J C Penney Company Inc (NYSE:JCP) announced April 10 that it was rebranding 50 full-service salons in 2017 under the name The Salon by InStyle. This is part of a bold move to transform more than 750 salons operating in its stores across the country into beauty destinations.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Taking a page out of the Ulta Beauty Inc (NASDAQ:ULTA) playbook, the department store chain is doubling down on its bet that beauty can be the magic potion for renewing its business — and a moribund JCP stock.

According to John Tighe, chief merchant for JCPenney:

“Providing customers with a compelling head-to-toe beauty solution is an important differentiator and growth strategy for JCPenney. It gives shoppers more reasons to visit a store and the personal, interactive experience inspires them to spend considerably more than the average customer. By making the necessary investments in our salon operations and stylists, we can successfully leverage the brand recognition of InStyle to continue gaining market share and create a best-in-class shopping destination.”

Hey, JCP stock is trading just below $6, so management has to think outside of the box while utilizing the assets the company already has.

Previously, it has had great success introducing Sephora shop-in-shops; in 2016, JCP opened 60 of these shop-in-shops to finish the year with 577 stores and plans to open another 70 in 2017.

On its Q3 2016 conference call, JCPenney CEO Marvin Ellison raved about its Sephora partnership.

“Our new locations continue to generate some of the best grand opening results that we have ever seen,” Ellison said during the November call. “J.C. Penney has launched a test of a ‘mini concept’ store with the opening of the Sephora Collection Shop (containing only Sephora-branded products). We are blown away by the early results.”

Both Macy’s Inc (NYSE:M) and Nordstrom, Inc. (NYSE:JWN) are also sprucing up their beauty offerings to take advantage of one of the few areas in retail that’s actually growing.

Should Ulta Beauty Be Worried?

Not on your life.

The company plans to open 100 stores in fiscal 2017, which would bring its total across the country to 1,074 by the end of the year. Despite generating $4.9 billion in revenue in fiscal 2016, ULTA has just 4% market share in the $127 billion U.S. beauty market.

Its omnichannel platform is the key to capturing further market share.

Ulta has found that the average customer who shops in-store only makes four transactions per year, spending $177 per visit. The average customer who shops exclusively online averages two transactions per year, spending $112 per visit. The customer who does both makes 10 transactions per year and spends $474 per visit.

While it’s expected that Ulta can’t keep up its pace of growing same-store sales by 16,6% per quarter as it did in Q4 2016 — the company projects full-year 2017 same-store sales growth between 8%-10% — it can deliver more dollars per transaction from its customers both online and in-store.

“[H]ow long can Ulta keep up this pace of growth? The answer is that comparable sales are likely to moderate in the coming year as the company laps tough prior year comparatives,” GlobalData Retail analyst Carter Harrison said in a March email to Retail Dive. “However, they will remain, at least, in the high single digit range. Overall sales will continue to outpace comparables by some margin, thanks to 100 new store openings targeted across 2017. In other words, Ulta will remain one of the stars of the retail world for quite some time yet.”

Should Ulta Beauty Be Flattered?

Absolutely.

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. JCPenney and the rest of the department stores can read. They know today’s consumer wants experiences, not just more stuff.

“Our consumer data shows that beauty is, essentially, a local business,” Harrison said. “Shoppers do not want to travel long distances to look at and buy products. Nor do they want to always buy them online; there is a significant social element to beauty purchasing which means stores remain highly relevant. Ulta has bolstered this relevance with a range of in-store beauty services and a level of customer service that cannot be replicated online and has given their stores much more ‘pulling power.’”

Ulta gives its customers a good shopping experience both in-store and online, and in the process sends them home happy.

If there’s a better retail stock than ULTA, I’d love to hear about it.

Bottom Line for JCP stock

Between Sephora’s and the InStyle Salons, I think JCPenney’s beauty play is going to gain significant traction in the quarters to come. Whether it’s enough to get JCP stock out of its funk is another question entirely, but good for them for fighting the good fight.

As of this writing, Will Ashworth did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.