Body Shop International - Case Solution

1.0 Introduction – Body Shop International Case Study

a. Company Overview – Body Shop International

The Body Shop International Limited is a British skin care, perfume, and cosmetic company (Bloomberg.com, 2018). It operates in the cosmetic industry, retailing and producing ethically-made natural beauty products. It offers body care and bath products such as body cleansers, body scrubs, moisturizers, lip care, and fragrances.

The company was started in 1976 with Anita Roddick as the founder, and in 2006, it was sold to L’Oréal for about 940 million dollars (Hartzenberg, 2017).

The company is headquartered in Croydon, London, and operates in about 66 nations through concessions, online shops, and stores. According to Mintel (2018), the Body Shop has over 2,500 stores globally.

In 2017, it recorded €1.5 billion in sales with an operating profit of -38.2% (€34 million). The brand was experiencing some difficulties under the ownership of L’Oréal. Before 2016, the company was recording about a 4.9% year-on-year decline in total sales, and for that reason, it was sold to Natural Cosmetics (Mintel, 2018).

To increase its market share, the company started opening concessions in Spain’s El Corte Ingles store chains. The Body Shop retail offering includes over 950 products with brand pricing positioned at the upper end to middle of the mass market (Mintel, 2018). The closest competitor is the Lush brand.

b. Report Purpose

The report’s objective is to explain and identify the marketing mix components and marketing concepts adopted by the Body Shop International Company. Product offerings, place, and pricing strategies will be some of the marketing mix components discussed.

The paper’s primary focus will be expounding on marketing environments that determine the competitive advantage of an organization. Besides, it will center on understanding the relevance of marking environments that influence business operations and the importance of customer needs, demands, and wants.

The report’s purpose will also include conducting a competitor analysis. The aim of these analyses will be to understand the models and concepts underpinning business marketing environments and operations.

2.0 Task 1: Demands, Wants, and Needs

a. The relevance of understanding the needs, wants, and demands of

customers

Successful businesses, including Body Shop International, often concentrate on understanding their customers’ needs, demands, and wants.

As explained by Armstrong et al. (2015), assessing customers’ needs wants, and demands helps corporations build want-satisfying product offerings and value- laden consumer relationships.

Wants are described as the unsatisfied desires of a customer that are shaped by cultural and personal preferences, which boost their fulfillment.

Customer needs are part of human conditions, which is a state of deprivation, while customer demands are the measures of human desires for products/services driven by availability (Kotler & Armstrong, 2014).

The table below provides a summary of the three elements (Kotler & Armstrong, 2014).

The importance of understanding customers’ needs, demands, and wants is to…