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Walmart Inc. is going deeper with prestige beauty — and doing so digitally.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer is adding Premium Beauty to its online marketplace, starting with 20 brands and more than 1,000 stock keeping units, with a heavy focus on skin care and hair care. Those brands include CosRX, Paul Mitchell, Foreo, ColorWow, PerriconeMD, Bio Ionic and the Beachwaver Co., among others.

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For brands, the launch means custom storefronts rife with editorial content and product descriptions, and “a lot of space for branding and storytelling. Brands can really bring their story to life in a much deeper and richer experience,” said Michael Mosser, vice president of categories, Walmart Marketplace.

The move comes two years after Walmart debuted shops-in-shop with the retail entity formerly known as Space NK to bring prestige beauty brands like Mario Badescu, Patchology and NuFace to its aisles. It also comes at a time of growth for Walmart’s marketplace model, which grew 32 percent last quarter, per an investor presentation.

“This opportunity is very customer-focused,” said Silvia Kawas, executive vice president of Walmart consumables, Walmart U.S., who added the “type of growth we’re seeing from a market share perspective as well as with higher-income cohorts.”

Walmart isn’t the only one, and competition remains high. In 2023, Amazon sold more than 1 billion beauty products in the U.S. and recently signed prestige brands Clinique, Too Faced, Bumble & bumble and Kiehl’s. Morgan Stanley had previously predicted that Amazon would overtake Walmart as the largest beauty retailer in 2025.

“Our customers are looking for an experience with brands they trust and love, and they want to find them at Walmart,” Kawas said. “This shows the momentum that we continue to build. Walmart is one of the fastest-growing from a digital perspective, in the beauty space and premium beauty, specifically, is on the rise.”

Coming up with the brand mix started with looking at what consumers wanted to find online. “We see what they’re asking for from the customer search data, and we’re starting off with brands that we think will resonate with them, and build upon that experience,” Kawas said, noting emphases on hair tools, hair routines and skin care — often from indie brands.