Week 4 - Retail store Strategy

The THREE ELEMENTS of retail strategy.

Target Market
The Body Shop practice Geographic, Demographic and Psychographic Segmentation and therefore, the primary market segment of Body Shop are both female and male aged 10 to 60, also, families with more modest income.

Chanel, Lancôme and Estee Lauder are examples of brands that belongs to the prestige category whereas, L’Oreal, Revlon and Maybelline falls under the mass. However, to be able to accommodate people with different income level and also having a brand name which is not too common, the category – Masstige was set up. Brands like The Body Shop, L'Occitane and Benefits belongs there.

The products that Body Shop carries are Bath & Body, Skin Care, Make-Up, Hair, Mens, Everyday Wellbeing, Fragrance, Home Fragrance and Accessories. Although the products that all the Body Shop carries are almost similar, but there are still difference due to the climate and weather. Example: for country like UK, the moisturizer that they have would be richer and thicker compare to those that were sold in Asia. This is so because UK weather is much dryer. Judging from the products, we know that Bath & Body, Hair and Everyday Wellbeing cater to both sexes aged 10 to 60, Skin Care also caters to both sexes but aged 13 to 60. However, Mens would only be suitable for males aged 13 to 60. Also, for Fragrance, it’s applicable for both sexes aged 13 to 60. Lastly, for Make-Up it caters to women aged 18 and above.

❤Christine

Retail Format
For retail format, it is the nature of the retailer's operation, which is the retail mix. In retail mix, there is 6 sections to look at. They are store design and display, pricing, communication mix, location, merchandise assortment and customer service.

Store Design and Display
All Body Shop store design and display have the same concept and colouring. This would give the customer a assurance that you have walk into Body Shop.

They use nature colour, green and brown or khaki, to represent the earth and plant. It want to give customer the feel of the nature and also a image that all their product are nature without animal testing.


Their design is simple and customer can easily locate the product.

They categorise their product into different segment which enable the customer to find what they are looking for, example skin care, fragrance and many more.

Pricing
As Body Shop have a wide product assortment, which make them have a wide range of pricing.

• Well being have a price range from $8.90 to $32.90
• Make-up have a price range from $4.50 to $42.90
• Bath and Body have a price range from $2.90 to $42.90
• Skin Care have a price range from $2.90 to $54.90
• Men's have a price range from $14.90 to $42.90
• Home Fragrance have a price range from $9.90 to $42.90
• Fragrance have a price range from $5.90 to $42.90
  
• Hair have a price range from $3.90 at to $24.90
  
• Accessories have a price range from $2.90 to $34.90
  
• Gift have a price range from $12.90 to $49.90
• Original have a price range from $12.90 to $21.90

Body Shop have a wide variety of product that ranges from the cheapest at $2.90 to the most expensive at $54.90. The cheapest product that is selling is Soft Facial Sponge and the most expensive product that is selling is Wise Woman™ Vitality Serum. This show that Body Shop do not only sells their product to their target market but also sell essential product to every women.

They also adopt psychological pricing that all product end with a 90cents. This drives demand greater than would be expected if consumers were perfectly rational.

Communication Mix
Body Shop do not have a lot of Communication Mix in Singapore. Their main communication Mix is only through poster or banner in the Shopping Malls and also their newsletter. Newsletter is either gave out upon request when customer go into their web pages.

Location
Body Shop in Singapore had segment their location into 5 main sectors.

1. Orchard Road
2. Central/South
3. North
4. West
5. East

Merchandise Assortment
They have 11 variety of product.

1. Well Being
2. Make Up
3. Bath and Body
4. Hair
5. Home Fragrance
6. Fragrance
7. Skin Care
8. Men's
9. Accessories
10. Gift
11. Original
    

In each variety, they have wide range of assortment for the customer to choose from. From different flavour of product to the limited edition of product.


Customer Service
Body Shop customer service had meet to the basic customer service expectation.

• They greets customer upon arrival at the shop.
• When the customer are browsing around they would approach the customer and asked do the customer need any help
• They would give recommendation on what kind of product are suitable for the customer.
• They would also let the customer to smell or test the product.
  
• At the cashier, they would give ask the customer do they have their Body Shop card.
• They would send the customer away with big smile and thank you.

*this is based on past experience

❤Pearlena

Bases for sustaining Competitive Advantage
The Body Shop actually has three ways in building sustainable competitive advantage.

Firstly, is through having weekly discounts on their items. For example, The Body Shop is currently having their Great Singapore Sale offers on products now, selected ranges of items are up to 45% off and for members there's even great deal. For example, gift with purchase - when a member purchase up to a certain amount.

The prices in The Body Shop are considered lower than the other competitors' store namely L'Occitane and Benefits. Together with the weekly discounts offered, they can offer their customers with better deals.

Secondly, The Body Shop understands and realizes the demands of their target market hence, they also realize that heartlanders, housewives also contributed fairly much to their sales. Therefore, they have stores insland-wide which includes the heartland areas to make shopping more accessible. The Body Shop also have many stores located at the different corners of Singapore. They have much more stores as compared to their competitors. This gives them an competitive edge advantage as it provides easy and convenient purchases to people who are lazy to travel a further distance. In total, there is 38 stores located all over Singapore.

Thirdly, to keep their customers coming back to them, The Body Shop have a customer loyalty programme which is called Love Your Body (LYB) card which accumulates points for so as to exchange their points for vouchers. Every fortnightly, mailers are often sent to members to ensure that they know all of their current and up coming promotions.

❤Christine