Products by Lush

(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:

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.