Beauty and personal care retail market in Africa
In 2003, archaeologists in the United Kingdom unearthed the world’s oldest cosmetic face cream that is believed to be some 2,000 years old. That sheds some light on the history of human endeavour for personal care. Welcome to 2021, beauty and personal care is now a 500 billion dollar industry globally. This includes personal care, cosmetics, skincare, and fragrances. With increasing population, the demand for products and services in the beauty and personal care sector will only witness more growth. Other factors like urbanization, the impact of social media, improving income levels, and outreach of organized retail including eCommerce further fuels this demand.
Africa fulfils almost all the necessary market conditions to propel a fast-growing beauty and personal care industry. With a population of more than 1 billion, Africa constitutes a humongous market. Africa represents more than 15% of the world’s population but accounts for less than 5% of the global beauty and personal care market in terms of sales. Nigeria, DRC, South Africa, Tanzania, and Kenya are some of the most populous countries here. In Africa, these are all mature markets with increasing urbanization, steady economies, improving internet penetration, and growing eCommerce and other forms of organized retail. But let us also see what challenges are faced by online and offline retailers in this sector.
Challenges for retailers in the beauty and personal care sector
Competition from online channel in the product category
Competing with online players has become a standard for offline retailers. And online marketplaces are a big disruption for traditional retailers. The latter has very little scope to provide price discounts and has a limited customer base while online retailers get access to a wider market especially while operating via the online marketplace platforms which also provides them with the opportunity to tinker with their pricing strategies. But what online retailers are denied here by default is brand identity. Only a handful of listed retailers are able to make a brand name for itself in any online marketplace. If you are planning to open your Beauty and Personal Care eCommerce but don’t have business knowledge, reach out to Salon & Spa Business Consulting Services.
Domination of big brands
With the domination of big brands in the sector, retailers are at the receiving end when it comes to margins. And customers always prefer known brands for their beauty and personal care requirements. It does not require vouching from any beauty salon consultant. In the case of services, the scenario is a bit different. Salons, spas, and beauty parlours are typical examples. Majority of customers go by their personal experiences and local reputation and convenience. Here, the challenge is to provide quality service and brand-building. Persoalized Salon & Spa Business Consulting Services are one of the best way to get knowledge on brand building.
Aligning with customer expectations
Being in the salon & Spa Business Consulting Services, we have been witnessing that an increasing number of customers are becoming sensitive to issues pertaining to the environment, working conditions, animal rights, geopolitics, chemical effects, social media and advertising campaigns, statements made by CEOs, etc. There is not much retailers can do here except to keep a tab on general customer expectations and the global and local happenings and do business accordingly.
Lacklustre marketing
Sometimes it seems as if many offline retailers have given up. They are in a denial mode about going omnichannel or at least having a stronger digital presence. Search engines showing up a store or salon name is not enough. Even if the channel is offline/brick and mortar, there is still a need to reach out to the target audience digitally. Otherwise, the customer base will remain confined to the boundaries of the locality.
Poor attention to customer experience
We are living in times when customers seek a better experience than just the products or services. And in this facet, eCommerce is ahead of offline retailing by miles. Whether it’s a store or salon, offline retailers need to work on improving their customer experience. The real big advantage with offline retailers is that their customers get to experience the store/salon in person. But if they present a buy-or-go impression, that would be considered as a terrible customer experience. Few offline retailers are good at this.
Not taking business professionally
From planning to operations, a business needs to be managed professionally. The biggest reason to do so is that it could make a business organized, sustainable, growth-oriented, and profitable with more certainty. Unlike science, there are no formulas in business but there are theories, practices, and tools for better management. If accounting is so popular, why not take business plan development or business model development with the same level of seriousness and professionalism. An instinctively built layout can prove to be faulty or paying lower than the prevailing standards will lead to attrition and job dissatisfaction. To deal with such challenges you may take the help of Beauty Salon Consultants. Salon & Spa Business Consulting Services not only provide industry knowledge and market research data but also help to develop business model, set up business and integrating business with technology.
How YRC can help: a glimpse
Keeping the best industry practices and challenges of retailing in the beauty and personal care sector, YRC brings forth its domain expertise in retail and eCommerce to help startups and existing businesses establish a robust and competitive personal care retail business. Highlighted below are some of our beauty and personal care market consulting services for Africa.
A good market research is one of the foundations of building a sustainable business. With better inputs arise the possibility of making informed decisions. Our team of Beauty Salon Consultant for Africa are dedicated to helping our clients gain a comprehensive view of the target market with actionable insights for better strategy formulation and practical planning.
YRC’s business plan experts follow a detailed, comprehensive, and systematic process to arrive at insightful financial projections and assessments. This covers the estimation of the capital and initial investment requirements, operational expenditure, sales turnover, costing, purchase and inventory planning, profit and loss projections, ROI and break-even analysis, etc.
Given the product and service homogeneity in the beauty and personal care sector, standing out in the crowd and attracting and retaining customers is a big challenge. YRC’s business model development service aims at building a strong UVP-based business model and the formulating the strategic framework defining the value chain and network of internal capabilities.
In the personal care sector, especially in services like salon and spa, layout planning is not a stand-alone activity. Space and layout requirements can be an outcome of business modelling and the targeted market segment. It will also have a bearing on customer experience. Our layout planning experts and Beauty Salon Consultants for Africa shall help you prepare a robust layout planning for your store or service outlet considering key aspects like intended customer experience to be delivered, optimized space utilization, zone classification, planogram, visual merchandising, store security, and more.
Whether the business is small or large, situated in a gigantic mall or a stand-alone shop, an important requirement for managing it professionally is to have operations manuals. Working closely with your team, YRC’s SOP consultants will help you identify and define the processes and operations involved in your business, establish the operational procedures, and define the expected standards of performance and output.
Enhanced understanding of customer experience and journey opens up avenues for growth in business volume. In the personal care market, both online and offline retailers can tap additional market shares by opting to go omnichannel by the degree required. Our CX experts for Salon & Spa Business Consulting Services for Africa shall assist you in mapping the entire customer journey touching the important digital and physical touchpoints.
We are a boutique retail consulting firm. To know more about our beauty and personal care industry consulting services for Africa or if you have any query, drop us a message and we shall get back to you.