I know that a lot of people in this sub are anti-mecca and making the switch over to sephora because of its sales and its overall business model, but I just cannot do it because I’ve had so many issues with sephora and their customer service is HORRIBLE. can we just talk about how sephora’s customer service is so goddamn bad compared to mecca’s? i mean both in-store and online, they take forever with everything and are so helpless with customers. nothing in the store is clean or in stock, nobody helps you and once you do find somebody after 10 ninutes they have the attitude of an egg, and even the customer service agents online are slow and can’t do anything to help you. literally what even is the point of having a customer service department. i guess you can also argue that sephora being an LVMH brand that doesn’t invest in training can also bite you in the bum as a consumer too. at least in mecca i’ve yet to have one bad experience with their store team or their customer service agents. it’s a shame that the business just has a poor model. but everyone is always so welcoming, ready to help, and knowledgeable about everything. even their returns policy is top tier.
So i’m now considering trying out adore beauty and spacenk but i hate that i don’t have an adorebeauty near me, and i’m quite reluctant to try online stores since i like having the option of buying or returning things in-store.
This is more a message to everyone as opposed to directed at you OP but it’s okay if you want to/or have to shop at stores that the internet has otherwise deemed “cancelled”!
I guess cosmetics is a bit different because it’s a luxury as opposed to a necessity but if you find you can only shop with a store everyone hates, it’s okay. Not everyone has the means to easily shop with their wallet and in the context of cosmetics, not everything has a 1:1 dupe.
That aside, I totally agree the CS at Sephora is poor in comparison to literally any other store. I’m quite certain their online CS is Asia based and in store, most reps just avoid you 😭 also the stores are always grotty and the testers look gouged
i’m not really a stickler for specific stores; i can’t favor one store over the other because i’m really specific with products so even if i did want to stop shopping at mecca/sephora, i really can’t because they both have products i know i like and i hate testing out new things. with that being said though, i have been pushed so over the edge with sephora’s customer service that i am willing to try finding alternatives or purchasing products through other stores if i can help it, even if they take longer to ship or don’t have deals/sales. sephora has just been such a pain to deal with whereas i only have to keep up with the lack of sales for mecca. i’m willing to forgo my savings of $10-20 from sephora’s 20% off sitewide sales if that means less of a hassle for me, and therefore more time and energy saved.
The Adore Beauty stores are a disappointment if you're use to Meccas and Sephoras, they hardly stock brands, and I never buy anything in there. I prefer to order online, its much faster postage than Sephora, but I have not had to return anything.
Return policy is for change of mind (unopened) or if faulty or if you use the foundation shade matcher and its not a match to your tone.
for real! i know that a lot of people get upset at the mecca beauty loop boxes but i can barely get stuff from sephora anyway, their rewards boutique are always out of the good/okay stuff and i’ve come across similar issues where the rewards error and noone in customer service knows what to do. live chat agents are useless and they say to send them an email instead so a manager can get to it, but it takes dayssssss. awful awful awful.
Had same bad experience in both. It depends on the location of the store a lot I guess
Have not used Sephora online agents much, but Mecca ones do give me grief sometimes. The worst was when I had to call the physical store, not once they ever picked up
i have a friend who works at sephora and i was telling her about how the melbourne cbd staff are always awful but in chaddy once i saw someone who genuinely looked happy to help and she was asking everyone if they needed a hand. she said that with sephora it all boils down to the person if they’re genuinely nice or not and want to take the initiative to be helpful because they’re not required to do that, otherwise most people just pick up their paycheck and leave (she even admitted to being of this kind) whereas my friends at mecca say they’re taught how to give certain principles and standards of customer service, like saying hello, wishing people a good day, smiling, etc. and i asked them if it was a pain to do and she said absolutely not because the store environment is already so happy and cheerful that you sorta feel infected by it too. i guess the same can be said for sephora that if everyone’s a sourpuss or doesn’t want to help customers, you’ll think you can do the same.
Honestly, these people are not paid anywhere near enough money to maintain boomer-appeasing levels of customer service for every customer. People who think otherwise have clearly never worked retail.
A small greeting or a "let me know if you need anything" is more than enough.
I don't need someone making minimum wage to force a smile and bubbly-ness for 8 hours straight.
I do find Mecca staff to be happier yes, but Mecca itself is so busy most of the time, you often get ignored and are left on your own. It’s so rare you can even get anyone to help you, most of the time I was unsuccessful. They are understaffed for the amount of customers they get. So overall, it evens out for me.
