Item 1. Business

Overview

Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance, Inc. is the largest beauty retailer that provides one-stop shopping for prestige, mass and salon products and salon services in the United States. We focus on providing affordable indulgence to our customers by combining the product breadth, value and convenience of a beauty superstore with the distinctive environment and experience of a specialty retailer. Key aspects of our business include:

One-Stop Shopping. Our customers can satisfy all of their beauty needs at Ulta. We offer a unique combination of over 21,000 prestige and mass beauty products organized by category in bright, open, self-service displays to encourage our customers to play, touch, test, learn and explore. We believe we offer the widest selection of categories across prestige and mass cosmetics, fragrance, haircare, skincare, bath and body products and salon styling tools. We also offer a full-service salon and a wide range of salon haircare products in all of our stores.

Our Value Proposition. We believe our focus on delivering a compelling value proposition to our customers across all of our product categories is fundamental to our customer loyalty. For example, we run frequent promotions and gift coupons for our mass brands, gift-with-purchase offers and multi-product gift sets for our prestige brands, and a comprehensive customer loyalty program. We also maintain a strategic value relationship with others in the category through competitive pricing and promotion.

An Off-Mall Location. We are conveniently located in high-traffic, primarily off-mall locations such as power centers and lifestyle centers with other destination retailers. Our typical store is approximately 10,000 square feet, including approximately 950 square feet dedicated to our full-service salon. Our displays, store design and open layout allow us the flexibility to respond to consumer trends and changes in our merchandising strategy.

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We were founded in 1990 as a discount beauty retailer at a time when prestige, mass and salon products were sold through distinct channels — department stores for prestige products, drug stores and mass merchandisers for mass products, and salons and authorized retail outlets for professional hair care products. After extensive research, we recognized an opportunity to better satisfy how a woman wanted to shop for beauty products. This led to what we believe to be a unique retail approach that focuses on all aspects of how women prefer to shop for beauty products by combining the fundamental elements of a beauty superstore, including one-stop shopping, a compelling value proposition and convenient locations, together with an uplifting specialty retail experience. While we are currently executing on the core elements of our business strategy, we plan to continually refine our approach in order to further enhance the shopping experience for our customers.

Our competitive strengths

We believe the following competitive strengths differentiate us from our competitors and are critical to our continuing success:

Differentiated merchandising strategy with broad appeal. We believe our broad selection of merchandise across categories, price points and brands offers a unique shopping experience for our customers. While the products we sell can be found in department stores, specialty stores, salons, drug stores and mass merchandisers, we offer all of these products in one retail format so that our customer can find everything she needs in one shopping trip. We appeal to a wide range of customers by offering over 500 brands, such as Bare Escentuals cosmetics, Chanel and Estée Lauder fragrances, L’Oréal haircare and cosmetics and Paul Mitchell haircare. We also have private label Ulta offerings in key categories. Because our offerings span a broad array of product categories in prestige, mass and salon, we appeal to a wide range of customers including women of all ages, demographics, and lifestyles.

Our unique customer experience. We combine the value and convenience of a beauty superstore with the distinctive environment and experience of a specialty retailer. We cater to the woman who loves to indulge in shopping for beauty products as well as the woman who is time constrained and comes to the store knowing exactly what she wants. Our distribution infrastructure consistently delivers a greater than 95% in-stock rate, so our customers know they will find the products they are looking for. Our well-trained beauty consultants are not commission-based or brand-dedicated and therefore can provide unbiased and customized advice tailored to our customers’ needs. Together with our customer service strategy, our store locations, layout and design help create our unique retail shopping experience, which we believe increases both the frequency and length of our customers’ visits.

Retail format poised to benefit from shifting channel dynamics. Over the past several years, the approximately $96 billion beauty products and salon services industry has experienced significant changes, including a shift in how manufacturers distribute and customers purchase beauty products. This has enabled the specialty retail channel in which we operate to grow at a greater rate than the industry overall since at least 2000. We are capitalizing on these trends by offering a primarily off-mall, service-oriented specialty retail concept with a comprehensive product mix across categories and price points.

Loyal and active customer base. We have almost 8 million customer loyalty program members. We utilize this valuable proprietary database to drive traffic, better understand our customers’ purchasing patterns and support new store site selection. We regularly distribute catalogs and newspaper inserts to entertain and educate our customers and, most importantly, to drive traffic to our stores.

