Let's be honest. Sephora doesn't care about Canadian customers.

[Vicladyingreen]

As a customer, I'm not going to stay quiet anymore. Since the beginning of the year I feel that my value has not been appreciated by Sephora. As Canadians we have to share a pool of certain rewards with US customers. For items that are highly covetable, like full size palettes, we have to compete with Americans for a chance at them. Suffice it to say this practice is as good as barring Canadians from these rewards due to sheer numbers. We also don't have access to products and services that our American counterparts have plenty of. Sephora Play! is still not available here in Canada. And the in depth beauty classes that you can find practically everywhere in the US are only available at one store in Toronto. A city whose population dwarfs some entire states. Cleveland OH locations have these classes but Vancouver BC (nearly twice the population) doesn't. Now lately we have seen the Weekly Wow being introduced. And once again Canadians are left in the cold. We are told to "Check back soon for Canadian deals" but I'm not holding my breath. Even if they come out with something I feel it's too little too late. Because yesterday I also came across the Influencers Must Have kit and once again we are restricted from it. I'm just shy of Rouge status already, but next year I'm going to try to spend so little that I don’t even make VIB status. To Sephora, if my Canadian dollars aren't valued I don't see how you will miss them. To my fellow Canadians, please weigh in if you agree or disagree.

[crystalcity]

File a complaint with the Competition Bureau of Canada.

[rosabelladelila]

I Agree, plus so many other discrepancies, 

[queenhadassah]

I decided not to shop at any Sephora store from now on, the points of purchase are not worth it, the stuff I got for my points are useless compare to gift with purchase at Hudson Bay.... Besides the Bay, Shoppers Drug Marts offer 20% off every Thursday, I'm talking about every Thursday if you go with a (55 or 60) year old senior, SDM sell almost all the high end brands that Sephora sells such as: Dior, Estee Lauder, Urban Decay, Smashbox, Shiseido, Lancome, Chanel (Sephora doesn't sells Chanel).....

[cangirl84]

@queenhadassah Did you know Chanel has changed their policy regarding the discount? SDM is no long allowed to give any discount on Chanel, even employees discount is void for Chanel products. SDMs have to follow these conditions or they would lose the business contract with Chanel. Customers are not allowed to buy more than 2 of the same skus at a time, and no more separate receipts if you want to buy more!

[HolySugar]

I love Sephora and it make me so sad.I lose my faith every day:

- Weekly Wow were inconsistent and more like biweekly but at least they included Canada. Now they just decided to completely ignore Canadian clients - no updates since late October. So we were not able to take advantage of combining Weekly Wow and November sales.

- US had a lot of Perricone MD products on sale for a while now - we did not. And in general, we do not get same sale section: right now they have over 200 products on sale, Canada - 145.

- Sephora favorites: We do not get same selection. EVER. At this moment: Canadian website - 8 sets (2 in stock), US - 26 sets (23 in stock). Plus we often get few products less in the same sets.

- I went to Murale (shoppers baby): AMAZING EXPERIENCE! Attentive reps, great product selection, free 1 hr facial (no min purchase either). The only downside is that they do not have website yet and only few stores. If you live in the city that has it - go there! so much better. And you can use your shoppers points to get free make-up! Dream come true! (plus soon PC points will be joined with Shoppers and even faster collection of points!). 

- I hope Sephora will realize that eventually their attitude toward Canadian market and absence of perks for Rouge (yes, absence - unlimited "makes overs" and horrendous "concierge" service are not perks), combined with great new makeup stores will lead to rapid loss of Canadian clients. 

[sydtomato]

The weekly wow thing pisses me off.  I have asked many, many times about it and have only gotten one reply from a mod that said something like "Great idea! (which made no sense, I asked a question) If there are any updates they will be in the notifications on the website".  We have gotten no updates or info whatsoever, from what I have seen at least, regarding our 'whenever-Sephora-feels-like-it' wow.  It seemed like it was bi-weekly but we did not get one last week, of course because of the vib sale.  Getting completely ignored is not a way to treat a whole country of customers and they clearly don't care at all.  Its like they act as if we are not aware of Sephora US and think if they don't acknowledge us or give us any extensive information then we will be oblivious.  There are so many other issues with how they treat Canadians.  I totally agree with their "perks" not being "perks".  I have called that 'rouge hotline' and they know less about anything than the other customers on the boards.  In my experiences, they havn't known what I was talking about ever and it was a huge hassle to get anywhere.  If Ulta ever comes to Canada with a greater presence, Sephora will have huge problems.  There are already so many people jumping ship in the US.  They just rely on the fact that we don't have a whole lot of alternatives in Canada. 

