Companies must offer omnichannel experiences: MD and CEO, Health & Glow

Beauty retail chain Health & Glow (H&G) recently completed its 25-year journey with 170 plus stores spread across the South, West and East of the country. According to K Venkataramani, Managing Director & CEO, Health & Glow Pvt. Ltd., the retail chain has been a trusted beauty destination in India with a lineup of various services and products for Indian beauty customers.

On achieving this milestone, Venkataramani said, “Our product portfolio includes lots of exclusive products and brands, superior products from Health & Glow and also offers a new level of personalization that empowers the customers like never before.”

Apart from popular and contemporary products from both international and Indian brands, H&G also has Private Label goods. During and post-pandemic, the brand's private labels and exclusive imports have grown popular and delivered growth in various BPC segments. Venkataramani said, “With normalcy coming back to retail, we can look forward to a continuance of the exciting growth. In fact, we are all set to launch our private label make-up range this April. A range of great quality products at accessible prices, delivering key attributes like colour and sensorial.”

New Era of Personalisation & Innovation

In this new era, H&G has been focussing on omnichannel presence, personalisation and innovation. According to Venkataramanai, the brand has been omnichannel ready for several years. In order to be centred around a seamless consumer experience, Health & Glow provides options to consumers like same-day delivery, click and collect and self-check out that have gained further popularity during the pandemic.

Beauty as a category lends itself to personalization, therefore, on that front, H&G has launched a free AI and dermatologist-backed smart tool - H&G Skin Expert. It allows users to get a detailed analysis of their skin and a personalised skincare regime tailored to their skin’s needs with dermatologist-recommended products. “The results so far have been amazing. There is no doubt that customers today are becoming tech-savvy and looking for more personalised services. We are constantly ideating on different modes to make our offerings a hyper-personalized experience and will be launching more such facilities in the future”, says Venkataramani.

On the innovation front, H&G has launched dermo-cosmetology products and aims to make them accessible to consumers. Venkataramani explains, “Even today, dermo-cosmetology continues to be a strong part of our portfolio giving us an edge over competitors in this particular space. Currently, we do not have any technology for this but we might give this a thought in the future.”

Marketing through Tough Competition

As renowned digital-first e-commerce players like Nykaa continue to expand their retail presence, it is only obvious that there will be more competition in an already cluttered beauty space. Sharing his thoughts on cutting through the competition, Venkataramani added, “In this dynamic landscape, it is a prerequisite that companies increase reliability in offering omnichannel experiences. All retailers will straddle online and offline, wherever they start. There is no other way in this fast-moving category.”

It is interesting to note that currently, the brand uses an omnichannel approach to marketing its messaging to its core TG and communicates through digital channels/ platforms, catchment media and instore as well. Over the past year, Health & Glow’s offline sales are closing in on pre-Covid-19 levels and as a result, the brand has quadrupled its advertising sales in the last year.