Strong vendor relationships across product categories. We have strong, active relationships with over 300 vendors, including Estée Lauder, Bare Escentuals, Coty, L’Oréal and Procter & Gamble. We believe the scope and extent of these relationships, which span the three distinct beauty categories of prestige, mass and salon and have taken years to develop, create a significant impediment for other retailers to replicate our model. These relationships also frequently afford us the opportunity to work closely with our vendors to market both new and existing brands in a collaborative manner.

Experienced management team. We have an experienced senior management team with extensive retail experience that brings a creative merchandising approach and a disciplined operating philosophy to our

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business. Chuck Rubin was appointed President, Chief Operating Officer and a member of the Board of Directors effective May 10, 2010 and assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer on September 2, 2010. Mr. Rubin has over 30 years of experience in the retail industry including senior executive level operating, merchandising and marketing management roles as well as partner level consulting roles across retail formats and e-commerce businesses. Mr. Rubin along with Gregg Bodnar, our Chief Financial Officer, lead our senior management team. Over the past several years, we have significantly expanded the depth of our management team at all levels and in all functional areas to support our growth strategy.

Growth strategy

We intend to expand our presence as a leading retailer of beauty products and salon services by pursuing the following primary growth strategies:

Growing our store base to over 1,000 stores in the United States. We continue to believe that over the long-term, we have the potential to grow our store base to over 1,000 Ulta stores in the United States. Our internal real estate model takes into account a number of variables, including demographic and sociographic data as well as population density relative to maximum drive times, economic and competitive factors. We plan to continue opening stores both in markets in which we currently operate and new markets. As the economy recovers, we believe our successful track record of opening new stores in diverse markets across the United States will allow us to increase our new store growth rates back to historical levels consistent with our long-term target of 15% to 20%.

We opened 47 new stores during fiscal 2010, representing a 13% increase in square footage growth and a 27% increase in the number of new stores opened compared to 37 in fiscal 2009. We also remodeled 13 stores and relocated 5 stores in fiscal 2010. The 2009 new store program was reduced primarily due to the uncertainty in the economy and the decline in high-quality commercial real estate projects that we typically target for our new store locations. Our fiscal 2010 new store program represents primarily new stores opened in existing centers compared to prior years when the new store openings were more balanced between new and existing centers. This trend is expected to continue for several more years. The shift to more existing centers had no impact on new store performance.

		Fiscal Year
		2006				2007				2008				2009				2010
Total stores beginning of period			167				196				249				311				346
Stores opened			31				53				63				37				47
Stores closed			(2	)			—				(1	)			(2	)			(4	)
Total stores end of period			196				249				311				346				389
Stores remodeled			7				17				8				6				13
Total square footage			2,023,305				2,589,244				3,240,579				3,613,840				4,094,808
Average square footage per store			10,323				10,399				10,420				10,445				10,526

Increasing our sales and profitability by expanding our product, brand and service offerings. Our strategy is to continue to expand our portfolio of products, brands and services both by capitalizing on the success of our existing vendor relationships and by identifying and developing new supply sources. Over the last several years we have added new products from existing vendors across product categories. We have also added a number of new brands in recent years, most notably in our prestige category which is currently the beauty industry’s highest growth category. Brand additions include Juicy Couture, Dolce and Gabanna, and Coach Poppy in fragrance, Dermalogica, Murad and Philosophy in skin care, Benefit, Cargo and Tarte in cosmetics and Pureology in hair care. We also offer haircare services in our full service salons as well as skin and brow services in each of our stores. We plan to continue expanding our portfolio of services in the future by establishing Ulta as a leading salon authority providing high quality and consistent services from our licensed stylists and introducing new beauty-related services.

Enhancing our successful loyalty program. We have almost 8 million active customer loyalty members who are enrolled in our loyalty programs. Loyalty member transactions represent more than 50% of our annual

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total net sales, and the transaction data demonstrates that loyalty members shop with higher frequency and spend more per visit as compared to non-members. We have been converting loyalty members from our National certificate program to the ULTAmate Rewards program which is a points-based program. Currently slightly more than 20% of our stores are on the points-based program. Both loyalty programs provide a robust database of information relative to customer information and shopping behavior which provides a significant long-term opportunity for CRM applications including enabling customer segmentation and one-on-one marketing communications tailored to our customers’ unique beauty needs.

