I read retail earnings the way a landlord reads a rent roll — not for the stock pop, but for what they say about who’s spending, on what, and whether my tenants can keep up with the rent. This week handed us two reports worth reading side by side. Ulta Beauty and Victoria’s Secret both blew past estimates and raised their outlooks within a day of each other. Different aisles, same shopper. And that’s the whole story.

Ulta: profitability, not just promotion

Ulta Beauty reported first-quarter net sales of $3.16 billion, up 11.1%, with diluted EPS of $7.74 — up 15.5% and well ahead of the roughly $6.86 analysts expected. Comparable sales rose 5.3%, beating the ~4.6% Street estimate, driven by a 3.7% lift in average ticket and a 1.6% increase in transactions. Gross margin expanded a full point to 40.1%, and the company nudged its full-year EPS guidance up to $28.36–$28.80. Fragrance was the standout category, and Ulta kept growing its footprint — a net 16 new stores in the quarter, finishing at 1,521 U.S. locations plus 87 international.

The tell here isn’t the headline beat. It’s that Ulta is selling more at better margin — average ticket up, gross margin up — while still opening boxes. That’s a retailer expanding from a position of strength, not papering over soft demand with markdowns.

Victoria’s Secret: a turnaround that’s compounding

A day earlier, Victoria’s Secret posted Q1 revenue of $1.56 billion, up 15%, with adjusted EPS of $0.60 — roughly double the ~$0.30 expected. Comparable sales jumped 13%, the company’s fourth straight quarter of positive comps, with double-digit growth across Victoria’s Secret, PINK, and Beauty and international sales up nearly 45%. Management lifted full-year sales guidance to a $7.03–$7.13 billion range. The stock soared more than 40% intraday.

Crucially, the growth came with double-digit new-customer acquisition and full-price selling — not discounting. Under a brand-driven strategy, a company that not long ago looked like a symbol of mall decline is now compounding. Different starting point than Ulta, same destination: a healthier, growing tenant.

The common thread: her receipts

Strip away the brand differences and these two quarters are the same data point. The American consumer is under real pressure — confidence has softened against higher gas prices and sticky inflation — yet beauty and intimates are accelerating. That’s not a contradiction. It’s the female consumer doing exactly what the data says she does in an uncertain economy.

Women are responsible for an estimated 70% to 80% of all purchasing decisions and influence up to 85% of consumer spending. But she is not the impulsive splurger of the old marketing cliché — she’s the most disciplined shopper in the center. Recent research found the majority of women are concerned about rising living costs and nearly half are actively hunting bargains. And the 2025 data showed women pulling back on big-ticket categories like furniture faster than men — while keeping the smaller, mood-lifting purchases. Beauty held. The affordable treat held.

That’s why these two beats matter more together than apart. They’re not a beauty story or a lingerie story. They’re the proof case for what I wrote about recently — that the discerning female shopper is the real anchor of any well-merchandised center, and that the categories she’s choosing to fund in a tight year are exactly the ones a landlord wants on the rent roll.

What it means for how we lease

For those of us leasing supermarket-anchored and open-air retail, two beats like this aren’t just market color — they’re a tenant-targeting roadmap. Beauty and personal-care concepts are expanding with real credit behind them. Ulta is still opening stores; the broader beauty ecosystem — specialty beauty, fragrance, brow and nail concepts, med-spa and wellness — is taking roughly 8,000-to-10,000-square-foot boxes and small-shop space while a lot of soft-goods apparel retrenches. That demand fits cleanly into the inline and junior-anchor GLA next to a grocery box, and it extends the trip our whole merchandising strategy depends on.

My father built this firm in 1978 on a simple idea: retail real estate is a people business, and the operator who knows the customer best wins the deal. Two generations later, the customer just filed two earnings reports. She told us she’s still spending — carefully, deliberately, and on the things that make the day better. Our job is to make sure the centers we lease are stocked with exactly what she came for.