[katclawsyou]

Yeap.... I gave up and just go to the US to get the items I want. Very sad...

[Anonymous]

Yes I totally agree 1. They never include Canada in new brands and we don't get new products too 2. Play ! Your could get tons of customers but no... 3. Colourpop it's literally spelled Colour is literally spelled how Canadians spell it why is it only available in the us when Sephora brings it in

[sydtomato]

Colourpop is a US brand, they have said they just spelled it that way to be different.  Its not necessarily Sephora's fault that its not in Canadian stores, it could be issues with Colourpop and not Sephora.  Granted, we did get it online and I did see the Golden State of Mind palette in my store in Alberta. But totally agree with your other points.

[Marijay]

Lol colourpop wanting to be different...by using the English spelling...I don't know if that smacks of ignorance or irony on their part. It's like naming something Kilometres because it's so much more Avant Garde than Miles. That's directed at them, not you.

[Nicole2558]

I'm here in NL on east coast so it takes quite a while for anything to ship here

[Want2buymore]

Agreed! Not only that, but every time I step into any location I am NEVER acknowledged! I went to one last week to check out the Huda Beauty glitter glosses and I had a question. I walked around the store a few times just to spot an associate. I walked up and stood near her but she didn't notice me because she was shooting the sh*t with her 2 friends. I HATE the customer service in this store! 

[Patience724]

Unable to 'like' the comment for some reason but I totally agree

[bonafide11]

 I agree with some of your points but the other ladies have raised good points too. It's not so much they don't care...they just care differently. The Canadian market and costs are different so I can't fault them for using marketing strategies. Ultimately they are a business and their goal is to make money. It's no different than other retailers offering different deals/products in different parts of Canada. What I get in Ontario is probably different than what someone gets in Newfoundland. 

International customers have it way worse than us to be honest. They don't get any of the sales and reward perks. We actually have way more access than many outside North America. I do appreciate that the US/Canada share the Beauty Insider point system so we can get points for shopping in the States.

What annoys me is the lack of organization/communication and when there's no real reason for our exclusion as Veronika and k617 said. If it takes longer to get new releases shipped to the Canadian warehouse, that's not ideal but acceptable IF they're clear about Canadian and release dates. Then our expectations are managed and we won't be confused on release dates. I agree about the Weekly Wow thing. Seems weird to exclude us when it's just a discount on existing stock. But again, if they were just clear that it was a US promo to start, then we wouldn't get our hopes up. Same with the $50 GC point reward that Veronika mentioned. How hard is it to issue some CDN$ gift cards??

As for brand and product availability, I think sometimes this is out of Sephora's control. Brands may have different distribution deals (e.g. they already have exclusive deals with another Cdn retailer so Sephora can't pick it up) or maybe the brand doesn't care to sell to Canada. We also have our labelling/skincare regulations (bilingual labels, SPF testing) that make it more work for brands to introduce products here. I do agree it sucks when we can't get a Sephora Favourites Kit bc of one or two item in it isn't available in Canada. They're getting better at creating Canadian versions (as opposed to not even offering it at all) but it's still not great. TBH I wouldn't mind if they sold the SiJCP sets here...we usually have most of those brands and I like that they're smaller edited sets.

[crystalcity]

More packaging is trilingual now with English, French, and Spanish so that means one label across North America.  Health Canada has stricter rules around ingredients than the FDA, so that is one limit.  That said there are companies that compete with Sephora here which beat it in terms of store preference.  Sephora doesn't even make the top 10.  Heck, even Lush beats Sephora!  Talk about a niche market.  My local Seohia is so cramped I'm scared if an Emergency ever happens because people will never get out of that place alive.  I feel for the staff, because they can barely move. For those in Western Canada that don't want to go to Shoppers Drug Mart, London Drugs also sells the higher end brands like Clinique, Shiseido, Lancôme, etc.