Broaden our marketing channels. We believe a key component of our success is the brand exposure we get from our marketing initiatives, which provide an effective means to introduce new products, brands and services to our existing and potential new customers. We have, historically, utilized primarily direct mail advertising, catalogues and newspaper inserts to communicate with our customers. Our national magazine print advertising campaign exposes potential new customers to our retail and e-commerce businesses. We plan to continue to leverage our print marketing while expanding our reach into other marketing channels including television, digital, social media and e-mail marketing. We also believe we have an opportunity to increase our in-store marketing efforts as an additional means of educating our customers and increasing the frequency of their visits to our stores.

Enhancing and expanding our e-commerce business. Our website serves two roles: to generate direct channel sales and profits and as a vehicle to communicate with our customers in an interactive, enjoyable way to reinforce the Ulta brand and drive traffic to our stores. We continue to aggressively develop and add new website features and functionality, marketing programs, product assortment and new brands, and multi-channel integration points. We intend to establish ourselves over time as a leading online beauty resource for women by providing our customers with a rich online experience for information on key trends and products, editorial content, expanded assortments, leading website features and functionality, and social media content. Through our continued enhancements and multi-channel marketing initiatives, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on the growth of Internet sales of beauty products. We believe our website and retail stores provide our customers with an integrated multi-channel shopping experience and increased flexibility for their beauty buying needs.

Improving our profitability by leveraging our fixed costs. We plan to continue to improve our operating results by leveraging our existing infrastructure and continually optimizing our operations. We will continue to make investments in our information systems to enable us to enhance our efficiency in areas such as merchandise planning and allocation, inventory management, distribution and point of sale (POS) functions. We believe we will continue to improve our profitability by reducing our operating expenses as a percentage of net sales, in particular supply chain, general corporate overhead and fixed store expenses.

Our market

We operate within the large and steadily growing U.S. beauty products and salon services industry. This market represents approximately $96 billion in retail sales, according to Euromonitor International and IBIS World Inc. The approximately $52 billion beauty products industry includes color cosmetics, haircare, fragrance, bath and body, skincare, salon styling tools and other toiletries. Within this market, we compete across all major categories as well as a range of price points by offering prestige, mass and salon products. The approximately $44 billion salon services industry consists of hair, face and nail services.

Distribution for beauty products is varied. Prestige products are typically purchased in department or specialty stores, while mass products and staple items are generally purchased at drug stores, food retail stores and mass merchandisers. In addition, salon haircare products are sold in salons and authorized professional retail outlets.

Competition

Our major competitors for prestige and mass products include traditional department stores such as Macy’s and Nordstrom, specialty stores such as Sephora and Bath & Body Works, drug stores such as CVS/pharmacy and Walgreens and mass merchandisers such as Target and Wal-Mart. We believe the principal bases upon which we compete are the quality and assortment of merchandise, our value proposition, the quality of our

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customers’ shopping experience and the convenience of our stores as one-stop destinations for beauty products and salon services.

The market for salon services and products is highly fragmented. Our competitors for salon services and products include Regis Corp., Sally Beauty, JCPenney salons and independent salons.

Key trends

We believe an important shift is occurring in the distribution of beauty products. Department stores, which have traditionally been the primary distribution channel for prestige beauty products, have been meaningfully affected by changing consumer preferences and industry consolidation over the past decade. We believe women, particularly younger generations, tend to find department stores intimidating, high-pressured and hinder a multi-brand shopping experience and, as such, are choosing to shop elsewhere for their beauty care needs. According to industry sources, 55% of women aged 18 to 24 shop in specialty stores, compared to 40% of women aged 18 to 64. Over the past ten years, department stores have lost significant market share to specialty stores in apparel, and we believe the beauty category is undergoing a similar shift in retail channels. We believe women are seeking a shopping experience that provides something different, a place to experiment, learn about various products, find what they want and indulge themselves. A recent Kline & Company report found that consumers seek out specialty retailers for a number of reasons including that specialty stores carry more niche products, the merchandise and retail environment is more fun and provides the ability to shop across product lines and the customer service is better than in other channels.

