Revitalizing with a Cruelty-Free Touch: The Body Shop’s Comprehensive SWOT Analysis

About The Body Shop

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Founded by Anita Roddick on March 26, 1976, The Body Shop stands as a testament to her resolute belief in the power of entrepreneurship to fuel innovative thought. In the nascent stages of her journey, she gleaned that business transcends mere commerce, entailing the creation and offering of products that hold intrinsic value, compelling people to invest in them.

Guided by her unwavering principles, The Body Shop has evolved into a multi-local enterprise, boasting a remarkable presence with more than 2,200 stores dispersed across 55 diverse markets.

Beyond being a profit-oriented entity, The Body Shop embodies a transformative force dedicated to catalyzing societal change, nurturing the environment, and enhancing the well-being of individuals. Pioneering the charge for a cruelty-free beauty industry since 1989, their advocacy first led to the prohibition of animal testing in the UK. Presently, they champion the global cessation of cosmetic animal testing, exemplifying a commendable initiative that resonates with compassion and impact.

Products of The Body Shop 

The Body Shop has been successfully rising in the cosmetic market for half a century by selling – 

• Cosmetics
• Skin Care 
• Perfumes
• Body Care
• Accessories/Skin Tools

Competitors of The Body Shop

They are a boatload of cosmetic brands in the industry. However, these are The Body Shop’s top major competitors – 

• L’Occitane
• Yves Rocher
• Lush
• Weleda

Now that we have tackled the areas that give us insight into the company’s core business, let’s look into the SWOT Analysis of The Body Shop.

SWOT Analysis of The Body Shop 

SWOT Analysis is one of the most proven management frameworks, which helps the company to know about itself so that it can stand out with its strengths and improve its weaknesses, exploring more opportunities by overcoming threats.

1. Strengths of The Body Shop

The strengths of a brand make them stand out from its competition and increase employee morale! Following are the Strengths in SWOT analysis of The Body Shop.

• Huge Franchisee Network: They have over 2200+ stores across the globe and a presence in 55 countries with well-designed stores attracting customers through their ambience. 
• Strong Digital Presence: Strong digital presence always helps a brand to reach more target groups and build relationships with their customers. The Body Shop is doing that! They have over 2 million followers on Instagram for their content. Remember, brands or small companies’ digital presence has become a must for everyone these days as a maximum chunk of your target customers are online! 
• Brand Loyalty: The Body Shop has a great number of loyal customers. They form communities online helping each other with beauty tips, being loyal to the brand and making repeat purchases.
• Unique Product Portfolio: They have an amazing set of products to cater for all beauty needs from face washes to shampoos. They all are natural, dermatologically tested and completely safe.
• Sustainability: Their concern for the environment and society makes them stand out from the competition. Their campaigns talking about animal cruelty has made them closely connect to people who think the same, helping them build a good brand image. 
• Problem-focused innovation: They don’t just create products for selling rather, they create solutions through their products. Researchers say that 89% of cosmetics users are looking for natural and harmless substitutes in place of chemical and synthetic cosmetics. There is a huge consumer base for them!

2. Weaknesses of The Body Shop

Weaknesses are the things that pull down the brand. But, identifying weaknesses early would help the brand to solve the problem quickly before it messes up! Following are the Weaknesses in SWOT analysis of The Body Shop.

• High Prices: The initial founders of the body shop thought that customers would pay a few bucks more for their natural products and that worked that time. But as time progressed competitors arose with the same niche market and at competitive prices. It has become somewhat difficult for The Body Shop to compete with price. 
• Media Influence: Their digital presence and relationship with their customers are differentiating them to a great extent to stand out from the competition. 
• Slow service: Their Stores are located in crowded areas and customers are exhausting their time to wait for their turn to shop for products. 
• Franchise system: As The Body Shop manages its stores through a franchise system, there is a lack of control by the proprietors. 
• Supply Chain: When it comes to supply chain, The Body Shop has a great supply chain in the United Kingdom. Whereas when it comes to stores outside the UK they need to be more efficient. 

3. Opportunities of The Body Shop

Opportunities are key factors which when improved would help the company improve itself and grow exponentially!  Following are the Opportunities in SWOT analysis of The Body Shop.

• Growing importance for health: Customers are hesitating to use cosmetics that might harm them due to chemical ingredients. They need to work more on this pain point to get nearer to their potential customers. 
• Building an omnichannel supply chain: As we have already discussed, The Body Shop stores are crowded. So they need to build more channels to sell their products, ensuring a seamless customer experience. They need to work on selling online through their website and apps providing customers with the best experience. 
• Advertising: The Body Shop from their initial days used to save costs on advertising and rely on a word to mouth marketing and retaining their customers. It was acceptable in the past, however, today, with the great influence of digital media, digital advertising has become simpler with google ads and social media ads with just a fraction of what was spent a few days back. Digital marketing has changed the way brands communicate. The Body Shop needs to explore this. 

4. Threats of The Body Shop

Last, in the segment of the SWOT Analysis of The Body Shop, we have the Threats. These are external factors that can pose potential harm to the company if not recognised and catered to as early as possible.

• Changing customer preferences: Customer behaviour is dynamic. No one can predict what customers think at a point in time. People are tending towards natural beauty and lessening their use of cosmetics as few are perceiving it to be fake. So people are accepting others as they are. This behaviour of customers might be a threat for these cosmetics brands. 
• Heavy Competition: There are 1000’s of cosmetics brands these days across the globe. Differentiation would be a difficult task. There is competition in every segment like pricing, products, supply chain, etc. Companies need to compete in every segment to stand out from others. They need to be different and highly relevant! 
• Accumulating raw materials: The Body Shop gathers its raw materials from across the globe. So, if there is some disturbance in the producing country or difficulty in supply chains would disturb the manufacturing. 

A SWOT Analysis is an excellent way for big businesses such as The Body Shop to break down their operations and understand managerial risks and rewards. The SWOT Analysis of The Body Shop comes to a close with this. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, The Body Shop stands as a venerable presence in the cosmetics sector, boasting a longstanding legacy and a commendable reputation. Beyond crafting cosmetics, they emerge as trailblazers in championing environmental protection and advocating against animal cruelty within the industry. Their diverse range of natural and ethical products has garnered a devoted following, solidifying a robust customer base.

Employing the digital landscape adeptly, The Body Shop has ingeniously harnessed the web platform’s capabilities. Leveraging a spectrum of digital marketing strategies including SEO, email campaigns, and content marketing, they effectively showcase their latest offerings and promotional endeavors. This strategic approach has fortified their brand presence and resonated powerfully with their discerning audience.

Gaining a professional understanding of the Digital Marketing business is essential for working in the marketing sphere of a high-end cosmetics company like The Body Shop. IIDE offers short-term certification courses that can get you up to speed in as little as five days in a range of digital skills and expertise. IIDE’s short-term certification courses on areas such as social media marketing, media strategy, and SEO. 

If you enjoyed this in-depth SWOT Analysis of The Body Shop. Check out our IIDE Knowledge section for more interesting case studies. Thank you for taking the time to read this, please comment below with your opinions on the case study.