NEW YORK — Walmart has filled beauty expert roles at 22 stores in Arkansas and Texas in recent months, staffing its beauty aisles with trained specialists who offer personalized tips and recommendations. The retailer expects to have in-store beauty experts in more than 400 of its 4,600 U.S. stores by the end of the year.

A year ago, Walmart set up areas in 40 stores where customers could sample makeup and speak with beauty advisers. The pilot beauty bar concept is now in hundreds of stores, according to Vinima Shekhar, vice president of beauty merchandising for Walmart's U.S. division.

"We're not trying to be an Ulta or Sephora. We have the breadth of assortment that no one else has. We have convenience that no one else has," Shekhar said.

Walmart's beauty advisers undergo one day of training at a company academy and receive ongoing instruction on products, seasonal trends, and customer service. They do not apply products on shoppers or perform makeovers. The company is providing online tools to help advisers understand sales targets, top-selling brands, and store performance compared to other Walmart locations, according to Whitney Hunt.

Beauty experts at Walmart can earn $14 to $35 an hour, depending on store location, a spokesperson said. The hourly wage range for all of Walmart's hourly workers is $14 to $37. The median wage for beauty expert roles was $19.54 per hour in March, roughly $2 more than the hourly wage for all other retail jobs, according to Indeed data.

Online job postings for beauty experts and beauty advisers remained fairly stable between February 2020 and April 2026, according to Cory Stahle. By comparison, online postings for marketing and software development jobs fell more than 20% over that same period, according to research by Indeed.

The beauty expansion is part of a broader initiative to upgrade merchandise and store ambience to attract higher-income shoppers. Walmart added premium brands La Roche Posay, Nude by Nature, and FHI Heat hair tools to its beauty assortment in the last year. The company is also considering adding electronics experts to its stores, according to Hunt.

The U.S. beauty and personal care market is valued at $129 billion. Retailers including Walmart, Target, Sephora, and department stores are vying for a bigger slice of the market by offering customized advice and interactive spaces. CVS and Walgreens added beauty experts to many of their locations in the last decade.