As a result of this market transformation, there has been an increase in the number of beauty brands pursuing new distribution channels for their products, such as specialty retail, spas and salons, direct response television (i.e., home shopping and infomercials) and the Internet. In addition, many smaller brands are selling their products through these channels due to the high fixed costs associated with operating in most department stores and to capitalize on consumers’ growing propensity to shop in these channels. According to industry sources, color cosmetics sales through these channels are projected to grow at a higher rate than sales of color cosmetics in total. There are a growing number of brands that have built significant consumer awareness and sales by initially offering their products on direct response television. We benefit from offering brands that sell their products through this channel, as we experience increased store traffic and sales after these brands appear on television.

Historically, manufacturers have distributed their products through distinct channels — department stores for prestige products, drug stores and mass merchandisers for mass products, and salons and authorized retail outlets for professional hair care products. We believe women are increasingly shopping across retail channels as well as purchasing a combination of prestige and mass beauty products. We attribute this trend to a number of factors, including the growing availability of prestige brands outside of department stores and increased innovation in mass products. Based on the competitive environment in which we operate, we believe that we have been at the forefront of breaking down the industry’s historical distribution paradigm by combining a wide range of beauty products, categories and price points under one roof. Our strategy reflects a more customer-centric model of how women prefer to shop today for their beauty needs.

Major growth drivers for the industry include favorable consumer spending trends, product innovation and growth of certain population segments.

	•	Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964): Baby Boomers have larger disposable incomes and are increasing their spending on personal care as well as health and wellness. The aging of the Baby Boomer generation is also influencing product innovation and demand for anti-aging products and cosmetic procedures.
	•	Generation X (born between 1965 and 1976): Generation X is entering their peak earning years and represents a significant contributor to overall consumer spending, including beauty products. A recent survey by American Express showed that Generation X spends 60% more on beauty products than Baby Boomers. In addition, while prior generations grew up shopping in department stores and general

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		merchandisers, Generation X has grown up shopping in specialty stores and we believe seeks a retail environment that combines a compelling experience, functionality, variety and location.

	•	Generation Y (born between 1977 and 1994): According to the United States Census Bureau data, the 20 to 34 year-old age group is expected to grow by approximately 10% from 2003 to 2015. As Generation Y continues to enter the workforce, they will have increased disposable income to spend on beauty products.

We believe we are well positioned to capitalize on these trends and capture additional market share in the industry. We believe we have demonstrated an ability to provide a differentiated store experience for customers as well as offer a breadth and depth of merchandise previously unavailable from more traditional beauty retailers.

Stores

We are conveniently located in high-traffic, primarily off-mall locations such as power centers and lifestyle centers with other destination retailers. Our typical store is approximately 10,000 square feet, including approximately 950 square feet dedicated to our full-service salon. We opened 47 stores in fiscal 2010 and the average investment required to open a new Ulta store is approximately $0.9 million, which includes capital investments, net of landlord contributions, pre-opening expenses, and initial inventory, net of payables. However, our net investment required to open new stores and the net sales generated by new stores may vary depending on a number of factors, including geographic location. As of January 29, 2011, we operated 389 stores in 40 states.

Store remodel program

Our retail store concept, including physical layout, displays, lighting and quality of finishes, has continued to evolve over time to match the rising expectations of our customers and to keep pace with our merchandising and operating strategies. In recent years, our strategic focus has been on refining our new store model, improving our real estate selection process and executing on our new store opening program. As a result, we decided to limit the investments made in our existing store base from fiscal 2000 to fiscal 2005. In fiscal 2006, we developed and initiated a store remodel program to update our oldest stores to provide a consistent shopping experience across all of our locations. We remodeled 13 stores in fiscal 2010. Our newest store prototype, including new stores and remodels after 2005, represents approximately 75% of our store base. We continue to evolve this program to update older stores with a consistent look and experience to drive additional customer traffic and increase our sales and profitability. The remodel store selection process is subject to the same discipline as our new store real estate decision process. Our focus is to remodel the oldest, highest performing stores first, subject to criteria such as rate of return, lease terms, market performance and quality of real estate. The average investment to remodel a store in fiscal 2010 was approximately $0.9 million. Each remodel takes approximately three months to complete, during which time we typically keep the store open.

Salon

We operate full-service salons in all of our stores. Our current Ulta store format includes an open and modern salon area with eight to ten stations. The entire salon area is approximately 950 square feet with a concierge desk, esthetics room, semi-private shampoo and hair color processing areas. Each salon is a full-service salon offering hair cuts, hair coloring and permanent texture, with most salons also providing facials and waxing. We employ licensed professional stylists and estheticians that offer highly skilled services as well as an educational experience, including consultations, styling lessons, skincare regimens, and at-home care recommendations.

