The Body Shop is an international organization that was founded in the year 1976 by Dame Anita Roddick. It is a British skin, beauty care, cosmetics and perfume organization. Currently, it offers more than 1000 products which are sold in more than 3049 owned and franchised stores globally in 68 nations. It is headquartered in East Croydon and Little Hampton. The Body Shop is possessed by Brazilian cosmetics firm Natura. Previously, it had been the part of French cosmetic organization i.e. L’Oreal between 2006 and 2017. In the year 2017, L’Oreal has made the decision to sell the company to Nature for £880 million (The Body Shop, 2018). The mission statement of this firm is to communicate the self-esteem in their customers, safeguard the environment, and be supporters against animal testing, while assisting community trade and protecting the human rights. The company offers a diversified range of products like shampoo, conditioners, body gels, and treatment for hands, body oil, perfumes, bath treats and other accessories. The company has a range of customers from the upper to middle class who are both men and women. However, this brand had begun the business with the women beauty products. The major targeted audiences of Body Shop are 20 to 55 year old women.
This report is totally focused on different marketing aspects in context of The Body Shop. It includes the needs, wants and demands of customers towards company’s products and services. Company’s marketing and external environment is analyzed by identifying and evaluating different factors. Social and environmental factors are evaluated which could affect the growth and business operations of Body Shop. Furthermore, it includes competitive analysis by identifying three major competitors of Body Shop in United Kingdom. In the last section, the marketing strategies like product strategy, price strategy and place strategy of Body Shop are covered by using marketing mix framework.
Understanding the needs, wants and demands of customers is at the centre of each and every growing and successful business. Needs, demands and wants are the three major basic terms in marketing process which helps an organization to take the strategic decisions. Under this process, the marketers make efforts to understand the needs and demands to recognize the targeted customers and for better placement of products and services. The demands, needs and wants are interlinked and arise based on requirements, ability and willingness (Goworek, McGoldrick and McGoldrick, 2015). Identification of needs, wants and demands is an important process at The Body Shop Company. The company considers the needs and demands of customers on the basis of income levels, socio-cultural and demographic aspects. The company believes that it is very important to consider the needs and wants of customers. It conducts market research analysis to know about the customers’ needs. Under this research, it finds out that customers demand not only excellent quality, money value but also identify the requirement for social and environmental responsibility. Body Shop understands that potential customer requires being well-informed to make the responsible choices. Body Shop manufactures the products on the basis of customer needs so that it can directly attract the targeted customers. At Body Shop, it is very important to know about the customers so that they can provide them full customer satisfaction and gain success (Lemon and Verhoef, 2015).
Under its business operations, Body Shop adopts societal marketing orientation/concept. It is an orientation that is applied on the basis of principle of social welfare. It focuses that a company should make strategic decisions considering the wants and needs of customers. Body Shop is one of the best examples of societal marketing concept. Under this concept, Body Shop utilizes only natural, fruits, vegetables based raw materials as ingredients for its cosmetic products. It is completely against testing of animals, supports the community trade and safeguarding of planet. In this way, Body Shop engages in the societal marketing orientation in its business processes. In addition to this, company defends the human rights, activates the self-esteem and protecting the planet (Shanbhag and Nayak, 2015). Under this concept, Body Shop Organization is using the eco-conscious symbol and it is respecting the aquatic environment. In addition to this, it fulfills and meets the strict environmental and biodegradability standards. It limits the wastage related to manufacturing and packaging of cosmetic products. Moreover, Body Shop has its own charity named as The Body Shop foundation to help those working to attain progress in areas of civil and human rights and protection of animals and environment. Thus, it is clear to state that Body Shop Organization is adopting the societal marketing orientation in its business processes (Lemon and Verhoef, 2015).
The marketing environment and its factors are directly related to the company and its growth in the industry. For an organization, it is of the great significant due to some reasons. One of the major reasons is that the effect of environment on a company is massive. For an organization, it is necessary to understand the trends and analyze the data about the customer needs. Analysis of marketing environment is essential for an organization as it assists it to understand the changes in the external environment which may impact the functioning and operations of all the divisions. The firm that continuously analyzes the environment and its factors become ready to overcome the threats from its external and marketing environment (Singhal, Rajput, and Jha, 2017). Analysis of marketing environment is completely relevant to the marketing environment as helps the company to know about the potential threats, opportunities and competitors so that it can make its future efforts and plans accordingly.
