Bodyshop loses customer support, lol

[EightMonthsScared]

Thought I'd post this for people (like me) who emailed their CEO a couple to years ago about how they were alienating their core demographic, us.

Remember how we were dismissed. Oh well.

https://www.ft.com/content/02e5b3dc-62f3-44cb-b55c-8a99cf1b90a

The article doesn't actually (sadly) reference the menstruators argument but I think it's got a lot to do with it. I feel like that was a Ratner moment for the company.

I'm another teenager of the 80s who smelled of Dewberry all the time. I loved the huge number of sizes so you could stretch your Saturday job money/student grant as far as possible. Peppermint foot cream gift basket for mum for Mother's Day. Introduced us to the concept of body butter! And it was radical - Anita Roddick was an inspiration, a working mum setting up a successful business with strong ethical considerations that were well ahead of her time, like recycling/reusing containers and fair trade for suppliers. Ultimately you were cool/trendy/right on if you had Body Shop products.

I stopped going in when they discontinued the old ranges. Some classics are classics for a reason - my grandma used Pears soap and Oil of Ulay/Olay all her adult life until she died. It seems some businesses are good at recognising why they have their core customers and keeping them even while updating and modernising, and some are not (looking at you M&S and your appalling clothing ranges)

While we,'re on brands that retain loyal customers for lifetimes and even generations....

Yardley - originally founded in the 18th century, English Lavender launched in the 1930s, still going
L'air du temps perfume - my late mother:s favourite, launched in 1948, still going
Chanel No. 5 - launched in 1921, still going

What everyone else has said rings true for me too.

They sold out their ethics when they sold to L'Oreal
They discontinued the products I loved, the whole style and ethos of the Company and shops changed for the worse.
The hike in prices for products not worth that price point
Their misogyny and the attack on JKR

I won't miss them when they go the true tragedy is that it needn't have come to this. Reap what you have sown Body Shop.

Yes,like Sidewaysotter I haven't shopped in Lush since they funded hunt sabs either. Two people I know have been abused and threatened by them,one was a teenage girl ,minding her own business, walking her dog,the other,a middle aged mother who found a group of balaclava and masked men on her property.

Dd1 has been sworn at by them when out on her horse,I've told her not to react,just grey rock them. They don't care about animal welfare,just a bunch of thugs who get off on scaring kids and get paid to do it.

Are they even ethical anymore? They are certainly expensive!!

After the whole 'educate yourself' nonsense aimed at JK, I held out hope that some out of control teenager was left in charge of their twitter account.

The CEO could've repaired some of the damage by saying something to that effect. But they dug their heels in even further.

So like many others here, I won't miss them. Misogyny just isn't something I want to fund.

Maybe someone should tweet a link to this thread to them.

A few MNers on this board, including me, received emails from the Body Shop that said the company had noticed we didn't open the emails/shop there any more. Each email included a link to a survey so we could explain why.

So the store absolutely does know that some women have stopped shopping there because of its tweets at JKR.

Agree with everything that’s been said.

Used to shop there regularly, but haven't spent a single penny since their ill judged campaigns against JKR. Good riddance. And same with Lush.

I had £150 of shopping in my basket the day they did that to JK Rowling. Cancelled my account, told them why and have never shopped with them again. Neither has my teenager- the very demographic that they should (still) be attracting.

Been a body shop customer since the 90s. Loved them in my teens, shopped there for niche things in my twenties, lip stain and heating masks etc. lifeline when I lived abroad in country that had dubious animal testing practices. Was addicted to drops of youth range.

And yet, since JK I have boycotted. Went there and stayed there because morals. Left because morals and I've got staying power. It'll be bittersweet when they fold, they have strayed so far from their ethical routes I can't be sad but will mourn what they were before they started claiming they didn't know what a woman was whilst targeting them for their crap MLM schemes.

Totally off point but why did they get rid of the perfume oil bar? 🥲

If I were her, I'd have been fucking petty and bought them up so they'd have to answer to her. But I'm a bit of a bitch like that sometimes.