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Ulta.com

We established Ulta.com to give our customers an integrated multi-channel buying experience by providing them with an opportunity to access product offerings and information beyond our brick-and-mortar retail stores. The Ulta.com website and experience supports the key elements of the Ulta brand proposition and provides access to more than 13,000 beauty products from hundreds of brands. As Ulta.com continues to grow in terms of functionality and content, it will become an even greater element in Ulta’s marketing programs and a more important resource for our customers to access product and store information, beauty trends and techniques, and buy from a larger assortment of product offerings.

Merchandising

Strategy

We focus on offering one of the most extensive product and brand selections in our industry, including a broad assortment of branded and private label beauty products in cosmetics, fragrance, haircare, skincare, bath and body products and salon styling tools. A typical Ulta store carries over 19,000 basic and over 2,000 promotional products. We present these products in an assisted self-service environment using centrally produced planograms (detailed schematics showing product placement in the store) and promotional merchandising planners. Our merchandising team continually monitors current fashion trends, historical sales trends and new product launches to keep Ulta’s product assortment fresh and relevant to our customers. We believe our broad selection of merchandise, from moderate-priced brands to higher-end prestige brands, offers a unique shopping experience for our customers. The products we sell can also be found in department stores, specialty stores, salons, mass merchandisers and drug stores, but we offer all of these products in one retail format so that our customer can find everything she needs in one stop. We believe we offer a compelling value proposition to our customers across all of our product categories. For example, we run frequent promotions and gift coupons for our mass brands, gift-with-purchase offers and multi-product gift sets for our prestige brands, and a comprehensive customer loyalty program.

We believe our private label products are a strategically important category for growth and profit contribution. Our objective is to provide quality, trend-right private label products at a good value to continue to strengthen our customers’ perception of Ulta as a contemporary beauty destination. Ulta manages the full development cycle of these products from concept through production in order to deliver differentiated packaging and formulas to build brand image. Current Ulta cosmetics and bath brands have a strong following and we may expand our private label products into additional categories.

The Five E’s

In addition to offering one of the most extensive product and brand selections in our industry, we strive to offer an uplifting shopping experience through what we refer to as “The Five E’s”: Escape, Education, Entertainment, Esthetics and Empowerment.

	•	Escape. We strive to offer our customers a timely escape from the stresses of daily life in a welcoming and approachable environment. Our customer can immerse herself in our extensive product selection, indulge herself in our hair or skin treatments, or discover new and exciting products in an interactive setting. We provide a shopping experience without the intimidating, commission-oriented and brand-dedicated sales approach that we believe is found in most department stores and with a level of service that we believe is typically unavailable in drug stores and mass merchandisers.
	•	Education. We staff our stores with a team of well-trained beauty consultants and professionally licensed estheticians and stylists whose mission is to educate, inform and advise our customers regarding their beauty needs. We also provide product education through demonstrations, in-store videos and informational displays. Our focus on educating our customer reinforces our authority as her primary resource for beauty products and our credibility as a provider of consistent, high-quality salon services. Our beauty consultants are trained to service customers across all prestige lines and within our prestige “boutiques” where customers can receive a makeover or skin analysis.

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	•	Entertainment. The entertainment experience for our customer begins at home when she receives our catalogs or visits our website. They are designed to introduce our customers to our newest products and promotions and to be invitations to come to Ulta to play, touch, test, learn and explore. A significant percentage of our sales throughout the year is derived from new products, making every visit to Ulta an opportunity to discover something new and exciting. In addition to providing over 4,500 testers in categories such as fragrance, cosmetics, skincare, and salon styling tools, we further enhance the shopping experience and store atmosphere through live demonstrations from our licensed salon professionals and beauty consultants, and through customer makeovers and in-store videos.
	•	Esthetics. We strive to create a visually pleasing and inviting store and salon environment that exemplifies and reinforces the quality of our products and services. Our stores are brightly lit, spacious and attractive on the inside and outside of the store. Our store and salon design features sleek, modern lines that reinforce our status as a fashion authority, together with wide aisles that make the store easy to navigate and pleasant lighting to create a luxurious and welcoming environment. This strategy enables us to provide an extensive product selection in a well-organized store and to offer a salon experience that is both fashionable and contemporary.
	•	Empowerment. We are committed to creating an environment in which women feel empowered by both their inner and outer beauty; we take honor in providing our guests with opportunities to showcase how they have empowered themselves and others. Ulta is committed to positively impacting the lives of women through our work on empowerment initiatives such as the Ulta Enrich, Empower and Enlighten Scholarship Fund which grants deserving high school senior girls scholarships to the educational institution of their choice.