One of the major social factors that have positive impact on the business Body Shop is that men in United Kingdom are become very conscious about their appearance. Due to this, they prefer to use skin and hair care cosmetics products. Aging population has the willingness to make their spending on premium priced cosmetic products and use the anti-aging products. It has increased the sales of Body Shop’s product sales. 65% of UK’s people are using internet so they prefer to buy its products online (Shatzman, 2017). It is both time saving and convenient for them. This factor is beneficial for the business of Body Shop.
As mentioned above, Body Shop is very much responsible towards environment and natural factors. Considering the people’s increased concern towards environment, Body Shop ensures the sustainable packaging of its products. Additionally, it uses different techniques of safely disposal and recycling of products. It assists the organization to grab the attention of people towards its corporate social responsibility and environmental efforts. Body Shop has become environmentally responsible by engaging in green market (Charter, 2017). This factor has positive impact on the growth and success of Body Shop in cosmetic product industry.
Competitor analysis plays an important role in the organizational life of Body Shop. It is an important process for this company to understand about the marketing strategies and goals of competing brands. By conducting this analysis, Body Shop understands the resources and capabilities which organization has developed to attain its predetermined objectives. It assists the organization to know about the position of competitors in the market (Trivicram, 2017). This organization believes that having narrow and focused approach will help it to implement effective strategies and gain success. Body Shop is facing intense competition in cosmetic product industry. The major competitors in United Kingdom are such as Lush, Weleda UK and L’Occitane. These competitors are affecting the business operations of company. Under its market research program, Body Shop analyzes its competitors also. Moreover, it also assesses their targeted market and strategies so that it can make its future strategies.
Competitor analysis of Body Shop in United Kingdom is stated in the below table:
|
Criteria |
Lush |
Weleda UK |
L’Occitane |
|
Number of Stores |
Lush owns 105 stores all over United Kingdom and more than 900 stores in 49 nations. |
Weleda has its stores in over 50 nations in all five continents. |
L’Occitane owns over 1000 stores in over 25 nations. |
|
Product Quality |
Lush is very serious about its products’ quality and its ingredients. |
The company is fully committed to product quality. The products of Weleda are the result of great quality choice from purchase of raw materials via manufacturing, bottling and delivery of final products. |
The quality of L’Occitane is lower than Lush and Body Shop. To offer products on affordable prices, it compromises on the quality (Voigt, Buliga and Michl, 2017). |
|
Prices |
It offers its hair and skin care products on premium prices. |
It offers the mid-priced products. Online rates of products are comparatively low. |
It uses different pricing strategies for different products. Some of the products are affordable for all customers. |
|
Benefits |
Lush offers different products like soaps, creams, lotions, scrubs, shampoos and masks. The customers can purchase all the products for their beauty, health and skin care (Smithers, 2011). |
In addition to beauty products, Weleda provides naturopathic products to its customers (Draelos, 2015). The company still uses animal testing that affects the customers’ perception towards Weleda. |
The customers can purchase their desired cosmetics on affordable prices. |
|
Use of natural ingredients |
The company offers home-made personal care products to its customers. |
t designs its products on the basis of anthroposophic principles. It utilizes natural ingredients grown using different methods (Rodrigues, Pimentel and Oliveira, 2015). |
It uses traditional methods and raw materials for production. |
The above competitor analysis indicates that Lush is the biggest competitor of Body Shop in the UK fashion and cosmetic industry. The company offers higher quality products on premium prices but still it is able to establish an effective customer base. Body Shop should consider the quality of its products. It should make efforts to enhance its product quality in United Kingdom. In addition to cosmetics, it should offer naturopathic products also. It needs to focus on the raw materials and ingredients used to manufacture the products (Jones, 2015).
