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Detailed SWOT Analysis of Lush – Famous For Its Purest Skin Products

Updated on: Nov 30, 2021
SWOT Analysis of Lush - Featured Image

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My name is Aditya Shastri and I have written this case study with the help of my students from the online digital marketing course at IIDE - India's #1 digital marketing institute.

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We have previously written an article on the Marketing Strategy of Lush; however, we are back with another blog on SWOT analysis of Lush – a British handmade cosmetics brand. 

Lush is around the globe, popular for its organic products ranking in the 44th position worldwide. Did you know? Lush excelled in its competition and ranked as 8th best in 2017 according to the top 50 Prophet Brands Index and kept this position for 2 whole years. 

Lush has been there for decades. Their products contain absolutely no harmful chemicals and all kinds of ingredients that are proven to cause allergies and skin reactions. Instead, they use well-tested natural ingredients in their products on humans for guaranteed skin safety and these products are designed and manufactured by hand.

Even though Lush is a 1990’s brand, its marketing tactics have been updated with the latest trends. Lush markets its product offline as well as online, but Lush does not trust traditional marketing tactics. Lush’s central focus has been digital marketing since the beginning of digital marketing popularity. 

However, if you feel the urge to grasp more knowledge about digital marketing. Give a shot to our Free Masterclass on Digital Marketing especially prepared and brought to the table for beginners by our CEO Karan Shah.

This blog has been written to gain a thorough understanding of Lush company, products, popularity, net revenue, and to give an authentic picture of SWOT analysis of Lush.

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About Lush

SWOT Analysis of Lush - Lush Store
(Lush Store, Source: People.com)

Lush is a British multinational company. Its headquarters is in Poole, United Kingdom. The labour of Lush has proficiency in designing natural ingredients and skin problem-free and manufacturing vegan cosmetics by their own hands. The company has numerous products in various designs and scents. It has 951 stores in 49 countries worldwide.  

The journey of Lush began way back in the 1970s when Mark Constantine and Liz Weir used to work for different jobs. They both met in a salon where Liz was working as a beauty therapist. Later, with the experience and expertise of both, they started making and selling hair and beauty products; consequently, Lush came into existence.

Quick Stats on Lush
Founder Mark Constantine & Liz Weir
Year Founded 1995
Origin Poole, Dorset, UK
No. of Employees 4,581
Company Type Private
Market Cap $ 638.45 Million
Annual Revenue $ 533.45 Million
Net Income/ Profit $ 22.6 Million

 

Products by Lush

SWOT Analysis of Lush - Lush Cosmetics Products
(Lush Cosmetics Products, Source: Pinterest)

Lush has a wide range of collections from cosmetics to bubble bars. Some of Lush best buys are Snow Fairy Body Spray, Intergalactic Bath Bomb, Cinnamon Roll Bubble Bar etc.

  • Skin-care 
  • Make-up
  • Bath Bombs
  • Hand-made Soaps
  • Personalised Gifts


Competitors of Lush

Lush has an excellent competition. Its competitors are some of the most trusted companies around the globe. 

  • Avon 
  • L’Oreal
  • Sephora
  • Fragrantica
  • Peace with the Wild


Now that we understand the company’s key business, let’s look after the SWOT Analysis of Lush.


SWOT Analysis of Lush

A SWOT analysis compares an organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats against those of its competitors. It’s a fantastic tool for determining whether a company is prospering, failing, or expanding. So, let’s look at the SWOT analysis of Lush.

To better understand the SWOT analysis of Lush, refer to the infographic below:

SWOT Analysis of Lush - SWOT Infographics of Lush

Now first let’s begin with the strengths of the company from the SWOT analysis of Lush.

Strengths of Lush

  • Customer Experience: Lush has proven to be the no:1 cosmetics brand in the United Kingdom because of the marvellous experience that it provides to its customer. While walking in the store customers can sample any product before buying one. The products are placed without any packaging for customers to observe and breathe the aroma of the products.
  • Corporate Social Responsibility: Maintaining a healthy CSR is one of the most important steps a company can take into consideration. Since the birth of Lush the company has maintained a strong CSR. It has started a few campaigns in support of environment-friendly products, eco-friendly packaging processes. 
  • Unique Production: Lush is using organic natural vegan ingredients to manufacture almost 70% of its products whereas 30% contains animal ingredients unfertilized eggs, beeswax and honey partnering with suppliers to bring them the best available raw materials. They believe in keeping it 100% natural. These products are carefully experimented with and tested on real human skin before it enters the market.
  • Packing Budget: Lush prefers selling their product either without packaging or with unique inexpensive and eco-friendly packaging. They use something called starch-based peanuts instead of polyester beads which is, without doubt, the most affordable option; however, do not start chewing it between your teeth. 