Category mix

We offer products in the following categories:

	•	Cosmetics, which includes products for the face, eyes, cheeks, lips and nails;
	•	Haircare, which includes shampoos, conditioners, styling products, and hair accessories;
	•	Salon styling tools, which includes hair dryers, curling irons and flat irons;
	•	Skincare and bath and body, which includes products for the face, hands and body;
	•	Fragrance for both men and women;
	•	Private label, consisting of Ulta branded cosmetics, skincare, bath and body products and haircare; and
	•	Other, including candles, home fragrance products and other miscellaneous health and beauty products.

Organization

Our merchandising team reports directly to our CEO and consists of a Senior Vice President of Merchandising who oversees; Senior Vice President of Prestige Cosmetics; Vice President of Mass Cosmetics, Skincare and Haircare; Vice President of Merchandise Operations; Vice President of Fragrance, Prestige Skin, Bath and Gift with Purchase; Divisional Merchandise Manager of Salon Products; Divisional Merchandise Manager of Styling Tools, and Director of Inventory. Reporting to the Senior Vice President of Merchandising are approximately 23 Divisional Merchandise Managers, Senior Buyers, Buyers and Assistant/Associate Buyers. Our merchandising team works directly with our centralized planning and replenishment group to ensure a consistent delivery of products across our store base.

Our planogram department assists the merchants and replenishment team to keep new products flowing into stores on a timely basis. All major product categories undergo planogram revisions once or twice a year and adjustments are made to assortment mix and product placement based on current sales trends.

Our visual department works with our merchandising team on every advertising event regarding strategic placement of promotional merchandise, along with functional signage and creative product presentation

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standards, in all of our stores. All stores receive a centrally produced promotional planner for each event to ensure consistent implementation.

Planning and allocation

We have developed a disciplined approach to buying and a dynamic inventory planning and allocation process to support our merchandising strategy. We centrally manage product replenishment to our stores through our planning and replenishment group. This group serves as a strategic partner to, and provides financial oversight of, the merchandising team. The merchandising team creates a sales forecast by category for the year. Our planning and replenishment group creates an open-to-buy plan, approved by senior executives, for each product category. The open-to-buy plan is updated weekly with POS data, receipts and inventory levels and is used throughout the year to balance buying opportunities and inventory return on investment. We believe this structure maximizes our buying opportunities while maintaining organizational and financial control. Regularly replenished products are presented consistently in all stores utilizing a merchandising planogram process. POS data is used to calculate sales forecasts and to determine replenishment levels. We determine promotional product replenishment levels using sales histories from similar or comparable events. To ensure our inventory remains productive, our planning and replenishment group, along with senior executives, monitors the levels of clearance and aged inventory in our stores on a weekly basis.

Vendor relationships

We work with over 300 vendors. Our Senior Vice President of Merchandising has over 30 years of experience and each merchandising vice president has over 15 years of experience developing relationships in the industry with which he or she works. We have no long-term supply agreements or exclusive arrangements with our vendors. Our top ten vendors represent approximately 48% of our total annual sales. These include vendors across all product categories, such as Bare Escentuals, Farouk Systems, L’Oréal, Procter & Gamble, and Coty, among others. We believe our vendors view us as a significant distribution channel for growth and brand enhancement.

Marketing and advertising

Marketing strategy

We employ a multi-faceted marketing strategy to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to both our stores and website. Our marketing strategy complements a basic tenet of our business strategy, which is to provide our customers with a satisfying and uplifting experience. We communicate this vision to our customers and prospective customers through a multi-media, multi-touchpoint approach. Our primary media expenditure is in direct mail catalogs and free-standing newspaper inserts. These vehicles allow the customer to see the breadth of our selection of prestige, mass and salon beauty products.