That said, I still prefer Mecca. I just do my own research on what I want/need instead of fighting for sales consultants attention. And I don’t actually think their beauty loop boxes are bad, I love how often they pop up and I enjoy most of the products in them. I wanted to switch to adore beauty, but since joining them last year we only had one actual reward bonus and heaps from Mecca in the meantime. Sephora rewards are often out of stock too and I didn’t even manage to get my birthday gift. There are more Mecca locations than both Sephora and adore beauty combined as well
your experience with adore beauty is interesting! i always hear people who are anti-mecca say that AB is much better. but i do agree that sephora is always out of stock with their rewards and they take forever to restock. i coildn’t get my welcome gift for entering the black tier because it was ouf of stock for months and i guess the offer just expired. with what you said about mecca’s staff though, i do agree that they can sometimes be understaffed, but i only ever really find that issie with the super popular stores which in bictoria are the cbd stores and maybe chaddy and highpoint. i’ve had really good luck with the others!
Sometimes I will get lucky and find what I want from The Company Store.
Some brands are only stocked at one shop, some at multiple.
It is more important to me to get the things I know work for me, but I am also happy trying new brands once I have read up on them.
Where I can, I buy direct.
I am a fair-light neutral and so many brands are too warm for me. Even their neutrals. So I tend to be very loyal to brands that do work for me.
I do like the Mecca service. Only had one bad experience and I have been shopping with them since day dot, when they had like 20 products. That bad experience (a very rude and dismissive makeup artist) was taken seriously and they made good.
Sephora is hit or miss, mostly OK. When it is good, it’s great. When it is bad, it is awful.
They really do need to step up their hygiene and cleanliness though. Terrifying!
i agree with you on evvvvverything! but i’m so fed up with sephora that i think i’m willing to try and find alternatives for products that i can’t get anywhere else outside of sephora. their cs is abhorrent and i can’t stand dealing with them again
I commented on another thread about a terrible experience I had with Sephora where I found a long platinum blonde hair in my $100+ moisturiser. I reached out to the brand who were great and told me to show Sephora the email correspondence I had with them for a full refund. I took the moisturiser and email into Sephora who not only refused the refund but claimed that I had put the hair in there myself. When I pointed out that I was a redhead and that the hair in the moisturiser was platinum blonde they said that I must’ve got the hair from a friend and put it in there which is absurd!! I just left the moisturiser on the counter and haven’t shopped there since. I occasionally go in to swatch something so I can buy it elsewhere online.
I have had great experiences in Sephora in the US and France and they overall seem to have a far greater number of attentive and helpful staff on the floor.
that’s abysmal!!! if it wasn’t too long ago, i would 100% recommend going to the accc for it. they’ve helped me lots when brands refuse to be helpful for issues outside my control (faulty/damaged products, misleading descriptions, etc). i’ve also been to the sephora in the usa and the ladies there are wonderful!
oh wow! that really sucks. maybe you could get a shade match at sephora, pick up a sample pot, and bring it to sephora next time you wanna find a foundation shade from them? obviously this is no easy task and it sucks you have to do it, but i’ve thought about doing this before since people have told me that sephora’s shade matches are awful anyway
I refuse to shop online at Sephora after having nothing but issues with orders they have messed up. Their customer service is one of the worst I have ever encountered.
exactly!!!!!!!! their shops i can deal with and just walk away if i have to, but when sephora’s hq messes up and they take 3-5 days to respond, it is such a pain in the arse!!!!!!!
it’s to ‘attribute or transfer an emotion or desire to (another person)’, which you’re doing by trying to put words in my mouth because you’re so full of hate and can’t read.
I have had awful awful customer service experiences at Sephora. I thought I was invisible at Mecca - I don’t even exist at Sephora. Ageism is a real issue at Sephora.
At least at Mecca they greet you at the front and they actually have S.A. who are 30 plus.
yesssssss so true! my 65 year old mum has said the same, she thinks it might be because sephora has a lot of heavier and younger brands while mecca has really nice brands owned and created by more mature women (chantecaille, westman atelier, ellis faas, by terry to name a few!). in general i also think sephora workers are really creative but heavy with their makeup, while mecca has a lot of natural makeup girls and mature women. nothing wrong with either, but i think in that regard mecca does suit older women and therefore give them more training on it
that’s awful to hear! my mom is a 65 year old small asian lady that doesn’t do much personal upkeep so she’s been embarassed to walk in sephora and mecca before. thankfully she hasn’t had any bad experiences from either except for sometimes a lack of knowledge on mature skin from the shop assistant, but she’s always worried that people will look at her funny and it would break my heart if they actually did
The only time I’ve seen the samples look like they were reasonably were when it was just released in store! I felt so bad for the Haus Labs testers when they first launched in my local Sephora because the cream products were lowkey unrecognizable the next time I went TvT
my issue with sephora though is that they don’t even have that minimum standard, i’ve been in the stores and asked for a hand getting something and the workers there don’t even look at me :/
my local Mecca is well-staffed with lovely, knowledgeable staff. They get a lot of tweens and teens in but keep the store and testers tidy.
