A logical continuation after the launch in 2010 of a new visual identity with a new logo in the shape of a "butterfly rosette" and a new "Well-being & beautiful mind" base-line, Beauty Success - fourth selective perfumery network in France on a par with Douglas and behind Sephora, Marionnaud and Nocibé - has just launched the renovation programme of its new store concept. In a sluggish market, competition continues to grow between the main actors in selective distribution in France, but also between the different circuits, since Beauty Success also confirms its desire to set foot in the drugstore segment. "This is in line with our concept of ’global beauty’," explains Philippe Georges, the CEO of the brand. “We serve ’beauty pleasure’ with our perfumeries, ’beauty wellness’ with our beauty parlours and ’beauty health’ with our drugstores".
Rejuvenate and broaden the customer base
Beauty Success, which now consists of 280 stores (including 84 branches and 196 franchise stores) and which has achieved a turnover of 230 million euros in 2011, continues to have the ambition of posting 400 points sales and a 10% market share in France by 2015 (against currently 7%). The brand revealed last week an ambitious renovation program of its store concept that intends to be "friendly, attractive, bright and warm." A Project, matured over two years with the objective to rejuvenate (the average age of loyalty card holders is currently of 45 years of age) and to broaden the customer base. Two goals well on track to being achieved as the brand has announced a 20% increase in attendance and a 15% increase in sales in its renovated stores.
Designed with the Versions and Raymond Interactive agencies, this new store concept intends to convey the values of the brand, especially proximity and accessibility. Wood provides its warmth to a store arrangement where furniture and light wall surfaces give a feeling of space and clarity. Colours provide a bright touch to the whole setting and enable to delimit the different perfume areas inside the store. Indeed, a special effort was made to make the offer much clearer, with in particular, a coloured Plexiglas signage, backlit by LEDs. The different areas being themselves segmented in brands. A dedicated sound signature was also developed by Mood Media.
The new concept was tested in a pilot store in Bergerac and deployed since August in the franchised stores in Pont-Audemer, Rennes (Saint-Grégoire and Alma) and the retailer has set itself an objective is to implement the concept in at least twenty perfume-institutes each year.
Dedicated furniture was designed to specifically enhance selective make-up brands in a harmonized atmosphere. Check-outs were designed to become an area fostering service, impulse purchases and to give extra visibility to loyalty cards and to the rates in beauty parlours. Service areas (makeup, nail care) are scattered throughout the store.
Finally, the Beauty Success brand itself (approximately 400 references of bath and make-up products) has its dedicated areas, at the store entrance. The company has also undertaken a complete renovation of its make-up line which will be launched next year.
Concerning beauty parlours, Beauty Success has imagined six different atmospheres ("bubbles"), tropical ocean, eastern, mineral, northern solar. Each point of sale, depending both on the number of cabins it has and of its customers can choose one, two or three atmospheres.
More than 40 stores are already equipped with these new cabin concepts and Beauty Success has set a goal of reaching 250 beauty salons in line with this concept within 5 years.
The company sees the beauty parlour, which is a key place for retention and value added, as a significant growth vector, provided services are made truly accessible. Currently, only 10% of the clientele of perfumeries also attended the beauty parlours. This is why, alongside its partnerships with major brands in the industry, Beauty Success has also developed its own skincare card and proprietary protocols claiming an "excellent price/quality ratio." In addition, the beauty parlour is also perceived as the natural link between the world of perfumery and the drugstore.
Fifty drugstores in five years time
One of Beauty Success’s other major challenge is to succeed with its development in the drugstore circuit. The retailer has already opened four outlets of this type, including a franchised one since October 15, 2012 at Claira-Perpignan. "Depending of the catchment area and on the potential available space - an area of at least 250 m² is necessary to establish a drugstore in addition to a perfumery and a beauty parlour - we will explore all the opportunities," said Georges. "This is a new activity for the brand, not additional shelf-space. There is a direct and separate entrance to the store; it cannot just be a corner. But the entire store is accessible with the same loyalty card."
To comply with the requirements of the sector, this area is run by a pharmacist. The architectural concept is based on the one of perfumeries but it was been adapted with simpler, more neutral showcases and gondolas. "Beauty Success drugstores are particularly suited to the types of flow of people seen in shopping centres."
International Development
Outside France, the Beauty Success brand is already present in Morocco, where it represents before Marionnaud, the second distribution network dedicated to beauty. But by their own admission, retailer officials explained that the brand’s successful implantation in this country was more the result of a happy combination of circumstances than that of a strategy of exportation of the concept. However, it is seriously considered and expected to materialize as of 2014.
