Beauty Blog

M&S are attempting a massive strategy change, by stocking a range of branded goods from the UK’s biggest consumer brands, to help stop falling sales. The retailer, has built up it’s upmarket food and beauty range entirely around it’s own label, but since food sales have dropped after supermarket rivals have closed the gap on quality products and the credit crunch has made shoppers more price conscious and therefore have been staying away from pricey M&S.

The range will include 53 healthcare and beauty brand products, including Elnett Hairspray, Calpol, Tampax, Veet Hair Remover, Strepsils and Senokot constipation treatment. A total of 350 new products will be on the shelves at M&S, which totals and extra 10% to the existing M&S range.

Steven Esom, the M&S food boss was fired last week after shocking and appalling sales figures were revealed to investors. Esom was previously the managing director of Waitrose, had worked on the strategy and selected the new product range, with the idea behind it to convert M&S food halls to full supermarkets where customers could do their entire weekly shop.
Clothing and homes sales were recently down 6.2% and food sales were down 4.5% despite inflation boosting grocery sales figures. The actual decline in food sales volume would be at 8.5% if food inflation was taken into account.

In the past, when there have economic slumps, or dare I say it, recessions, beauty products have been one area of retail that have always managed to keep to a steady rate of sales, that is, until now.

Clarins has reported a drop in sales for the last quarter, and held crisis talks today to discuss the future of Clarins. According to French newspaper ‘La Tribune’ the Clarins family are wanting to buy out the minority shareholders and remove Clarins from Euronet Paris (the second largest stock exchange in Europe after the London Stock Exchange).

During the last American recession in the 90’s beauty did well. The difference today is that the market is much more saturated, and brands are finding it harder to get noticed. Brands like Benefit, Lorac and Dior are continuing to prosper, thanks to sharper focused marketing, targeting the ultra-high end, celebrity obsessed customer.

Department store used to be the main outlet for beauty products, but these days so much more is bought online, by sites pushing for brands to perform or be dropped.

So, in order for Clarins to survive, is it about time they rethink their branding, positioning and marketing and even think about cutting back on their inventory?