The Body Shop

[thursdaygrumbles]

Reading the news today, the body shop was bought recently. They’ve just announced that it’s gone into administration.

What the hell, is this a tax dodge, asset stripping or something else?

every company has to do it’s due diligence, the financial position would have been very clear, banks would have to sign off on it.

It just sounds so dodgy, can anyone enlighten me on why they would have done this so soon after buying it

It’s a combo of not keeping a finger in the pulse of actual shoppers, following shiny new trends, being misogynistic and allowing ninnies to play with the social media accounts.

I like the hemp hand cream in tube- unless they have changed the formula recently??

That was the best handcream for me -

It used to be such a different shop, accessible for teens. So many good memories. Now it's ridiculous prices and aggressive selling as soon as you walk in.

A long time ago they had a baby range (Mama Toto?) which they dropped. It was so nice and gentle - really good for delicate skins or allergies.

why couldn’t they just keep up with nice stuff, not too smelly, not horribly expensive, less preachy…?

Does anyone know if the new vegan hemp hand cream is as good as the old formula? ( guessing not)
Phenomenal price hike to £16!!!!!!

They've fallen a long way since their heyday of the late 80s when the shops were packed with me and my friends buying up body butter, white musk and lovely smelling shampoos.

I love their satsuma-scented soaps, gels, body butter etc. I used to have rhino shaped satsuma soap in the 90s 🦏 🍊

I’m surprised that they lasted this long. I have happy memories of the Body Shop in the 90s but they are now overpriced and low quality these days.
I do feel sorry for staff losing their jobs.

it's in a really difficult market position IMO. Most of their products are not cheap enough to be in the "everyday" kind of bracket, but not nice enough to be the kind of treat you ask for on your birthday. When I was a teen it was definitely pocket money prices.

Although I do still buy their soaps - one of my DC has eczema and oddly she can tolerate their bar soaps better than any of the specific sensitive skin ranges we've tried.

It was a complete rip off from start to finish

www.aei.org/articles/queen-of-green-roddicks-unfair-trade-started-when-she-copied-body-shop-formula/

I used to buy for friends daughters from their wishlist but I also stopped after that ridiculous and demeaning targeting of JKR on Twitter.

They use a franchise model, no idea how it will work for the individual shop owners.

Yeah. It's a bit reminiscent of the Bud lite fiasco in that brands that are lost already are the first to grasp at the shiny 'in thing' without considering the views of their core shopper base.

Plus they dipped their toes into the scamtastic world of pyramid schemes AKA multi-level marketing with Bodyshop at Home. That was another nail in the coffin.

Maybe they should have had a read of this, in the bath of course?

This too!
I miss the cheaper more fun bodyshop of old.

Someone is already writing up the case study for MBA courses. So many bad decisions.

They have a MLM business.
They attacked JKR.
Their products are crap.

The news is hardly surprising, is it?

I used to love going in there as a teen and buying all the bath pearls and shaped soaps.
It got too expensive and took itself far too seriously.
They should have reinvented themselves and gone for the retro pound. Fussy peach, white musk, bath pearls, banana shampoo.

Liked it when I was a teenager (wasn't much choice where I lived) but went right off it. I think it was the sense that it was the same subpar products, simply formulated with different headache-inducing scents. All smell and not much else.

Also, the whole feel of the brand seems so dated and tired. Weird mix of shouty student and eccentric middle-aged* hippy vibe. I could never tell who it was for. They could have found a better way to stay true to their original ethos, and I'm sure their (woke) politics put a lot of people off.

*I am middle-aged, no problem with that, but very much not into the wearing purple/tie-dye/incense sticks vibe.

Like others I have boycotted since they trolled JKR

Yep, as with others, I was an original Body Shop customer back in the day. Banana shampoo was always my favourite, actually the Ginger shampoo is still great, but soooo expensive now.

My DD's also loved it for a while, but they stopped all the sensitive and basics ranges, which is what we needed, and replaced with different, more expensive, less basic, new ingredients, which if you read the reviews, are universally hated.

Add that to the woke nonsense, Vegan preachy, JKR hating, and they lost all their loyal customers.

If they’d brought out a Harry Potter themed range they’d be raking it in.

Not all of it is franchised. Their company markets in Asia and Europe were divested a few weeks ago. UK is a company market, and the biggest one. Not sure if they own any of the shops' freeholds but I would seriously doubt it.

If I were them I would close all the company markets remaining and franchise all the shops, leaving them as a wholesaler and brand owner. All of the profit none of the liabilities.

They also spent a lot of time and money reformulating to be 100% vegan, which I think was an attempt to appeal to a younger audience, but of course that's not who actually shops there.

This exactly. They turned on women. Women stopped spending with them. Go woke go broke as the saying goes