'The Body Shop's bath, body & hair care products will be fully recyclable by 2025'

The Body Shop has completed 15 years of operations in India with its offerings capturing a decent market share. A decade and a half doing business in India also mean a fair share of unique challenges. According to Shriti Malhotra, CEO, The Body Shop India the last decade has been eventful and full of learnings. 

She shares ‘‘India is a large and diverse market and our approach to open The Body Shop stores across the country in big and small towns even 15 years ago proved to highly successful. A key challenge is that India’s per-capita spend on beauty remains a fraction of its global peers. Even after adjusting for lower per-capita income, spending on beauty and care items remains low. For a feminist brand, women at our stores and workplace have been the mainstay of business but for many years we faced an uphill task in recruiting, training and retaining female teams. Today, women are 60% of our workforce. We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming workplace for all communities and all genders.’’ 

Evolving With The Times 

With the pandemic changing consumer behaviour and expectations and the ever-increasing competition, brands have had to evolve to stand out and stay relevant. 

Says Malhotra, ‘‘The Body Shop’s founding principle of business as a Force for Good and its commitment to be purpose-driven has kept it strong and relevant. The Brand Purpose to 'Fight for a Fairer and More Beautiful World' is built around 3 key elements. The fight is a reminder that all of us have to be activists and drive change. Our founder Anita Roddick famously said, 'Activism is the rent we pay for living on the planet.' The Fair is about our eye firmly on social justice, doing the right thing for people and actively supporting those who are less privileged. And Beautiful World reiterates our commitment to our environment and sustainability, at a time when climate change is unquestionably and visibly impacting all our lives.’’ 

Further elaborating on the brand’s efforts towards sustainability and environment protection, Malhotra shares: ‘‘With the rise of new Young Smart Ethically Engaged consumers, a lot of transparency is demanded. Our focus is on using fewer plastic materials and more plant-based and recycled plastic wherever possible,  and helping people around the world to reuse, repurpose and recycle."

In May 2019, the beauty brand launched the world’s first Community Fair Traded Recycled Plastic Packaging created from plastic waste collected by the waste picker community in Bengaluru, India.  According to Malhotra, in the last 2 years, the global initiative has helped source more than 400,000 kgs of recycled plastic and been able to provide livelihoods to over 600 waste pickers who are predominantly female. She says that currently, more than 68% of The Body Shop's packaging can be recycled. 

"By 2025, all our bath and body and hair care products will be fully recyclable. Our longer-term aim is to develop a circular model for our packaging, which means reusing or repurposing 100% of our packaging. We remain relevant through affordable body care and skin care products and a strong masstige range of products with powerful natural ingredients," Malhotra states. 

Reaching Consumers Through Multiple Channels 

After the digital explosion led by the pandemic, there has been a constant endeavour by most brands to strike the perfect omnichannel balance. Talking about the approach, Malhotra adds, ‘‘There is no single channel, rather we have a fluid multichannel approach to interact with consumers ‘Anytime and Anywhere’. We have a large social and online customer base and reach more than 20,000 pin codes in India. 

"WhatsApp shopping started off as a test and we plan to expand it. Our virtual and assisted sales approach has been a growth driver. We offer video consultations, WhatsApp shopping, same-day delivery and 60-minute delivery through partnerships with local logistics providers.’’

It is interesting to note that the brand has seen multi-fold growth in e-commerce revenues and the revenue from the brand’s web store and the online marketplace has grown from 15% pre-Covid to 40% in 2021. 

On the distribution side, the brand continues to expand its stores in the country. It enjoys good traction with about 50% of its revenues coming from Tier 2/ 3 and smaller cities. 

Adds Malhotra, ‘‘We are on track to open new stores in Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Kochi and Pune. We are also expanding in Tier 2, 3 and tier 4 cities. We have recently opened new stores in Lucknow, Dehradun, Srinagar, Gangtok, Dimapur and Bilaspur, and soon in Manipur. We also have exciting plans of launching a new store format, our ‘Activist Workshop’ with product refill stations and are seeking regulatory approvals.’’

About the YoY growth, she shares, ‘‘While Online revenue has doubled, recovery in retail has been a bit slow and below pre-covid levels. Tier 1 and Urban centres are have been most impacted. We hope to reach double-digit growth in 2022.’’ 

Marketing Strategy To Lead The Body Shop

The traditional ways of marketing had to be tweaked in the post-pandemic world. The lockdown has, in fact, helped The Body Shop evolve its communication strategies and kept it on its feet, in Malhotra's opinion. 

"We have engaged our audiences around issues that concern them most, about Self-Care, Positivity and Inclusivity. Our #TimeToCare program was started to engage followers in conversations about self-care, at-home rituals, well-being with a focus on mental health and happiness. 

"We have also rallied around communities that were disrupted during Covid and needed support and financial assistance. While we are returning to normalcy at work, we have undergone a complete workplace transformation and moving ahead with flexibility, empathy and embracing the needs of new work culture,’’ notes Malhotra. 

She informs us that at The Body Shop, CRM, Personalised communication and Social media channels are driving two-way engagement and have the highest allocations on the brand's budgets. 

"We are adding on additional loyalty benefits, addressing personal queries, educating beauty consumers on product formulations, creating skincare regimes, providing significant reviews and campaigning passionately about causes we believe in. During the pandemic and now, we have kept our content honest, simple, fresh, relatable and locally relevant to Indian audiences," she elaborates.

Activism and addressing social issues has been a central theme in The Body Shop's messaging. Malhotra shares that it also speaks to the TG as the brand has never been just an average cosmetics company.

She explains, ‘‘The purpose of The Body Shop is to fight for a fair and equitable world and this drives everything we do. In Our Stop Sex Trafficking of Women and Young Children, we engaged with our customers, friends and family across all corners of the world. We raised awareness and funds, secured petition signatures and marched. End Period Shame in partnership with CRY India helped combat period poverty, menstrual shame and lack of access to menstrual supplies in slum communities in Delhi/NCR. With the Community Fair Trade programme, working directly with farmers, where our long term commitments have brought benefits to over 300,000 marginalised people.’’