In order to reach new customers and to establish Ulta as a national brand, we advertise in national beauty and lifestyle magazines such as InStyle, Allure, Lucky, Elle and Vanity Fair. These advertising channels have historically been successful in raising our brand awareness on a national level and driving additional sales from both existing and new customers. In conjunction with our national brand advertising, we have initiated a public relations strategy that focuses on reaching top tier magazine editors to ensure consistent messaging in beauty magazines as well as direct-to-customer efforts through multi-media channels.

Our e-commerce marketing strategy complements our print media strategy. Ulta.com serves not only as an e-commerce site, but additionally as an extension of Ulta’s marketing and prospecting strategies (beyond catalogs, newspaper inserts and national advertising) by exposing potential new customers to the Ulta brand and product offerings and providing a 24 hour forum for loyalists to engage with the brand. This dual role for Ulta.com exists through online marketing strategies including search marketing, affiliate marketing, social networking, banner advertising, and other online marketing channels. Ulta.com’s email marketing programs are also effective in communicating with and driving sales from online and retail store customers.

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Customer loyalty programs

We maintain two customer loyalty programs. Our national program provides reward point certificates for free beauty products. Customers earn purchase-based reward points and redeem the related reward certificate during specific promotional periods during the year. We are also rolling out a loyalty program in several markets in which customers earn purchase-based points on an annual basis which can be redeemed at any time. We have almost 8 million customer loyalty program members.

Staffing and operations

Retail

Our current Ulta store format is staffed with a general manager, a salon manager, three to four assistant managers, and approximately twenty full and part-time associates, including approximately six to eight prestige consultants and eight to ten licensed salon professionals. The management team in each store reports to the general manager. The general manager oversees all store activities including salon management, inventory management, merchandising, cash management, scheduling, hiring and guest services. Members of store management receive bonuses depending on their position and based upon store sales and shrink. Each general manager reports to a district manager, who in turn reports to a Regional Vice President of Operations who in turn reports to the Senior Vice President of Operations who in turn reports to our Chief Executive Officer. Each store team receives additional support from time to time from recruiting specialists for the retail and salon operations, a field loss prevention team, salon technical trainers, management trainers and vendors.

Ulta stores are open seven days a week, eleven hours a day, Monday through Saturday, and seven hours on Sunday. Our stores have extended hours during the holiday season.

Salon

A typical salon is staffed with eight to ten licensed salon professionals, including a salon manager, six stylists, and one to two estheticians. Our higher producing salons have a guest coordinator and an assistant manager. Our salon technical trainers and vendor education classes create a comprehensive educational program for approximately 3,000 Ulta salon professionals.

Training and development

Our success is dependent in part on our ability to attract, train, retain and motivate qualified employees at all levels of the organization. We have developed a corporate culture that enables individual store managers to make store-level operating decisions and consistently rewards their success. We are committed to improving the skills and careers of our workforce and providing advancement opportunities for our associates. Our associates and management teams are essential to our store expansion strategy. We primarily use existing managers or promote from within to support our new stores, although many outlying stores have all-new teams.

All of our associates participate in an interactive new-hire orientation through which each associate becomes acquainted with Ulta’s vision and mission. Training for new store managers, prestige consultants and sales associates familiarizes them with opening and closing routines, guest service expectations, our loss prevention policy and procedures, and our culture. We also have ongoing development programs that include operational training for hourly associates, prestige consultants, management and stylists. We provide continuing education to both salon professionals and retail associates throughout their careers at Ulta. In contrast to the sales teams at traditional department stores, our sales teams are not commissioned or brand-dedicated. Our prestige consultants are trained to work across all prestige lines and within our prestige “boutiques”, where customers can receive a makeover or skin analysis.

Distribution

We operate two distribution facilities. The first facility, located in Romeoville, Illinois, is approximately 317,000 square feet in size, including an overflow facility. During fiscal 2008, we began operating a second

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distribution facility in Phoenix, Arizona that is approximately 330,000 square feet in size. We intend to open a third distribution center in fiscal 2012 to support our future growth needs.

Inventory is shipped from our suppliers to our distribution facilities. We carry over 21,000 products and replenish our stores with such products primarily in eaches (i.e., less-than-case quantities), which allows us to ship less than an entire case when only one or two of a particular product is required. Our distribution facilities use warehouse management and warehouse control software systems, which have been upgraded or installed in the last two years. All products are bar-coded, which supports real-time inventory management and processing accuracy throughout the distribution center. Store replenishment order selection is performed using industry standard put-to-light and various other wireless technologies. Product is delivered to stores using a broad network of contract carriers.

