As of 4 November 2026, Mecca has replaced its 297 square metre Maxima store at Sydney's Macquarie Centre with a 570 square metre format that carries 40 additional brands, eight makeup artist stations, semi-private skin beds, a dedicated Beauty Lab and a perfume area. The refurbishment is the clearest local example this month of a beauty retailer treating a door as a service asset rather than a shelf. New brands include Victoria Beckham Beauty, Byredo and Crown Affair, and the store sits in a trade area where the retailer says it already has a passionate local beauty community. For brand and retail teams, the useful question is what the extra 273 square metres has to prove, and which numbers settle it.
What actually changed at Macquarie
The store is not simply bigger. The Maxima format was a range-led layout, and the replacement moves floor space from shelving into service positions: eight makeup artist stations, semi-private skin beds, a lab for consultations and a separate perfume area. That shift changes what the store is for. A range-led store competes on how many lines it can show; a service-led store competes on how long a shopper stays and what she leaves with, and the second model needs staff hours rather than shelf space as its main input.
Sophie Wood, general manager of retail at Mecca, framed the opening around local demand rather than national strategy, saying the company knows there is a passionate beauty community across Macquarie Park and the surrounding areas and that customers will have more room to discover brands, receive expert advice and use the retailer's beauty services. That is a trade area argument dressed as a store opening. The location was chosen because demand already exists around it, not because the mall needed another beauty anchor.
The 297 to 570 square metre jump
Doubling floor area in an existing centre is a different decision from opening a new door. Rent per square metre in a established mall is usually higher than in a new development, and the refit cost is carried by a single site rather than spread across a network. The case for it rests on conversion: if the same catchment spends more per visit and visits more often, the extra rent pays for itself; if it does not, the store has bought display space it cannot fill with customers.
Why a bigger door changes store selection
For a retailer running a store selection process, the Macquarie case is a reminder that store potential is not the same as store size. A high-potential store is one where the surrounding trade area already contains the demand the format is built to convert, which is why the refurbishment was justified by local community and existing customers rather than by catchment growth forecasts. The same test applies to any brand deciding whether to invest in a door: the question is whether the postcode already buys the category, not whether the mall has footfall.
Service space against shelf space
| What changed | Before | After | Metric that proves it worked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Floor area | 297 sqm | 570 sqm | Sales per square metre against the network average |
| Brand count | Base range | 40 brands added | Share of sales from brands new to the centre |
| Service capacity | No dedicated stations | 8 artist stations plus skin beds | Bookings per station per trading day |
| Category depth | Range-led layout | Beauty Lab and perfume area | Attachment rate on fragrance and treatment |
The fourth column is where most refits fail to report. Sales per square metre is the standard defence of a bigger box, but it hides mix. A store that doubles its area and lifts revenue by a third can still be less productive per square metre than before, and the service positions make that trade explicit: they consume space that could hold stock. Tracking attachment rate on fragrance and treatment, alongside bookings per station, tells a retailer whether the new space is earning its rent through services or merely hosting them.
Reading the Sephora signal next door
Mecca is not expanding into a quiet market. Sephora has been investing in brands, stores and customer experiences in Australia, and its locally developed Only at Sephora campaign is its first Australian-concepted and locally shot work, built around an exclusive range. George Tsoukalas, general manager of Sephora ANZ, told Inside Retail that the ambition is for Sephora to be Australia's destination for discovering what is next in beauty, while acknowledging that Mecca remains the dominant rival in the market.
Two retailers investing in physical space at the same time is not a contradiction in a category where discovery still happens by touch. What differs is the unit of investment. Sephora's push is campaign-led and spread across a store network, while Mecca's Macquarie refit is a single-site bet on service depth. For brands, the practical read is that shelf position in either chain is being repriced: a brand that wins space in a service-led store is expected to justify it with consultation demand, not just with facings.
A four-step check before the next refit
Retail teams considering a similar expansion can borrow the sequence rather than the outcome. The order matters because each step produces the input the next one needs, and skipping the first two turns the exercise into a property decision with a retail story attached to it. The published details of the Macquarie refit do not include lease terms or sales expectations, so the framework below is a way to test the logic, not a reconstruction of Mecca's own numbers.
One caveat belongs with the framework. The Macquarie numbers that are public, the floor areas, the brand count and the service list, come from the retailer and the trade press; the commercial results are not disclosed. Any conclusion about whether the refit pays should therefore be treated as directional until a full trading period has been reported, and the same caution applies to reading a competitor's expansion as evidence that the format works.
FAQ
Why replace a store instead of opening a new one?
An existing centre keeps the trade area that already shops the brand, so the refit tests format rather than catchment. A new door adds both variables at once and makes the result harder to attribute.
What makes a store high-potential rather than just large?
Existing category demand in the surrounding postcodes. Size only helps if the catchment already buys what the format is built to sell, which is why local penetration is the first check.
Do service positions pay for themselves?
They can, but only if they are staffed every trading hour and measured. Bookings per station and attachment rate on fragrance and treatment are the two numbers that show whether the space earns rent or merely hosts activity.
How should a brand use this when negotiating space?
Argue with consultation demand rather than facings. A service-led store needs brands that generate appointments and repeat visits, so evidence of repeat purchase in the catchment is the strongest lever.