[k617]

Truth is, it's not just Sephora.  A lot of companies that are US-based or internationally based probably see Canada as a much smaller market. We have 1/10 the population of the US, so naturally they reserve more items for their US customers. For things like Play!, it all comes to demand too and keeping their costs down while pleasing customers--I've seen subscription boxes shut down because it's just so much more expensive to operate their program in Canada. And if you raise shipping/add shipping to pass onto the customer you'll probably lose a customer or two. 

I'd imagine logistically there are many things that delay when things are released in Canada, and while it's frustrating I just wish companies like Sephora would take time to explain those challenges and be a little more transparent. 

Meanwhile, I'm still thankful we at least HAVE Sephora here and that online shopping is relatively easy. There are so many companies that only have stores in the US and don't ship internationally... 

So, I don't disagree with you; I actually do agree with your points, but sadly, business is business and companies will make decisions that make the most sense for them and their shareholders.

[Anonymous]

If I moved to Canada, I would blame location for different availability, Not Sephora.

If it makes you feel better availability and promotions are not distributed evenly throughout US cities.  Sephora mainly sticks to 2-3 cities when it comes to promotions and mega stores. I think I live in the 5th largest city in the entire US and we get squat!

You just gotta find ways to get things ship to you if you want them that bad. 

Now I wish the Europeans posted here so we can see what we are missing out on across the pond! They probably get free champagne while shopping in-store! ;')

[crystalcity]

Shows what you know about Canada.  The average Canadian has WAAAY more spending power than the average American. We have other retailers that sell lux beauty, such as Shoppers Drug Mart,  the Bay, and London Drugs.  It's a joke when I receive the surveys from Sephora because all the competing stores listed are American.   Hey Moderator!  Pass this on to the HQ:

https://retail-insider.com/retail-insider/2024/01/leger-unveils-2024-wow-study-of-top-retailers-in-c...

[Luvstravel]

I live in a smaller town 2.5 hours from Dallas. I have 2 small Sephora stores in our JcPenney's. I have come to appreciate what they do carry and the sales people always tell me when something new comes in or don't mind when I spend 30-45 minutes wondering around the store. I love traveling and this year in May I traveled to Ireland for two weeks. The is no Sephora stores in Ireland, but some of the larger Department stores in Dublin make up for it. But that is only in Dublin. The rest of the country I didn't observe too many large stores. I just returned from Canada where I spent 2 nights in Toronto and 5 nights in Quebec. Made a makeover appointment at the Sephora store at Yonge/Elington. Sales people were nice and really enjoyed talking with the girl doing my makeover. The store is big, 2nd biggest after New York City's brand new Sephora. They had a lot of different brands but I did notice in the makeup section they were out of a lot of items. I then went to the Sephora store in Quebec city. It is a smaller store but very well stocked in all products they did have. The size of Quebec store was similar to my Dallas store. Now for icing on the cake I have traveled to Paris several years ago and went into the Sephora store on Champs Elysse, and it was quite large and carried different products then the U.S. but at that time I wasn't quite into makeup as I am now. Would love to spend several hours back in there now! But I am quite happy just shopping on line and browsing in my local Sephora's!

[veronika23]

I agree that we often get the short end of the stick... but for the rewards Canada has their own stock. Sometimes we have different rewards and we have way less stock than the US but we are also a very small country (population wise) compared to them.  So just in case you didn't know, the rewards in the bazaar, you are only competing with other Canadians to get them.

One thing I would like to point out is that new rewards are dropping each day for the next week and one reward that the US has and Canada doesn't, doesn't make much sense to me. For 2K point you can redeem a 50$ gc. Now the value is poor on this and well, almost all new rewards for a long time now compared to previous years (cough couch Paris/MUFE trip for 10K points) but I don't see why the gc reward couldn't be made available to Canada.  That's just stupid. 

Same goes with the weekly deals... we have the products so why can't they be on sale here too? Or why does the US have products in the sale section when we have to pay full price? Or why is it delayed for us when there's a product launch. The KVD glimmer veils were available for 24hrs this past week. I missed out because Canada didn't get the memo... There was also a few Rouge emails sent out for the US for very nice promotions like 15$ off 50$ purchase and a 20$ off a 100$ purchase. Not everyone got those but if it weren't for this place (previously known as awesome BT) I would have never heard of it. The US also got a makeup points multiplier a few months back and we didn't. They also get brands we don't or there's a huge delay in getting them. It's all a bunch of little things but they add up.