Not easy for online beauty and personal care businesses: YRC (Your Retail Coach)

Taking a business online may sound exciting but being in the industry of beauty eCommerce consulting, YRC confides that it is not easy for the online beauty and personal care businesses ( https://www.yourretailcoach.ae/salonand-beauty-industry ) in any market and it is very much unlike a turn-key phenomenon highlighting some of the most prominent challenges and keeping a few fundamentals right.

Competition from brick and mortar retailers
For eCommerce players, significant competition comes from the local stores and malls. These entities can deliver a better customer experience in terms of display and demonstration. Customers prefer purchases when there are opportunities for trial and demonstration being provided to them. Ecommerce carries an inherent disadvantage here.

Competition from other online players and platforms

ECommerce is no longer a novel channel. Ecommerce players and online market platforms have made a foray into the big markets like India and Brazil and the competition is rife in those markets. Even if there are gaps to be fulfilled, the big challenge here for new players would be to create a commercial-successful business model. Since beauty and personal care products are mostly homogenous, products alone will not be sufficient to sustain a business model. The quality of services, value to customers, brand positioning, and efficiency of the channel and logistics strategies will have bigger roles.

Working with given margins

Customers are extremely particular when it comes to choosing beauty and personal care products. It is common to find customers opting to go by brands they know and trust. This explains why only a few reputed brands hold the majority of the market share. This also empowers these brands to dictate the margins for retailers. ECommerce retailers do not have many options but to go for sales maximization running on an efficient model of procurement and distribution.

Changing consumer behaviour

Consumers, in general, have started to adopt a more prudent approach in their spending habits. Convenience, health and hygiene, and budgeted expenditures are now more important priorities for customers in general. Increasing awareness has also further blurred the line between beauty and personal care ( https://www.yourretailcoach.ae/salonand-beauty-industry ). These aspects of consumer behaviour will play a vital role in brand positioning.

Market research

Good market research ( https://www.yourretailcoach.ae/services/market-research/ ) enables businesses to better comprehend a market on various relevant parameters. This further enhances their ability to make more effective assessments and decisions pertaining to identifying and defining the target market segments, better understanding of consumer behaviour, adopting the right competitive stance, choosing the right channel strategy, etc.

Business model

A good business model must carry a strong value proposition to make the business sustainable. It should also be able to map out how that value can be profitably created and delivered, profitably. Homogeneity of products is a big challenge for retailers in the beauty and personal care sector. Services and business models play a decisive role ( https://www.yourretailcoach.ae/services/business-model-development/ ).

Business strategies

Running an eCommerce enterprise entails various core and non-core business functions. The working of these functions must support the business model. These functions include inventory management, logistics and delivery, fulfilment centre, digital marketing, website/mobile application, IT systems, HR, finance, legal and regulatory, etc.

Business plan

If financial planning and forecasts do not reveal the desired levels of profitability, then there is a need to retrograde and revisit the plans, market assessments, business model and functioning. After exploring the possibilities at this stage, it is also quite possible that the business idea might have to be dropped altogether.

Operational planning

It is important to ensure that every business operation in every department is carried out as it should be. Thus, the operations must be defined and mapped in advance so that there is absolute clarity of what needs to be done – by whom, how, when, and where. The ‘why’ is determined by the bigger business and functional goals. The solution to achieve this is SOP manuals ( https://www.yourretailcoach.ae/services/sop-development/ ).

Staff Training

To effectively and efficiently carry out the assigned duties and responsibilities, providing the right training to employees makes a big difference. Employees got to be doing everything as planned. And to be able to do that, employees must be made convergent not only with their routine duties but also responses to be adopted in the event of any operational lapse staying within the realm of planned operations.
Get advise for E-commerce retail business : http://www.yourretailcoach.ae/contact-us/

Marina Plaza
Al Marsa St
Dubai Marina
Dubai
United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Phone: +91-9860-426-700
Email: consult@mindamend.net

YRC is a Management Consulting Firm with its presence across India & Dubai.
We help our clients build robust management systems which shall help to reduce their involvement in daily operations. We act as "Growth Partners" to our clients and help our clients grow in an organised manner. We have served more than 100 brands till date and are associated with 85% of them.

This release was published on openPR.