THE BODY SHOP

The Body Shop is a popular brand of health, oral and personal care products headquartered in
London, United Kingdom. The company was established by Anita Roddick who is an
environmental and human rights activist and her vision was to make ethically made beauty
products. The Body Shop which is valued at 3.379 million USD has a product portfolio which
comprises 900 skincare, makeup, body butter, aromatherapy, hair care and bath and body
products.

The Body Shop owns and operates around 3049 stores in around 66 countries across the world.
The company also has an online portal as well as a multi-level marketing modeled in home shop
option called The Body Shop at Home. Till the year 2017 the company was owned by the
cosmetics major L’Oreal after it acquired the brand in the year 2006.

However, in the year, 2017 L’Oreal sold the business to French cosmetics company Natura. With
around 17,000 employees worldwide, The Body Shop registered an annual turnover of 1.4 billion
USD in the year 2017.

Strengths in the SWOT analysis of The Body Shop

Strengths are defined as what each business does best in its gamut of operations which can give
it an upper hand over its competitors. The following are the strengths of THE Body Shop :

Positioning: The products sold by the Body Shop are all made out of natural ingredients which
are dermatologically safe for all skin types. Even their packaging is done using biodegradable
material making it a very green and sustainable brand. This unique positioning of The Body Shop
is its biggest strength.

Franchising Strategy: When Roddicks owned the company there was a clear onus for franchising
and it was not easy to become a franchisee of the Body Shop. The aspirant had to personally
meet Roddick who would ask them questions and her decision was final and based on the
passion that they had for the brand and the beauty industry. This helped the brand to gain a lot
of momentum during the early years of operation. It can also be seen that most of the franchises
were and still continue to be operated by women.

Sustainability: Roddick was a champion of a lot of social causes and an environmental and
human rights activist. These values are reflected in all aspects of the corporate governance of
The Body Shop. Right from using renewable and biodegradable packing material to sourcing
from non-fossil fuel derived materials, The Body Shop has been true to its new CSR approach
Enrich not Exploit.

Focus on problems: Rather than just creating products, The Body Shop has been looking at skin
or personal care issues that women face and their rage is dedicated to resolving specific issues.
This has helped them connect better to their customers.
Importance to women: More than 72 percent of employees of The Body Shop are women.
Majority of their franchisees, as well as beauty consultants, are also women. The importance
given to women in the workplace has always been one of the core strengths of the business.

Weaknesses in the SWOT analysis of The Body Shop

Weaknesses are used to refer to areas where the business or the brand needs improvement.
Some of the key weaknesses of The Body Shop are:

Pricing: Anita Roddick felt that customers would be willing to pay a higher price for products
with natural ingredients and during the early years of business this was true. However, as
competition picked up The Body Shop struggled with high prices and lost a lot of business to
competitors.

Loss of focus: The over-focus on the environment, protection of animals and human rights
diverted the attention of the company from its core business which was cosmetics. The customer
was also confused with whether the company was into the cosmetics business or was
championing green initiatives.

Unable to match up: The Body Shop was a successful brand in the nineties. But as time
progressed, competitors like Boots made similar products and more. The Body Shop was unable
to introduce new products lines or impress customers with the result that the bottom line
suffered.

Opportunities in the SWOT analysis of The Body Shop

Opportunities refer to those avenues in the environment that surrounds the business on which it
can capitalize to increase its returns. Some of the opportunities include:

Growing anxiety on health: With the internet creating phobic on the usage of chemicals in
products, customers are going natural in most of their daily wear items. This can be a huge
opportunity for The Body Shop which is already into natural ingredient based makeup and
cosmetics.

Threats in the SWOT analysis of The Body Shop

Threats are those factors in the environment which can be detrimental to the growth of the
business. Some of the threats include:

Competition: The main competitors of The Body Shop are Estee Lauder, Sephora, Shiseido, and
Revlon.

Difficulty to attract customers: The market for beauty is huge but the competition is profuse with
the result that it has become increasingly difficult to attract as well as engage customers. The
result is that as time progresses only top brands will survive and all others are at threat of
acquisitions.
Strengths

1. Huge franchisee network of over 2,500 franchised stores in more than 60 countries

2. Eight Categories of beauty products with more than 1200 products

3. Taking advantage of L’Oreal’s experience in research methodology and efficiency to improve

and develop own existing products.

4. Re-designed store layout, not only ambience creates customer attraction, but also story selling
to enhance emotional connection.

5. A high brand value and brand image viewed by customers as a socially responsible company
due to its engagement in local charities and many philanthropic activities – 64% of The Body
Shop loyal shoppers are ready to pay more for an ethical product

6. Strong Customer Community

Weaknesses

1. There is very little advertising of its products

2. Due to franchisee system, there isn’t enough control by the proprietors

3. Slow service for the customers due to crowded shopping center location, in combination with
the fact of inadequate personnel

4. Slower distribution due to Chemical legislation

5.Unstable supply of ingredients and materials

6. New Legislation banning animal test products may rising competition by marketing this policy

Opportunity

1. Increased awareness of organic and eco friendly products (89% avoid synthetic chemicals in
personal care goods)

2. The number of online buyers are increasing and hence it can use its website portal for sale
and free delivery that will increase its market share

3. The increase supply of a wide range of products for men promote sales increase by satisfying
demand on this particular niche market.