😂💪😁

The BS has always been a bit shifty IMO. The original concept was created by two women in California who started a small cosmetic company with a perfumed oil bar, using recyclable bottles. They painted the shop dark green and called it The Body Shop as they had shop space in a car repair business’s premises. Anita R came across the business on her travels. The Roddick’s eventually paid the two women for the rights to the name in the US. So Anita didn’t actually come up with the concept.

For me the MLM arm (started in 1994 as a party plan business; MLM pre internet) was a sure sign that they weren’t nearly as ethical as they wanted us to believe. There are so many people who have been badly ripped off having fallen for the lies coming straight out of Body Shop At Home’s HQ.

Then the sale to L’Oreal. That damaged them hugely. L’Oreal was not a company core Body Shop customers wanted anything to do with. Then the JKR business which was rightly hugely damaging for them as so many women voted with their feet.

I went into one of their shops recently having not gone into one since the 90s (no intention of buying). It was just incredibly bland and expensive for what it was. It was also quite a hostile environment; I was watched like an hawk and hassled. It was empty so I felt very conspicuous and couldn’t wait to leave. Other companies have come along doing things better and time is up for Body Shop, they’ll have to nick some new ideas.

I'm another who loved the Body shop as a teen, wouldn't go near it now. Likewise lush for all the reasons above.

On a tangent though - they've been bought by Aurelius, the same company that bought Lloyds Pharmacy. The body shop will be gone within 18 months, I'd put money on it.

@InflagranteDelicto I think you’re right. I can’t imagine it surviving. I had heard that Body Shop at Home was the healthiest bit of the business but I find that hard to believe as it’s burned through its victims and those that haven’t already been burned by the BS MLM and are unaware simply don’t have the cash to speculate on a spare bedroom full of body butters (they then can’t sell) and become their own best customer.

I loved the body shop scented oils, particularly one called Chypre. The wee glass jars of lip balm and the vitamin e cream too.
Now, it's hideously overpriced. I've hated the shops for decades - those horribly aggressive sales staff pursuing you round the store drove me right back out of the door.
It's lost its way, its lost its customers and in the current incarnation, will be no loss when it finally implodes.

I agree with your point about companies hitching their wagon to every social justice cause. Take everything else out of the equation and it just feels so cynical and lazy to me, just turning with the tide without an actual moral compass.

That's what made The Body Shop so unique in the first place-it stuck to its guns when it came to ethical consumerism. What they could have spent the last few decades focusing on is still that writ large. Or they could have picked one area of focus under that banner - say palm oil - and focused all their efforts on campaigning against that. But no, it's just whatever is being shouted about the loudest that month.

If you stand for everything you stand for nothing.

Thanks for this, I wasn't aware of the origins of the business.

@Ereshkigalangcleg this is quite old but you might find it interesting https://jonentine.com/a-social-and-environmental-audit-of-the-body-shop-anita-roddick-and-the-question-of-character/

Yep, that was my final straw.

A few years earlier I had a till assistant insisting I had to tell them my birthday, so that they could send me greetings and birthday offers, allegedly. It became quite a stand off and I think I ended up not making the purchase.

I want a shop to sell me products with the qualities I am looking for at a price that suits me. I don’t want them to tell me what to think on any issues unrelated to their product.

I was an early customer of theirs, back when their only shop was in Brighton. Stayed with them through thick and thin even when I was broke! But over the last 20 years or so their stuff stopped being unique, and quality dropped as well. As soon as the JKR debacle happened I vowed never to buy Body Shop stuff again.

Same here. I did the same search, was appalled. I have however kept going in on my birthday to cash in my £5 birthday treat. My dh was confused as to why since i was boycotting; but my theory was that i wasnt spending any money and was just costing them money.

I'm another who stopped buying after the anti-JKR campaign so I didn't know about the price rise. It was a pity at the time as I liked the products and BS was one of few shops here.