To the Executives, Founders, and Global Distribution Directors of international beauty brands,
As beauty consumers in New Zealand and Australia, we love your products. We want to buy them, use them, and share them. But right now, your brand is trapped in local retail stagnation. By signing exclusive distribution deals with MECCA, you are locking your products away from a massive market of passionate buyers.
We have a direct question for your corporate teams: Do you actually want your products to sell, or do you prefer them to just sit as displays in a store collecting dust?
As real consumers walking into these shops, we see the exact same stock sitting on the shelves for months and even years on end without moving. It isn't moving because it is simply too expensive for the everyday consumer.
It honestly feels like MECCA only wants around 1% of the New Zealand population purchasing your products. Who exactly are they catering to? By forcing these astronomical markups, they are completely excluding your brands from the wider public out of pure greed. They are turning your accessible, globally loved formulas into gatekept status symbols for a tiny fraction of wealthy buyers, effectively cutting off the other 99% of the market who want to buy your products.
Why do you think Hourglass Cosmetics fought so hard to leave them? In early 2026, after 16 years of being trapped under MECCA's strict regional restrictions, Hourglass walked away entirely [Sephora]. They chose to launch directly into Sephora ANZ [Sephora] and build their own direct shipping channels because they wanted commercial velocity, flexibility, and a genuine connection to the everyday consumer base rather than a tiny elite.
If you truly believe in beauty for everyone, your actions in our region prove the exact opposite. This issue isn't just about one product; it expands across every single aisle. Whether it is premium perfume, body care, skin care, or makeup, the entire beauty ecosystem is being choked by local exclusivity.
Living in New Zealand is already incredibly expensive. The cost of living is rising, and local consumers are feeling the pinch on essentials. Against this backdrop, your brands are crossing the line into pure greed by maintaining these deals and ignoring the economic reality of your shoppers.
 
The False Narratives of the "Price Promise"
Furthermore, MECCA’s official statements and reasoning behind these inflated prices make absolutely no sense. In their corporate "Price Promise" [MECCA], they tell consumers that they calculate local costs based strictly on "global exchange rates and changes in pricing by suppliers." [MECCA]
This narrative is being pushed right down to the shop floor, and it is actively damaging your brand's reputation.
When questioning these ridiculous price hikes in-store, I had a MECCA employee directly tell me that the brand itself put their prices up, and that’s why MECCA had to raise them. Hearing that made me incredibly angry at your company—until I looked up your official international prices and realised they hadn't changed at all. Your global prices are entirely reasonable, yet local shoppers are being told you are the greedy ones.
If MECCA is buying directly from you as official wholesale partners, they are already acquiring the stock for a fraction of the cost. If the massive retail markup is instead being used to fund their aggressive marketing campaigns and overly fancy storefronts, that does absolutely nothing for the consumer.
By allowing this, it feels like your products are only there to look good on a shelf, but not to actually be purchased. It is super strange. We don't know why you want people to just walk in and use your free testers and samples rather than actually purchasing the full-sized item to take home.
By maintaining these monopolies, your companies and global brands are actively supporting their lies.You are letting them shift the blame onto you, ruining your credibility with a regional pricing loop that punishes your loyal fans.
Wouldn’t you rather your products be sitting on the shelves of our homes because people can actually afford to buy them, instead of gathering dust for years inside a fancy fit out store?
We are launching this petition to urge global brands to reconsider their exclusive contracts with MECCA and expand or switch their distribution to Sephora ANZ. Here is the reality of what is happening to your brand in our region:
Invented, Inflated Pricing: MECCA uses arbitrary pricing algorithms that do not reflect true international exchange rates. Consumers are being forced to pay vastly inflated regional premiums that bear no relation to what the rest of the world pays for your brand.
Stagnant Stock Across All Categories: MECCA famously refuses to run promotional sales or markdowns. When a luxury perfume, a high-end body lotion, an active skincare serum, or a trending makeup product doesn't move quickly at its inflated price, it sits on the shelf for years. Active ingredients are expiring before they ever touch a customer's face.
The Sephora Advantage: In the rest of the world, your products thrive in Sephora because their ecosystem encourages velocity and inclusivity. Sephora's global tiers, Beauty Pass sales, and promotional events actively move inventory. They keep stock fresh, drive high volume turnover, and make luxury retail make sense to the everyday consumer.

📢 A Message to Our Fellow Consumers: Why We Must Boycott MECCA
To everyone buying perfume, body care, skin care, and makeup: it is time to hit pause and hit them where it hurts their wallets.
We need to actively boycott MECCA. The price inflation we are facing in New Zealand is not normal, and it is not fair. They are lying to us about market conditions to extract massive profits, and we have the receipts to prove it:
The Soap & Glory Lie: Look at the price of Soap & Glory [MECCA]. A standard 300ml body cream used to sit at a fair $19 NZD—a price that accurately reflected international shipping and a fair retail margin. Suddenly, the price jumped to a staggering $32 NZD [MECCA]. Overseas, this is a basic, affordable drugstore item that still costs around $18 NZD. MECCA is artificially inflating everyday pharmacy-tier stock into luxury items just because they control the contract.
The Sol de Janeiro Scam: Overseas, a standard Sol de Janeiro body mist is an affordable, casual travel essential [Sephora] [Ulta Beauty]. But here, MECCA has locked it down as an "exclusive luxury" item, jacking the price up to $52.00 for the small bottle and a staggering $77.00 for the large size[MECCA]. We are paying double what international shoppers pay for a basic body spray. To make matters worse, they are still clearing out old stock while increasing the price—you can literally see they are selling the older style bottles but charging the new, inflated price for them.
Stop accepting this fluff. Stop funding their overpriced retail operations that do absolutely nothing for the value of the product inside the box. By continuing to shop there, we are telling these brands that we are happy to be taken advantage of.
We deserve inclusion, fair pricing, and fresh inventory. Refuse to buy your favourites from MECCA. Join the boycott, sign this petition, and demand that global brands move their stock to Sephora ANZ so we can finally pay standard global prices!