Threats

1. Fierce competition in the cosmetic market with a new brand launching itself every day.
Competition both with mainstream big brands, and niche natural, environmental and ethical
businesses.

2. Economic downturn can hamper sales

3. The products use some exquisite raw materials from all across the world. So legislations or
some problems in trade with supplier countries can heavily impact its operations

BODY BATH AND wORKS

Strengths

1. It has an annual revenue of about $3.3 billion

2. It operates about 1640 stores throughout North America and also has online store

3. Its online store sales grew by 18% in 2014 while the same store sales increased by 7%

4. It constantly tries to do innovation in its product variety

5. It has a wide variety of personal and beauty care products

6. Very strong parent company in L Brands which is financially very strong

Weaknesses

1. It had unsuccessful promotions of natural care products

2. It has an inefficient supply chain

3. It has low market share as compared to competitors

Opportunities

1. It has a huge potential to grow its natural and ecofriendly products

2. Online expansion due to growth of ecommerce

3. Increase in demand from emerging economies

Threats

1. Fierce competition in personal and beauty care category

2. Sales are severely affected by the performance of the economy

the body shop vs bath and body shop

the Personal Care market is a $146 billion market. Snagging a sizable percentage of it means that
a company is doing something right. The Body Shop and Bath & Body Works are two
heavyweights duking it out for dominance in a market with other heavy hitters like L’Oréal and
Johnson & Johnson, but both push for local, tangible markets in order to create separation in the
commerce column.

Personal care companies are typically held to interesting standards. The goal is often to look
younger and feel better about yourself. So, the differentiators between the two companies often
come down to customer satisfaction and the ability to reach the consumer just prior to a critical
decision-making opportunity.

To see how two of these giants—The Body Shop and Bath & Body Works—stacked up in a
competitive marketplace, location-based marketing companyBrandify used its proprietary
software to see which marketing and branding areas stood out as strengths and which areas fell
short. Brandify looked at local marketing for both companies. It looks closer than it actually was,
but both brands managed to have areas that stood out from each other.

The Players
The Body Shop and Bath & Body Works certainly hold their own in the global Personal Care
market. Each has a distinct brand that garners rabid followers and product consumers for what,
ultimately, is a veritable search for the Fountain of Youth—or at least the Fountain of Continued
Wellbeing. True to the ongoing trend of leveraging consumer data to facilitated hyper-localized
marketing, Bath and Body Works ultimately turned its strong SEO and lack of data quality issues
into a clearly established edge over The Body Shop.

Battle round: Data Quality

Data collection and aggregation is basically its own market at this point, so having problems with
data quality is kind of like owning a smartphone without Internet access: If you’re serious about
using it, it’s time to pony up a little cash to make sure it works.

Since almost every personal care company demands personal information upon checkout, it
seems like data quality would be low on the list of potential problems for these two companies.
Further, when it comes to ensuring the quality of the data the company actually has control over
—like location claiming—this should be a no-brainer, an easy way to distinguish among the
competition. Unfortunately, for The Body Shop, its lack of location data translated into a
landslide loss. About 54% of the locations on Google and 42% of the locations on Yelp remain
unclaimed by The Body Shop. For consumers looking to the internet for ease of use and quick
results, this poses a major problem. This is not to say Bath & Body Works is infallible. In fact, a
whopping 67% of its locations on Yelp are unclaimed. But, in the end, The Body Shop’s poor
performance on Google means that across the board, 46% of its locations remain unclaimed. You
just can’t have that.

winner: Bath & BoWinnerdy Works

Battle round: Local SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often waved around like a magic elixir that can solve all
marketing problems (kind of like how those kale/melon/avocado/coconut oil facial cleansing
products will make you look baby-fresh again). While we won’t go quite so far as to agree with
that assessment, it certainly is an invaluable tool in the age of almost exclusively online
commerce. Thus, if SEO is the missing piece, it is extremely noticeable. Once again, Bath & Body
Works gains a noticeable edge due to one huge factors: website keywords.

The Body Shop gained a slight edge in page rank, and as we all know, if we have to click through
multiple O’s at the bottom of Google search just to find a page, you’re probably not doing a great
job. Of note: both companies scored a perfect zero on locator pages, so there’s that.
Winner: Bath & Body Works

Battle round: Local Ads

In the digital era, targeted marketing rules the day. Tracking buyer habits by localized data means
stronger sales margins.

In another crushing defeat, Bath & Body Works handily outpaces The Body Shop. For large
companies like these, local ads are based more on tracking digital interactions than putting up
television ads or ads in local newspapers. This market excels in targeted experiences, so using
the marketing technology available means that, in many cases, every ad is local. If it pops up on a
social media sidebar, the chances are that it will include a location of a local seller or an online
discount for a local shop.

With that in mind, the real differentiator here was the sheer number of general ads that Bath &
Body Works runs. For companies like this, general brand awareness is often a critical piece of
marketing. With so many reseller opportunities around the country, consumers can usually find a
place to buy if they are familiar enough with the brand to seek it out. Additionally, if the
company as a whole is running some kind of marketing promotion, it will usually be applicable to
anyone no matter where they are. Knowing this, it is clear that Bath & Body Works’ tactic is to
build general brand awareness so that the top-of-mind factor translates into sales whenever a
consumer is faced with the two different brands in a buying opportunity.

Winner: Bath & Body Works

Brand Battle Winner: Bath & Body Works