SS Beauty to Bank on Aggressive Omnichannel Model, to reach 25 Doors by Next Fiscal: Biju Kassim, President Beauty, Shoppers Stop

Shoppers Stop is betting big on its young beauty sub-brand, SS Beauty. The recent collaboration with Earthi, a four-decades-old Ayurvedic skincare brand, brings the departmental store conglomerate to a blend of time-tested herbal benefits and modern technology. That’s exactly what any health-conscious young customer seeks across the market. 

SS Beauty: Then and Now

A concept that was conceived pre-pandemic, SS Beauty now has 10 retail doors out of Shoppers Stop’s total retail footprint of 271 doors across 50 cities. One can also walk into an SS Beauty outlet at major international airports. Having Earthi share the same in-store and digital space with luxury makeup brands such as Bobbi Brown and M.A.C Cosmetics, SS Beauty seems to embark on an inclusive space for every skincare requirement. Biju Kassim, Customer Care Associate & President Beauty, Shoppers Stop, decodes the trend ahead.

An offshoot of Shoppers Stop, SS Beauty enjoys the crucial business insights and customer recall of its parent brand for over three decades in the departmental store space, independent stores, and shop-in-shops. “SS Beauty began with a couple of stores pre-pandemic. The pandemic provided special circumstances to the world, challenging the young brand with new ways to approach the target audience. Post-pandemic, the brand is pursuing this target group aggressively with intuitive collaborations and a holistic product offering,” Kassim said. 

Diversification with Ayurveda

With Earthi Ayurveda, SS Beauty explores the efficacy of herbal skincare treatment through a simple, user-friendly mode of application.

“In its true form, application of Ayurveda is slow, tough, and cumbersome, although its benefits are of the highest level. Today, few D2C brands have managed to successfully offer a solution that is easy to use, comfortable, and effective. That is where Ayurveda stands out,” said Kassim.

Such a product range also finds traction among the millennials and Gen Z consumers who root for cruelty-free, eco-friendly, vegan products that are devoid of harmful chemicals. Earthi brings the right story of a product range that is clean, and provides more options for skincare enthusiasts to choose from. Kassim shares that Earthi products will have a complete omnichannel availability within SS Beauty. 

Unique Omnichannel Experience 

SS Beauty is strategizing towards a seamless offline and online journey, not only because of current consumer shopping trends, but also because beauty as a vertical, demands a lot of touch-and-feel factor for the products offered and services rendered. Therefore, besides being a true omnichannel player, SS Beauty is more indexed on brick-and-mortar retail stores. 

However, that opens new scopes for improvement in customer care, which the brand is ensuring with in-store product customization services such as ‘make your own lipstick’, ‘hair and skin analyzers’, and ‘make your own fragrance’. “We are currently at Stage 1 of the engagement and these are happening at physical stores because of the availability of gadgets and instant demonstration before customers in-store. This depends in retail consumer behavior. While virtual try-ons will be online, skin and hair analyzers and will be at the store level,” he said.

Since online is synonymous with user convenience, the brand is also developing an independent beauty app called SSBeauty.in. They have also enabled endless aisle, wherein a customer can walk in, make their choice based on preferences and book products at the store for at-home or at-store delivery as per convenience. 

Such variegated services have created favourable factors influencing retail consumers as well as digital trends. They now nurture a media mix for a heterogenous customer base, some of whom prefer shopping online, and the others prefer to walk in to explore latest in-store experiences. 

“Online was highly indexed during pandemic. Now, customers want to return to the shops for new purchases, while repurchases keep happening online. Although preferences have become more dynamic post-pandemic, digital will stay at the core, because we all believe in a phygital concept that is being executed fast. That is the new world order. Transformation is rapid,” Kassim maintained.

 
Loyalty programs and at-home care 

Shoppers Stop has one of the most successful loyalty programs in the name of First Citizen, which provides no-queue billing, reward points across the year, and a whole lot of other benefits. The brand innovated significantly with their White Glove feature aiding conversions massively during lockdowns. It enabled a customer to have a shopper help him/her in her specific buying journey on WhatsApp through secure payment. 

Then there is a program called Personal Shopper, wherein a customer can book an appointment in advance, come, get the curation he/she is looking at, buy the products, get the services at dedicated lounges and check-out counters.  All these ecosystems are translating into the SS Beauty concept where we have beauty tools and services.

“We’ve always kept customers at the center across all retail/online elements. Our studies conducted give rise to qualitative and quantitative aspects of consumers’ thought processes. We upgrade those based on the voice of the customer methodology,” said Kassim. The loyalty program, engagement tools, and brand offerings have now empowered Shoppers Stop to create a separate loyalty program for SS Beauty as well.

Retail, Digital Revenue Mix 

Currently, SS Beauty is around 8-9 percent of online penetration, and aims to steadily scale this up to 12-15 percent in the next stage, and the 25 percent mark in the prestige product segment. “As the metrics depend on the existing product mix, we are looking at a 12-13 percent online penetration for mass products, which can go up to 25 percent in the next 5 years,” he added.

Growth Predictions for FY 23-24

SS Beauty is gearing up for a breakthrough expansion spree, and the numbers do the talking. “We are working on a couple of large projects, one of which is a large 3,800 square ft store coming up in Terminal 2, Bengaluru. We are also working on an 8,800 square ft mall coming up in Quest Mall, Kolkata. This will probably be the largest beauty store in the country. We also have 8 projects in the pipeline for 2024. So, we should close this fiscal with 12 doors and about 25 by the next fiscal,” Kassim maintained.