 prestige and mass beauty products organized by category in bright, open, self-service displays to encourage its customers to play, touch, test, learn and explore. The Company also offer a full-service salon and a range of salon haircare products in all of its stores. The Company focuses on delivering a compelling value proposition to its customers across all of its product categories is fundamental to its customer loyalty. Its store is approximately 10,000 square feet, including approximately 950 square feet dedicated to its full-service salon. The Company opened 63 stores during the fiscal year ended January 31, 2009 (fiscal 2008). As of January 31, 2009, the Company operated 311 stores in 36 states.

The Company focuses on offering one of the extensive product and brand selections in its industry, including a assortment of branded and private label beauty products in cosmetics, fragrance, haircare, skincare, bath and body products and salon styling tools. An Ulta store carries over 19,000 basic and over 2,000 promotional products. The products the Company sells can also be found in department stores, specialty stores, salons, mass merchandisers and drug stores, but the Company offer all of these products in one retail format so that its customer can find everything she needs in one stop.

The Company operates full-service salons in all of its stores. Its current Ulta store format includes an open and modern salon area with 8 to ten stations. The entire salon area is approximately 950 square feet with a concierge desk, esthetics room, semi-private shampoo and hair color processing areas. Each salon is a full-service salon offering hair cuts, hair coloring, permanent texture, with salons also providing facials and waxing. The Company employ licensed professional stylists and estheticians that offer highly skilled services as well as an educational experience, including consultations, styling lessons, skincare regimens, and at-home care recommendations.

The Company established Ulta.com to give its customers an integrated multi-channel buying experience by providing them with an opportunity to access product offerings and information beyond its brick-and-mortar retail stores. The Company launched a new version of its Ulta.com Website and e-commerce platform in November 2007. The new Ulta.com Website and experience more effectively supports the key elements of the Ulta brand proposition and provides access to more than 11,000 beauty products from 100 of brands.

The Company competes with Macy’s, Nordstrom, Sephora, Bath & Body Works, CVS/pharmacy, Walgreens, Target, Wal-Mart, Regis Corp., Sally Beauty and JCPenney.