Dave Kimbell
Chief Executive Officer at Ulta Beauty
Hello, everyone. I think we are having -- we had a -- we were disconnected. I think we're having some phone network issues, but hopefully you can hear me. And I'm going to pick up I think where we got cut off. So if I repeat a little bit, I apologize, but we'll dive right back in.
So moving now to our efforts to expand our assortment of Black-Owned and BIPOC brands. During the third quarter, we added two new Black-Owned brands, Sunday to Sunday and Nude Sugar, and we are on track to double the number of Black-Owned brands in our assortment this year. In addition, I am excited to share we have welcomed our first South Asian-owned make-up brand to the Ulta Beauty family, Live Tinted. Founded by Asian Influencer, Deepica Mutyala, Live Tinted is a cosmetic brand that celebrates multi-cultural beauty. The brand is also part of our Conscious Beauty platform, certified as clean, vegan and cruelty-free.
Based on our proprietary research, we know 65% of beauty enthusiast believe beauty is significantly connected to wellness. Reflecting this consumer insight, in the second quarter, we launched the Wellness Shop online and in 450 stores. This cross-category platform offers self-care products for the mind, body and spirit in an accessible, easy-to-navigate way. In the third quarter, we refreshed the Wellness Shop assortment, shifting from summer solutions to total body care and hydration, which is especially relevant during colder months and introduced new items from Hardeman, Alloom, Osea and Josie Maran.
Turning now to our efforts to evolve the guest experience through our personalized and connected omnichannel ecosystem, All In Your World. We know the guest journey is increasingly blurring across physical and digital channels, and we aim to deliver a cohesive omnichannel strategy to serve our guests.
During Q3, we enhanced our omnichannel strategy in four ways. First, we launched Beauty To Go, our promise that buy online pickup in store orders will be picked up and ready to go within two hours or less, giving our guests fast convenient access to the beauty they want most. We also continued to test incentive strategies to encourage guest utilization. During the third quarter, BOPIS orders increased 28% compared to last year, totaling 20% of e-commerce sales in the quarter compared to 16% last year.
Second, partnering with DoorDash, we launched same-day delivery in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and Boise and we're excited about the value and convenience it will provide guests this holiday season.
Third, in October, we launched two exclusive salon services in all stores and relaunched skin services in select stores. Starting with salons, we have partnered with Olaplex to offer guests a professional bond repair service which reverses damage caused by hair color, chemical treatments, heat and styling and the environment. And we have partnered with Redken to introduce a new Express Root Touch-Up service that offers guests 100% grey coverage color in only 10 minutes. These new exclusive services are bringing new guests into our salons. We also relaunched skin services in 100 locations, featuring a revamped menu with new services to address specific guest concerns such as hydration, anti-ageing and acne. While it's still early, we are pleased with how guests are engaging with these new offerings.
Finally, we launched Ulta Beauty at Target in 92 stores and online during the third quarter. And I am pleased to share, we have reached our fiscal year goal of opening more than 100 shops. We are excited about this innovative partnership and how together with Target we will change the way guest experience beauty. While it will take time for us to understand what role this new distribution point will play for our guests, we are incredibly pleased with the ongoing customer excitement and encouraged to see Ultimate Reward members linking their accounts with Target Circle as well as new members signing up through the shop.
Moving on to our efforts to expand and deepen our presence across the guest beauty journey as the heart of the beauty community. We are focused on how to best elevate consumer connection, supercharge member acquisition and drive guest loyalty, love and share of wallet. In the third quarter, we continue to elevate our storytelling with relevant content across channels to launch Ulta Beauty at Target and to support our strategic events. In addition, as students return to classrooms after more than a year of virtual learning, we saw an opportunity to deepen our engagement with Gen Z audiences across channels with insight-driven campaigns during key back-to-school moments.
We ended the third quarter with 35.9 million active members, 13% above last year and 6% above 2019. While we continue to add new members, member growth this quarter was largely driven by reactivation of lapsed members and active member retention. After experiencing headwinds last year due to the disruption from the pandemic, we have accelerated personalization to create stronger lifecycle strategies, build baskets and maximize business returns, and we are very pleased with the results.
We are driving strong conversion of new members in stores and online. We are successfully reengaging members who lapsed during the pandemic. And we are driving stronger engagement from our existing members. Importantly, our member retention rates have recovered to pre-pandemic levels and spend per member is at an all-time high.
Shifting now to our plans and expectations for holiday. Based on our consumer insights, we expected many guests would start their holiday shopping earlier this year. And we proactively took steps to ensure we were ready with holidays stat sets, stocking stuffers and unique collaborations to help guests get a head start on their gifting needs. If holiday 2020 was about less, holiday 2021 is about more; more fun, more in real live gatherings, more gifting and more glaming. All of our teams at Ulta Beauty are ready and excited to help our guests celebrate more this year.
Like last year, we kicked off the holiday season in early November with our Hello Holidays campaign, early Black Friday deals and new loyalty offers. With authentic stories of connection and joy across video, digital, social and print platforms to encourage and motivate beauty enthusiasts to shop Ulta Beauty, we'll be everywhere our guests are this holiday season. Our merchant teams have built an outstanding holiday assortment with giftable fun items across categories and price points. With new brands like Bobbi Brown, Drunk Elephant and Briogeo, expanded assortments from brands like Laura Mercier, Florence and Pattern and exciting holiday offerings from brands like Dyson, Tarte, Ariana Grande, Truly and our very own Ulta Beauty collection, we have great gifts for everyone.
To help guests explore our best holiday gifts, we developed a unique digital experience to allow for easy discovery of holiday gifts online and in store. When guests visit ulta.com or scan the QR code on a banner at the front of our store, an app clip will launch giving the guests an opportunity to easily explore top gifts by category. Our stores are always the center of holiday at Ulta Beauty. As we combine our great in-store experience with our innovative omnichannel capabilities, we'll meet every guest wherever and however they want to shop Ulta Beauty.
To help guests get ready for in real life celebrations with expanded salon capacity to 100% in all Ulta Beauty salons and benefit brow bars, except where limited by state or local mandates, and we've relaunched skin services in select stores. Finally, our BOPIS, curbside and same-day delivery options will provide guests with great shopping convenience this holiday seasons.
Our teams are excited, engaged and ready to support our guests from proactively managing inventory flow and anticipating supply chain challenges to stress testing our IT systems and digital platforms to successfully accelerating our holiday hiring. The holiday season is off to a strong start. And I am confident we are well positioned to deliver another successful holiday season at Ulta Beauty.
In closing, we are excited about the strength we are seeing in our business. Our third quarter performance exceeded our initial expectations, and we are encouraged by the early holiday trends. The beauty category is recovering and our teams are executing well. We are investing and innovating to ensure Ulta Beauty will lead the new beauty landscape. And we are confident our well-defined strategy will enable us to capture more market share and drive profitable growth.
And now, I will turn the call over to Scott for a discussion of the financial results. Scott?