BBC article on the Body Shop

[WomenShouldStillWinWomensSports]

This article looked promising as it said it was going to go into all the reasons the Body Shop failed but in reality it had zero thrust or substance beyond "your mum buys it". Which of course assumes that people "your mum"'s age aren't shoppers or members of the economy and only the teenage demographic is worth targeting (which is preposterous). So disappointed. What has happened to actual proper journalism and research these days? Where is all the critical thinking? Surely these people have never written essays at uni identifying the causes of something or doing a critical analysis of a complex issue? And where are the editors asking the hard questions of their journalists to make them better at their job?

It reads like the journalist asked a couple of her friends with good-sounding jobs why they thought it failed and they didn't really know but wanted the PR of being named on the BBC news website so said something anyway.

Five minutes of research outside their own bubble could have told the writer exactly why the Body Shop failed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68273425

I think I'm posting because the misogyny of this article jumps off the page even without the trans issue they're avoiding, writing off an entire demographic because women aren't allowed to age and still be worth anything to anyone.

what did go wrong? I've never liked it, but I always thought it was pretty solid

The Body Shop treated it's adult human female customers like they were worthless in the pursuit of woke issues du jour. The row with JKR put off rather a lot of their customers and many on here were actively boycotting, and they kept digging, but their target market (who they were hoping to attract with this row) actually weren't their customers and didn't become customers based on this PR stunt.

They referred to their customers as "people who menstruate" which is dehumanising.

In addition, they bang the drum of sustainability and ethics but their processes and packaging are less sustainable and ethical than most these days (was great by 1970s standards but hasn't moved on). That puts a lot of people off.

They mistook their customers' interest in ethical cosmetics for their customers being sucked into every issue du jour and being some sort of political rent-a-crowd rather than intelligent critical thinkers.

There's a massive hypocrisy of them trying to position themselves as an underdog while simultaneously being owned by major cosmetics parent companies (first L'Oreal, then the rest).

Meanwhile, they've been outpaced by new brands who appeal to their core demographic better.

So all in all they have no brand authority left and don't seem interested in actually going back to basics and building any.

That's in brief.

Expecting journalism, impartiality or literacy from the BBC these days is pointless.

Oh I forgot the spammy sales tactics they were using to do high-pressure sales in the early 2000s and their MLM party business that probably put a lot of people off, too. Those were also major sticking points. I'd suggest they're a great example of why businesses need to be marketing-led not sales-led because marketing looks at the long term value of a customer beyond the one sale in front of you (and how to actually give customers value rather than "convince" them to buy from you, if you have to convince people to buy from you then you clearly have no faith in your product so how can customers).

I actually used to love the body shop. I loved their body butter - the strawberry one was gorgeous and I used it so much my sweat actually smelt of fruit.

But it became too expensive. And their reward program was complicated and the Boots reward program was much simpler and just better. After the JKR thing I just didn't bother any more.....

@rabbitwoman yes their reward system confused me as a student years ago. It seemed to be more of a loyalty card but it conflicted with their sales people pushing loads of products on me so I couldn't afford to go back for a year in case they did it again. And you had to pay for the fecking card as well, IIRC!

The body shop did decide to target the teen/ young 20’s market - not sure why and everything became scented & a bit pants tbh. I guess Tik tok etc are targeting young children now so while new market. So they went woke to appease this demographic but discovered they were losing out to brands like drunk elephant & had pissed off the older demographic with the spending power. Game over

When they were constantly doing 40% off sales which just about brought it down to Superdrug prices - well, that just meant no one was going to ever pay the £££ for something that was no longer the fun, ethical, environmentally friendly product we'd fallen in live with as teenagers. The sales spamming gave me the ick - but also I could never spend any money somewhere where I was reduced to a menstruating bigot. And I had a lot of money to spend, so <<Julia Roberts shrug>> Big Mistake.

@thedancingparrot yes and instead of identifying their main audience/customers and growing that customer base, they tried to move into a totally new customer base when their finances became unstable. It's about the worst thing a business can do. They were chasing trends but they weren't trendy so it didn't work.
@NeverAHarvester yes as an adult I don't like my time being monopolised by sales people, I know my own mind and want to choose my own products. Also yes to training people to buy things at sale prices meaning that they won't pay full price!

thankyou @WomenShouldStillWinWomensSports that was an interesting response

I was not aware of much of this. They never sold anything that was of interest to me, but I would never use a brand that describes women as "people who menstruate" anyway.

I was surprised they managed to continue after they sold (out) to L'Oreal, as originally their brand was ethical, against animal testing etc.
Plus it got too expensive.
And you couldn't go into the shop without being hassled.

What happened between bodyshop and JKR? I seem to have missed out on quite a lot. I am a big JKR fan

They slagged off JK Rowling, a popular middle aged women, and therefore alienated many other middle aged women. Who were their main customers.

Meanwhile, young wokies continued not to buy from them.

Marketing genius.

It was the hassle that stopped me going in their shops. Our local branch was always empty and the second anyone walked in, they were pounced upon. A polite ‘no I’m fine thank you’ was ignored as they continued to follow customers around staring discussions about every item they picked up. No matter how many times they were told ‘I’m fine just looking’ they didn’t let up. I ended up walking out and never went back

I always feel sorry for the staff in these situations too - they have obviously had instructions from management not to leave the customers alone, even if they can see that it's driving people away.

For me, it’s simple - it’s expensive, and not that interesting. I LOVED the 90s scents and ranges, and even as a teenager I could afford the small bottles of bath foam etc. It also smelled really great and completely different to anything else. They were the ranges every other shop copied!

Although I share your fury at the Body Shop for its mindless jumping on the bandwagon of insulting JK Rowling and women generally with its clumsy attempt to monetise gender ideology, I wonder what evidence you have for saying it was the associated boycott by some women that played any significant part in its downfall?
If anything, it might be the other way round - it was the visionlessness of the Body Shop and its general flailing around with a transformed retail sector that caused it to grasp so ineptly at gender ideology as a way of getting down with the youth.
It has just gone the way of many a brand, being passed about by big global owners who parasitise on its original values without sharing them, dealing with a huge amount of bad-faith competition in relation to greenwashing, navigating the transition to online, etc, etc.
I think it is only from one particular bubble that the trans aspect looks important.

It's the BBC. Not only do they have to match the "news as entertainment" challenge, but also apply their own agenda. It can't be easy.

The price rises made me buy less but it was the woker-than-woke attitude and total disdain for women that put me off for good. Same reason I don't shop at Lush anymore.

I hope it WAS the boycott that brought them down!

Kosta next I hope!

It won't have helped.

I think it was maybe more the final nail in the coffin. It was lost long before that.

I loved the Body Shop in the 90s and have continued to buy online for a long time. It has become too expensive in the last 5 years. I don't think it has anything to do with the JKR attack. Most people aren't interested and it's a minority of its customers. It's definitely the price and quality.