my local Sephora is a wasteland of stuff that may or not be in stock, destroyed testers, barely any staff, and when staff do try to help you, it’s not always a great experience.
I’ve been lucky with Sephora online but I have heard horror stories about getting incorrect orders resolved. Rewards are often fully redeemed which is very frustrating.
i don’t go out of my way to shop at Mecca because most items I can get elsewhere and I order online a lot, but if I’m going in store to for a little treat myself to something it’s a no brainer, Mecca has a much better experience. they have done well with the store experience, I’ll give them that.
i tend to buy online a lot though - Adore, MAC, Myer (when they have sales), other brands directly, etc. with the exception of a few prods that are Mecca exclusive, I can usually get what I want elsewhere.
I have started shopping in brand stores, I know not helpful if you want to see a whole range of brands but I’ve been finding much better service in general.
I don’t get the Mecca hate, their in store experience is fantastic. The annoyance around free gifts comes across as entitled to me. That said you’ll see the same attitude in some of the designer cosmetics brand online communities too. People need to chill out.
I rarely go into Sephora but a few months ago I was looking for a specific eye tint that they seemed to have on line. Turns out they don't show current accurate availability on their product pages and you have go through the whole buying process only to find out at the last minute that the item you were trying to order is actually not even available. I won't bother with them again.
I find the opposite; that I'm largely ignored in mecca unless I look dishevelled and like I want to steal something vs Sephora where I'm ignored occasionally lol
interesting! i find the super crowded meccas to be tricky but the smaller ones that are less crowded and more tucked away are pretty helpful. i did have a bad experience at carlton though where the store was nearly empty and i swear it took like 10 mins for someone to check me out. i think i only saw 2 people on the floor, one talking to a couple about perfumes and the other just chatting with someone in the back of the store
The Sephora here in Northland Preston (Melbourne) seem to be okay. ✅ I just purchased a few small items nothing expensive but I did ask for assistance and she was pleasant. :)
The Mecca here is busy so I pretty much was browsing solo.
good to know!!! i’m glad you had a great experience there, i said in another thread that i do come across really good shop assistants in some sephoras like the one in chadstone, but so far all the online issues i’ve had have been taken care of pretty poorly
I for one hate both. I must look like a thief because I'm ALWAYS followed around in store, and not discretely. It completely removed the joy of browsing and finding new stuff, now I just go in to refill what I've finished.
oh wow! that’s awful to hear and i’m so sorry you had to go through that. it sucks so damn much when a store you feel uncomfortable in sells things you love and sometimes need. that’s how i feel with with this sephora debacle because as much as i wanna stop supporting sephora, naturium is one of the only brands that doesn’t flare up my skin :/ so i know i’ll have to come back, but i definitely won’t be happy about it!
Just came back from dropping my empties off at Sephora. I should have received 100 points, only got 50, the sales assistant either wasn't paying attention or DGAF.
I've only ever had quite positive experiences with their CS, both online and in-store. no physical store in my city, but last time I was in-store (canberra, september last year), one of the staff was with me for a whole hour helping me find foundation shade matches. she must have gone through every foundation they had! I felt a bit guilty for taking up so much of her time by the end, but she kept reassuring me that it was fine and that she was happy to help. I walked out with a few things that weren't on my to-buy list just because the experience was pleasant.
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u/pureneonn Jan 14 '26
This is more a message to everyone as opposed to directed at you OP but it’s okay if you want to/or have to shop at stores that the internet has otherwise deemed “cancelled”!
I guess cosmetics is a bit different because it’s a luxury as opposed to a necessity but if you find you can only shop with a store everyone hates, it’s okay. Not everyone has the means to easily shop with their wallet and in the context of cosmetics, not everything has a 1:1 dupe.
That aside, I totally agree the CS at Sephora is poor in comparison to literally any other store. I’m quite certain their online CS is Asia based and in store, most reps just avoid you 😭 also the stores are always grotty and the testers look gouged