10th October 2019
Belfast One sat down with Jenny from The Body Shop's Donegall Place store to chat products, events and more...
The Body Shop story started with Anita Roddick’s belief in something revolutionary; that business could be a force for good, and in 1976 The Body Shop was born. The Body Shop believes they have always done things differently, broken the mould, been bold, been brave.
The Body Shop has been in the city centre for around 15 – 20 years and are part of the top 50 stores in the UK. There are around 150 – 200 Body Shops in the UK, however, there is only 3 in Northern Ireland, making Belfast the flagship store for this region.
We sat down with the manager, Jenny to find out more about the products sold and things you may not have known!
Tell us more about the products and services you offer?
Vegan/ Vegetarian Products
All of our products are cruelty free. We have also got a massive range of vegan products and all of our new products being launched in the future are going to be vegan, so from 2020 The Body Shop aims to be 100% vegan but at the moment we would be 100% vegetarian, the only two ingredients in our products that stop us from being vegan are honey and beeswax. There is nothing else in them that are from animals and everything is completely cruelty free.
Offers
We always have offers on in-store such as, 3 for 2 / buy one get one half price. We also have a loyalty card which allows the customer to get £5 back for every £50 they spend and receive a £5 voucher on their birthday!
We now have a recycling bin for customers to take back their empty packaging and recycle it in store – they can do this in 3 simple steps!!
- Speak to a member of staff if you want to return & recycle their empty packaging
- Put their empty packaging in the bin – Terracycle Cycle, Recycle & Repurpose it
- ’Love your body’ club members will receive a reward worth £5 when they return any 5 of their empty bottles, tubs, tubes or pots.
Is there anything special add-ons that customers receive when they come into the store?
Make-Up Applications and Consultations
We have a skin care and make-up expert in the store, Sammy, who would prioritise this element of her job. Sammy would run events all the time where we would do themed events such as festival event for those booking in for festival make-up but we also have available slots for customers who want to book in for other events and occasions.
We also offer facials and body treatments for customers if they feel like a mini pampering session. We offer hand and arm massages with a range of products in-store. So, the customer would get what we would call the ultimate demo: a wash, a scrub and a body butter or a body lotion all applied with a little bit of a massage.
What product(s) would you recommend the most / what’s your favourite product
We have a range of icon products within The Body Shop which are products that have been iconic to the company in one way shape or form like Hemp hand creams are one of the major ones, it’s the bestselling hand cream in the UK and it’s our number one selling product in the whole company.
Our banana and ginger range are amazing, and they are the products that we would be known for. The banana shampoo has banana puree in it and smells amazing, it smells like banana sweets.
My personal favourite product would probably be the vitamin C skin care range. These products are really good for brightening the skin and it is really good for giving the skin a nice radiance so it is good for dull or tired skin but its great for giving your skin a nice glow.
Is there anything we didn’t know about this store?
Although there is a few in the UK, we are the only store in Northern Ireland to have a skin care and make-up expert.
What’s next for this store?
We are looking at to promote and grow The Body Shop as best we can, we have done a lot of work with local bloggers and have done loads of events with them so what we are kind of trying to do now is outreach as much as possible and to try and create a more buzz in the store. We are also going to host events that are different to our norm, for instance at the end of July 2019 we had a health and well-being invitation only event where a few mental health experts came in and chatted about their experiences and we based the whole event around the importance of self-care and looking after yourself. So, things like this are what we are really trying to increase going forward.
We have also teamed up with local colleges and we are doing a lot of fresher fayre’s this year and we would also do a lot based around students – we always have student discount all year round on Unidays.
Overall, it is mainly trying to host more events to really branch out and collaborate with local bloggers and businesses to grow our business as best we can.
To keep up to date with promos, new products and up-coming events follow The Body Shop Belfast store on Instagram
