COSMETICS BUSINESS LIVE
So that’s been one thing and the other has been commercialising it and making it shoppable, because that increases the dwell time, it increases the engagement that people have when they’re actually spending.
What about distribution strategies? Govier: Both brands and retailers are looking for long term partnerships. So, while this is a good opportunity to review your distribution strategy, and make sure distribution is where your customers are, what I probably wouldn’t advocate is a knee jerk reaction, because both retailers and brands want long term partnerships. So have a look at the long term trends, but use this as an opportunity to go back to look at where your customers are spending time – where your past customers are – because those would be great new distribution opportunities for you as a brand to acquire new customers.
Loyalty seems to be critical: what are your thoughts? Mitchell: Via our loyalty programme, 80% of our sales every week are from our loyal customer base. So getting that customer in the door is step one, but actually deepening the relationship is the most important part. That’s where we’ve been able to harness all of this customer data that we have and serve them the best content online to drive that second, third and fourth purchase. Then in-store, we’ve also been able to take that and put that back into the hands of our store teams – so they know if someone left something in their basket, or if they tried to sample online and how to then serve that to the customer. So, for us, being able to connect online and offline, being able to use that data to deepen the relationship, is at the core of everything we do.
What does loyalty look like for Amazon? Govier: For Amazon, loyalty and trust are intertwined. And that’s one of the founding principles of Amazon around customer retention. So loyalty isn’t something that we’re doing differently today than before this latest crisis, because it is something that’s ingrained in our business. We earn that customer trust, which then earns that loyalty. And that’s a long term approach we’ve been doing for decades now. Celine Gilg: From a brand perspective, you want to look at the affinity your
cosmeticsbusiness.com
Celine Gilg, Managing Director, Puig UK & Ireland (right); the full panel (below), featuring from left to right: Margaret Mitchell, Space NK; Celine Gilg, Puig; Sallie Berkerey, CEW; and Huw Govier, Amazon
customer has with your brand and the loyalty comes from them wanting a relationship with you, them wanting to have a conversation with you, and you knowing their preferences, their special occasions, etc.
How is the convergence of physical and digital retail progressing? Gilg: With fragrance, if you don’t have a sample or if you’re not in-store to smell it, there is a further dimension to scent that is more difficult to overcome. What we’ve seen is further digital acceleration. For example, at Puig, we’ve developed and invested in quite a few interesting technologies, such as Wikiparfum, which you can experience on
puig.com. So, here, my company invested in mapping out the whole fragrance universe. We have a database of about 12,000 fragrances, broken down by ingredients, by families, by occasion. So, when you, the consumer, want to know which fragrance you might like, to touch, to sample, to smell, you are able to determine what you are likely to like via the creation of a scent profile. It’s a very brand agnostic tool, so it won’t just recommend Puig brands!
From Amazon’s point of view, how do you add value? Govier: There is this perception that
people only come to Amazon to replenish what they’ve bought before and that’s not the case. We’ve still got more work to do in this area, but we know that 80% of customers coming to Amazon want to discover new brands or products. It’s our job as a retailer and in partnership with brands to make that experience work for them. So, how do we help our customers find the best product for them and do it in an inspiring way?
Are there particular tools that you offer when people come to your digital platforms? Mitchell: Every event that we host, or every pop-up that we do, we replicate in the online experience, so it isn’t London-centric, because that’s the one thing that we find with physical experiences, they become very unique to the location. So, replicating the Rare [by Selena Gomez] pop-up, for example, online, we got very high engagement and consumers in Scotland or Liverpool could come in and experience what the real products look like via livestreaming events. The things that people engage with the most are product reviews. They look for peer-to-peer advice. So we’re doing a lot in terms of enhancing our reviews, adding pictures, adding questions and enriching that space.
What about bricks-and-mortar? Mitchell: We are ambitious in our plans for opening bigger footprint stores. We’re very bullish about stores. The customer is coming back. After two years of being locked away, people are desperate for human interaction. We see the opportunity to grow our footprint, grow our presence, house more brands, but never losing the importance of the bespoke one-to-one service
December 2022 21
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80