Weaknesses of Lush

  • Store Location: Lush has around 900+ stores around the globe; however, the majority of them are not located as individual stores in less popular cities as well as in highly popular cities. The store is located within shopping malls. The maximum number of people would not prefer to visit a shopping mall merely to buy from one shop.       
  • Unable to Catch Up: In earlier years, Lush was a brand that had fewer competitors as their products were limited to bath bombs and hair care. The disadvantage was that there was not much demand for these products. In recent years, Lush started introducing skincare but that didn’t even result in immense profit.
  • High Store Designing Cost: To be in the first position regarding customer service, Lush has set high budgets for designing, decoration and colours. These efforts Lush has made are proven to be successful, but facts cannot be hidden. This budget size is one of the main expenditures of Lush. 
  • Weak Advertisement Strategy: Lush has not considered bringing innovation in its advertisement strategy. After having various digital platforms, it is a must that businesses use these platforms in their favour. The gate to opportunity is wide open if Lush considers innovating their advertisement strategy.

Bonus Tip: Don’t consider taking the example of only one company, if Lush has set back its foot from social media then this is not the same for all. Digital Media works as a strength for many other big companies. So, learning various digital marketing skills will always benefit you, just like IIDE 13+ short term courses in digital marketing are benefiting many of the students to upgrade their skill-set.        

  • Costly Products: High-cost products are always a disadvantage for businesses, the same is the case with Lush. Even so, Lush has irresistible manufactured products. It is still a disadvantage to keep pricing on the higher side. 


Opportunities for Lush

  • Phobia of Chemicals: In this era, people are demanding natural products. In the future, people will even pay a bit higher to protect themselves from chemical reactions and skin problems. There is a chance that overall sales for Lush might increase gradually.    
  • Investing in Marketing: Lush barely spends any money on advertisements. Their advertising expense is 0%. It is important for customer engagement, but Lush has been solely relying on ‘brand advocates’.  
  • Enhancing their Vegan Product Line: Lush has an advantage of a wide range of vegan products with natural-vegetarian ingredients researched, experimented and tested on real human skin by experts. Nowadays, People are showing interest in buying vegan products. 


Threats to Lush

  • High Competition: Despite their excellent products, Lush has been unsuccessful in defeating this market competition since the very beginning. Lush must try new innovative strategies to excel in this competitive industry; otherwise, It will lose many customers and sales.
  • Building Brand Trust: Lush has taken an initiative in the manufacture of make-up products. Lush is not expertise in manufacturing make-up products as compared to already existing competitors, gaining and building trust among its customers is time-consuming and requires a great amount of effort. 
  • Competitors Going Digital: Digital marketing is benefiting the competitors of Lush and disappearing from social media will bring lots of drawbacks for Lush. In terms of consumer engagement, advertising, sales and many more the competitors are in advantage.


This ends our detailed SWOT analysis of Lush. Let us conclude our learning below.

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To Conclude

All in all, Lush has been maintaining a strong CSR profile and environmental sustainability. This has proven to be beneficial for the company as well as the environment. 

Additionally, Lush has excelled all its competition in the United Kingdom, providing the best customer service. It has given a competitive advantage to Lush. On the other hand, Lush must consider developing unbeatable advertisement and digital marketing strategies to beat its competition. 

This case study concluded that Lush is weak in marketing, but with a huge position in the cosmetics industry. There is a very high competition where marketing plays a crucial role, taking advantage of technology not merely in this industry in which every other company is focusing on digital marketing to rise ahead of each other. If you have the curiosity to learn you may check out IIDE’s 3 Month Advanced Online Digital Marketing Course to know more.

We hope this blog on the SWOT analysis of Lush has given you a good insight into the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

If you enjoy in-depth company research just like the SWOT analysis of Lush, check out our IIDE Knowledge portal for more fascinating case studies.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and do share your thoughts on this case study of the SWOT analysis of Lush in the comments section below.

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Aditya Shastri

Lead Trainer & Head of Learning & Development at IIDE

Leads the Learning & Development segment at IIDE. He is a Content Marketing Expert and has trained 6000+ students and working professionals on various topics of Digital Marketing. He has been a guest speaker at prominent colleges in India including IIMs......[Read full bio]

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