Information technology

We are committed to using technology to enhance our competitive position. We depend on a variety of information systems and technologies to maintain and improve our competitive position and to manage the operations of our growing store base. We rely on computer systems to provide information for all areas of our business, including supply chain, merchandising, POS, e-commerce, finance, accounting and human resources. Our core business systems consist mostly of a purchased software program that integrates with our internally developed software solutions. Our technology also includes a company-wide network that connects all corporate users, stores, and our distribution infrastructure and provides communications for credit card and daily polling of sales and merchandise movement at the store level. We intend to leverage our technology infrastructure and systems where appropriate to gain operational efficiencies through more effective use of our systems, people and processes. We update the technology supporting our stores, distribution infrastructure and corporate headquarters on a continual basis. We will continue to make investments in our information systems to facilitate our growth and enable us to enhance our competitive position.

Intellectual property

We have registered a number of trademarks in the United States, including Ulta Salon Cosmetics Fragrance (and design), Ulta.com, and Ulta Beauty and two related designs. The renewal dates for the identified marks are January 22, 2012 (Ulta Salon Cosmetics Fragrance (and design)), October 8, 2012 (Ulta.com), July 10, 2017 (Ulta Beauty) and October 16, 2017 (the two Ulta Beauty related designs). All marks that are deemed material to our business have been registered in the United States and select foreign countries. We have applications pending for certain of these marks in Canada.

We believe our trademarks, especially those related to the Ulta brand, have significant value and are important to building brand recognition.

Government regulation

In our U.S. markets, we are affected by extensive laws, governmental regulations, administrative determinations, court decisions and similar constraints. Such laws, regulations and other constraints may exist at the federal, state or local levels in the United States. The cosmetic and over-the-counter (OTC) drug products we sell in our stores, including our Ulta branded products, are subject to regulation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and State Attorneys General (AG) in the United States. Such regulations principally relate to the safety of ingredients, proper labeling, advertising, packaging and marketing of the products.

Products classified as cosmetics (as defined in the Food, Drug and Cosmetic (FDC) Act) are not subject to pre-market approval by the FDA, but the products and the ingredients must be safe and must be properly labeled. Certain products, such as sunscreens and acne treatments, are classified as OTC drugs which have specific ingredient, labeling and manufacturing requirements. The labeling of cosmetic and OTC drug products is subject to the requirements of the FDC Act and the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act. Further, claims we make in advertising, including claims about the safety or efficacy of products, pricing claims and environmental claims, are subject to regulation by the FTC and State AG’s who generally prohibit deceptive practices.

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The government regulations that most impact our day-to-day operations are the labor and employment and taxation laws to which most retailers are typically subject. We are also subject to typical zoning and real estate land use restrictions and typical advertising and consumer protection laws (both federal and state). Our salon business is subject to state board regulations and state licensing requirements for our stylists and our salon procedures.

In our store leases, we require our landlords to obtain all necessary zoning approvals and permits for the site to be used as a retail site and we also ask them to obtain any zoning approvals and permits for our specific use (but at times the responsibility for obtaining zoning approvals and permits for our specific use falls to us). We require our landlords to deliver a certificate of occupancy for any work they perform on our buildings or the shopping centers in which our stores are located. We are responsible for delivering a certificate of occupancy for any remodeling or build-outs that we perform and are responsible for complying with all applicable laws in connection with such construction projects or build-outs.

Associates

As of January 29, 2011, we employed approximately 4,000 people on a full-time basis and approximately 7,700 on a part-time basis. We have no collective bargaining agreements. We have not experienced any work stoppages and believe we have good relationships with our associates.

Available Information

Our principal website address is www.ulta.com. We make available at this address under investor relations (at http://ir.ulta.com), free of charge, our proxy statement, annual report to shareholders, annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and all amendments to those reports as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. Information available on our website is not incorporated by reference in and is not deemed a part of this Form 10-K. In addition, our filings with the SEC may be accessed through the SEC’s Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval (EDGAR) system at www.sec.gov. You may read and copy any filed document at the SEC’s public reference rooms in Washington, D.C. at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549. Please call the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330 for further information about the public reference rooms. All statements made in any of our securities filings, including all forward-looking statements or information, are made as of the date of the document in which the statement is included, and we do not assume or undertake any obligation to update any of those statements or documents unless we are required to do so by law.