Body Shop is an internationally recognized brand that offers over 1000 products under its brand portfolio. It is naturally tending towards developing the environmentally and natural ingredients like marula oil and sesame seed oil (The Body Shop, 2018). The company offers the both skin and hair care products like shampoo, conditioners, body gels, and treatment for hands, body oil, perfumes, bath treats etc. Some of the examples of company are Ginger Shampoo, New Fuji Gree Tea Cleansing Hair Scrub, The Body Shop Olive Body Scrub etc.
Currently, Body Shop is using premium pricing strategy. The prices of its products are significantly higher due to immense differentiation and branding nature that is environmental friendly and ethical (Brunk, 2017). Its big packages contribute to the higher costing. It is the reason that its targeted market covers the financially strong people. It confronts an intense competition in premium cosmetics retailers in UK. For example, Lush is also one of the major players that offers premium products.
Body Shop offers its products through different distribution channels. For instance, mainly it sells the products through its physical stores, online sites and Body Shop Home Scheme (Belch, et al, 2014). The company has made a huge investment on its virtual existence. Online distribution channels of Body Shop assist its customers to purchase the cosmetics more conveniently and easily.
Thus, The Body Shop is using effective marketing strategies to attract more customers towards its products and services.
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that Body Shop is one of the leading players in UK cosmetics industry. The company is operating its business by using effective marketing strategies and societal marketing orientation. The report shows that it is very much focused on the environment and natural resources. The company is making every possible effort to attract customers towards products and services. There are some social and environmental factors which have positive impact on the business of Body Shop. The major competing brands of Body Shop are Lush, Weleda and L’Occitane which pose competitive pressure on Body Shop. The report finds out that company can enhance its business operations by using effective strategies and processes. It should focus on its pricing strategies so that it can attract more people towards its products.
References
Belch, G.E., Belch, M.A., Kerr, G.F. and Powell, I., (2014) Advertising: An integrated marketing communication perspective. McGraw-Hill Education.
Brunk, K.H., 2017. Shedding Light on the Ethical Consumer Debate: Evidence from a Qualitative Investigation of Body Shop Consumers. In The Customer is NOT Always Right? Marketing Orientationsin a Dynamic Business World (pp. 292-300). Springer, Cham.
Charter, M. (Ed.). (2017) Greener marketing: A responsible approach to business. Routledge.
Draelos, Z. D. (Ed.). (2015) Cosmetic dermatology: products and procedures. John Wiley & Sons.
Goworek, H., McGoldrick, P.J. and McGoldrick, P.J., (2015) Retail marketing management: Principles and practice. Pearson Education Limited.
Jones, E. (2015) The Better World Shopping Guide# 5: Every Dollar Makes a Difference. New Society Publishers.
Lemon, K.N. and Verhoef, P.C., (2016) Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), pp.69-96.
Rodrigues, F., Pimentel, F.B. and Oliveira, M.B.P., (2015) Olive by-products: Challenge application in cosmetic industry. Industrial Crops and Products, 70, pp.116-124.
Shanbhag, P. and Nayak, S., (2015) Societal Marketing–The Shift: Indirect to a direct marketing approach. International Journal of Advanced Research, 3(9), pp.524-527.
Shatzman, C. (2017) How The Body Shop Uses Content to Drive Social Change, Available from https://insights.newscred.com/body-shop-content-marketing-social-change/ [Accessed from 30 June 2018].
Singhal, M., Rajput, S. and Jha, M., (2017) Building Brand Image through Corporate Societal Marketing. BULMIM Journal of Management and Research, 2(2), pp.65-71.
Smithers, R. (2011) Store Wars: the Body Shop and Lush, Available from https://www.theguardian.com/money/poll/2011/nov/25/store-wars-body-shop-lush [Accessed from 30 June 2018].
The Body Shop, (2018) The Body Shop: Home Page, Available from https://www.thebodyshop.in/ [Accessed from 30 June 2018].
Trivicram, S. (2017) Customer Needs, Wants, and Demands & Strategic Decision Making, Available from https://myventurepad.com/customer-needs-wants-demands-strategic-decision-making/ [Accessed from 30 June 2018].
Voigt, K.I., Buliga, O. and Michl, K., (2017) Pure Beauty: The Case of The Body Shop. In Business Model Pioneers (pp. 25-39). Springer, Cham.
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.
Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order form
Once we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignment
As soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download