Lush cosmetics, a U.K founded retailer that specializes in homemade, vegetarian skincare, hair and bath products that are organically made and is extremely eye-catchy due to it’s sparkly and colorful products, is adopting a new strategy for maximizing sales. Lush is focussing on creating a unique shopping experience for their customers. With its North American headquarters located in Vancouver, this brand has been constantly expanding in the global market. Having 53 stores in Canada itself, and over 180 stores in various U.S locations, Lush cosmetics has clearly set its footprint in retailing market.
However the company, has recently announced that they will be adopting a new expansion strategy which will focus on sizing up their existing stores. Lush has already managed to increase their Canadian retail footprint from 49,726 square feet to 68,505 square feet, over the last two years. Yet, this new strategy focusses on expansion by increasing the size of their existing stores rather than opening up new stores in different locations. The company has already tested this strategy with the first expansion being at the Lush store on 1020 Robson Street which reopened last month after expanding into the neighboring space that was vacated.
This new strategy might seem completely bizarre, specially considering the strong e-commerce establishment that other retailers are progressing towards. In my opinion, this new strategy could do wonders for Lush due to the nature of the products they sell. Lush primarily focuses on creating unique and innovative products from gorgeously scented hair and body care products to colorful, glittery bath bombs and soap bars. Therefore this strategy offers customers a whole new experience of not only buying the products but also touching it, smelling it and an opportunity to actually test these products. The bold and vibrantly colored soaps which are designed for displaying the retail stores help to attract customers and offer them a more personalized shopping experience. The staff can also demo new products and this could be the key factor for customers to end up buying more products than they initially planned on. The whole look of the stores are designed in a way to tempt the customers with the sparkly and shiny displays and inducing scents.
Moreover due to most of the retailers trying to shift towards online selling, many physical stores are vacant which could be an advantage for Lush since they could expand their existing stores into these spaces. Furthermore, a section of the demography could prefer retail shopping rather than through an online platform and Lush could tap into these segments as well. So could this really strategy work in an era where millennials are moving towards e-commerce? Only time will tell.
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Citations
- Welcome to Lush Oxford Street. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2017, from http://www.lush.ca/en/Stories-Article?cid=article_welcome-lush-oxford-street
- Shaw, H. (2017, January 18). Lush Cosmetics brushes off downsizing trend with major bricks-and-mortar expansion plan. Retrieved October 13, 2017, from http://business.financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/lush-cosmetics-brushes-off-downsizing-trend-with-major-bricks-and-mortar-expansion-plan