The Beauty Launch Pod Show shares insights, know-how and advice from industry experts on how to develop a successful beauty business.
Janet interviews beauty brands, retailers and experts across the beauty industry. She delves into the details of how changing trends have influenced the way in which people shop and discusses what it takes to make an impact in this sector.
In this podcast we cover marketing, product development and retail as well as how mindset, positive psychology and your health and fitness are critically important to building a successful business. We aim to educate, inspire, and showcase people who are doing incredible things across the industry.
Through sharing experiences and stories of how people go about launching their beauty brands and how retailers are adapting to accommodate the changes in the marketplace, we can help those on a similar path make things happen.
The purpose of developing a brand is to create something that your customers need and want. This week Janet lifts the curtain behind the scenes to share more about how retailers work, she speaks with Karien Boolsen from the beautiful city of Cape Town. Karien is the Merchandise Executive for Private Label for Clicks in South Africa and for Sorbet.
The Clicks Group is a leading retail group with a portfolio of brands that includes The Body Shop and Clicks. Clicks is South Africa’s leading pharmacy, health and beauty retailer with over 646 stores and 500 in-store pharmacies. The Clicks ClubCard loyalty programme is one of the largest in South Africa with over 7.5 million active members. Their product range includes mass and premium beauty, toiletries, baby, men’s, home and pharmacy.
Clicks have developed a range of beauty products for South African salon brand Sorbet, which are sold through Clicks stores and through Sorbet salons. Sorbet has over 92 shades of foundation, that took Karien and her team over two years to bring to market due to their extensive research. Karien shares how Clicks selects brands for their portfolio and how they went about developing Sorbet Cosmetics for such a diverse range of skin tones.
Listen in as Karien shares
* How Clicks are South Africa’s leading pharmacy group with a very strong health and beauty offering, catering to a diverse portfolio of customers, with over 11 official languages of which English is spoken by 10% as their first language.
* How Clicks relies heavily upon their customer database to ensure that they are developing and launching products to meet their customers’ needs.
* How she and her team developed Sorbet Cosmetics, a range of over 600 beauty products, of which 170 are cosmetics and 30 professional make-up tools.
* How they created over 92 different shades of foundations, and the depth of market research they conducted to ensure that these matched their customers skin tones.
* The importance of brand positioning, pricing, promotional campaigns and competitors when presenting your brand to Clicks, who are looking for innovation at value prices.
Bespoke is a brand management expert with deep industry knowledge, extensive experience and a comprehensive understanding of the beauty and personal industry in the UK and Europe, complemented by an extensive network of contacts in the relevant market segments. Bespoke’s expertise, experience and contacts significantly contributed the success of the UK/Europe project with the companies that Bespoke assisted successfully entering or well on track to enter the UK and European markets. The Bespoke team was very professional, responsive and obliging and always delivered within timeframes. It was a pleasure to work with them.
Working with Janet over the past year has been a real pleasure, she has fantastic industry experience and knowledge of the UK beauty market. She has delivered a number of webinars for my clients looking at how to enter the UK market, providing an overview of the market and how to build a strategy. She took the briefs we provided and added real value to them, included key insights and information that my clients have found incredibly useful. Feedback on these sessions has been very positive. Janet is a clear communicator and has always delivered as agreed and on time. We are continuing to work together on other projects and I very much value the conversations we share.
‘Janet has a wealth of experience across retail, buying and marketing. She conducted a full strategic review of our cross functional business and the travel retail market to develop a comprehensive buying and quality control strategy that was signed off at board level. I highly recommend her as an asset to any business.’
‘As a Queensland-based company, we were determined to tap into the European market and establish a strong presence. From the very beginning, Bespoke Advantage demonstrated a deep understanding of our export goals and objectives. Their comprehensive knowledge of the European market, coupled with their extensive network of contacts, enabled them to connect us with key decision-makers and influential stakeholders in our target countries. Their strategic guidance and insights were invaluable in shaping our export strategy and positioning us for long-term success.’
‘Through Janet’s management skills, expertise and proven track record on the job she successfully managed the purchasing of our retail operations and ensured the integrity of our brands in-stores. Her enthusiasm and total dedication, delivered results in any project she was involved in.’
‘Janet has excellent beauty market knowledge. Level headed with clear vision, direction and the ability to drive business forward, Janet led the teams through a complete product design change advising on what the key marketing messages should be, incorporating her technical knowledge and beauty expertise.’
‘Absolutely fantastic course. Condensed learning from Janet, an expert in developing beauty brands. Also, valuable introductions to expert professionals, in the Masterclass sessions. In 12 weeks, you will learn from Janet, what would take years to learn by yourself. A very worthwhile investment’