The days of thinking of Ulta as just a place to buy makeup are long gone. The retailer has been moving further into wellness for a while, with nutrition, intimate care, and sleep support already part of its assortment. Its annual report even includes wearables and devices within its Essential Routines category. WHOOP fits into a plan Ulta has already been building.
On November 3, WHOOP announced that its WHOOP 5.0 and WHOOP MG wearables will arrive on Ulta’s website and in select stores in March 2027, alongside bands and accessories. The devices track sleep, physical strain, and recovery, with additional features depending on the membership.
The connection makes sense. Someone shopping for skincare might also want to understand their sleep or recovery, without ever considering buying a WHOOP. Seeing it at Ulta could give them a reason to look. For WHOOP, that is an opportunity to reach beyond the people already shopping for fitness technology. For Ulta, it gives an existing customer another reason to come back. What makes this partnership interesting is what the shopping environment could do for the product.
Imagine someone who associates WHOOP with athletes, intense training, and people who discuss their recovery scores before breakfast. They might recognize the brand without ever considering it for themselves. Not because they dislike the technology, but because they don’t see their own life in the way they understand the product.
Now put it inside a retailer where they already shop for their personal routines. Explain how it might fit into an ordinary week rather than an elite training schedule. The device hasn’t changed, but the customer may have a different reason to consider it.
Sometimes expanding a market means helping people recognize themselves as potential customers. WHOOP is quite open about wanting to reach beyond its sporting roots. In the partnership announcement, chief commercial officer Kyle Leahy described demand from people who want to understand their health and how they feel every day. Ulta gives the company another setting in which to introduce that proposition.
WHOOP is also not new to selling through other retailers. In July, the company reported that its wholesale business had grown more than 150% year over year for the third consecutive year. The Ulta partnership builds on an existing distribution strategy; it isn’t the first attempt to reach customers outside WHOOP’s own channels.
For Ulta, I see an opportunity to become relevant to a different purchase decision. Someone might already trust the retailer to help them choose skincare or find hair products. A wearable asks whether that relationship can extend to choosing a tool for understanding their daily activity and rest. That is a bigger ask than adding another beauty brand, but it also gives Ulta a reason to participate in spending that might otherwise happen somewhere else.
And this is not a small, occasional purchase. WHOOP’s current U.S. memberships range from US$199 to US$359 annually, depending on the plan. The customer is committing to an ongoing service. That changes what a successful sale should look like. Getting someone interested enough to buy is the beginning. They still have to wear it, understand the information, and find it useful enough to keep paying.
I would want to know what happens a few months after an Ulta customer signs up. Are they using the information to make decisions they find helpful? Have they developed a routine around it? Or did the excitement of buying something new fade once using it became another thing to remember? Those are more useful questions than whether a fitness tracker looks out of place on a beauty retailer’s shelves.
My doctoral research has made me interested in what products become through repeated use. Participants have described recurring beauty and grooming practices as helping them feel calm, prepared, confident, or more like themselves. Those interviews weren’t about wearables, but they made me curious about how a tracker might fit into routines people already value.
I also want to explore a distinction: feeling better and getting a better score aren't automatically the same outcome. I would be interested in whether customers use the information to understand themselves more clearly, or begin judging their day mainly through what the app tells them. That is a research question, not a reason to assume tracking is either helpful or harmful for everyone. It does, however, make the product's explanation important.
More partnerships like this are likely as beauty retailers look for additional ways to serve their customers and technology companies look beyond the audiences that first made them successful. But putting two growing categories together won’t be enough. The product still needs a convincing place in someone’s life. That is why I like the logic behind WHOOP and Ulta. WHOOP gets an opportunity to explain itself to someone who might never have visited its website. Ulta can show that its interest in wellness extends beyond adding the word to a display.
Some of WHOOP’s next customers may already be shopping at Ulta. They just haven’t considered it for themselves yet. I think that’s a smart opportunity for both companies, but the sale is only the beginning. WHOOP still has to be useful enough that, when it’s time to renew, customers feel it was money well spent.
Dania Khalife
