Sephora Greater China Managing Director

Page created by Dan Davis
 
CONTINUE READING
RETAIL & CONSUMER JOURNAL                                       INTERVIEW

                    MAGGIE CHAN

                                  Sephora   Greater China
                                            Managing Director

© Oliver Wyman                                                          1
RETAIL & CONSUMER JOURNAL                                                                                                                        INTERVIEW

                                          How has your customers’ behavior in China                with our customers. Unsurprisingly, private domain
                                          evolved in the past 12 months, and how have              traffic has become very much top of mind for online
                                          they been engaging with you and your channels            business in our sector.
                                          and brand?

BRINGING
                                                                                                   Finally, the pandemic has not only driven change
                                          The past year has been transformative in many ways.      in how customers shop, but also in what they

OMNICHANNEL
                                          Let me focus on a couple of points and how they          are looking for in terms of product proposition.
                                          relate to Sephora and our direction going forward.       We have noticed an increase in the awareness of

BEAUTY TO THE
                                                                                                   sustainability and in how sustainability connects
                                          The first — and most obvious — point to touch            with wellbeing. How do you maintain your health?

NEXT LEVEL
                                          on is the shift to online consumption: COVID-19          How do you maintain your wellbeing and healthy
                                          underlined and substantially expanded the                lifestyle at home? How do you manage for things
                                          importance of online channels for all retail, not just   to be uncluttered, given that everything is arriving
                                          beauty. The rapid expansion of digitization enabled      in a package? In China, this sustainability trend
                                          us to reach and engage our consumers — despite           has translated into a desire for products that are
                                          the temporary offline constraints of lockdowns.          simple, direct, and uncomplicated, and packaging
2020 marked Sephora’s 15th year
                                                                                                   that is less wasteful. The simpler, the better.
operating in China — and what a
                                          The second, somewhat linked aspect are the new,
year it turned out to be for the multi-   much more direct ways we now engage with                 Interesting! Let’s zoom in a bit further on
brand beauty retailer. Recently, Sirko    shopper communities and individual customers             the private domain point you made. Why is it
Siemssen, Senior Partner and global       online. Last year gave a strong boost to live-           that private commerce membership schemes
head of Oliver Wyman’s Retail &           streaming, social media connectivity, and private        and communities are growing so rapidly and
Consumer Goods practice caught up         domain sales. These approaches are enabling us           effectively in the prestige beauty sector?
                                          to connect one-on-one with our customers and
with Maggie Chan, Greater China
                                          build a community around our brand. This in turn         Prestige beauty retail has traditionally been closely
Managing Director at Sephora, to
                                          allows us to better understand customer needs            tied to stores inside shopping malls and department
discuss the impact of 2020 on the         and trends, to more effectively tell stories, to         stores, and relied on a “private domain experience,”
company’s business model and its          explain innovative brands and products, and to           in terms of personal advice and product testing. The
plans for the future.                     add an emotional dimension to the relationship           usual online experience is radically different from

© Oliver Wyman                                                                                                                                             2
RETAIL & CONSUMER JOURNAL                                                                                                                                      INTERVIEW

that: Just seeing a product on a screen is simply not   while connecting it to the offline experience as well.   the platform, order a product, and have it delivered
good enough, because the product is ultimately          Let me highlight four examples:                          to their door within 30 minutes, in 16 major cities in
applied to the skin and influences how we feel and                                                               China. This is a useful capability to have during the
are seen. Private domain is in a sense about bridging   One change that we made is the “Smart BA” (BA            pandemic, but its utility extends beyond COVID-19:
that gap and bringing back some elements of the         for beauty adviser). We launched Smart BA in late        For example, if you suddenly remember you need to
offline experience. This is one of the reasons that     February/early March during the pandemic as a            buy a gift for a loved one on Valentine’s Day or their
private domain is growing rapidly.                      way for customers to draw on the expertise of            birthday — you can go on your app, order a gift-
                                                        our beauty advisers even though they could not           wrapped item, and have it delivered in 30 minutes.
The second reason is that prestige beauty is a higher   be in the stores. By leveraging WeChat, our BAs          At the beginning, this was done in order to bridge
ticket item. There are a lot more requests from         can connect with customers and provide them              the last-mile issue, but now we have extended it
customers for the product experience. Personalized      with advice that is unique to them. Our goal was         beyond that.
service plays a crucial role — not just in terms of     to empower all BAs to provide one-on-one service
bringing authentic customer feedback to us but          and information to fulfill the beauty promise to         We also are leveraging digital to share beauty
also by connecting professional knowledge from          consumers. We basically digitalized the physical         trends in the broader consumer base in China.
the beauty adviser to the target audience in a          touch point between the BA and the customer.             In the past, Sephora China launched beauty
personalized way through social media.                                                                           trends twice a year at a physical fashion show
                                                        We also intensified our collaboration with Meituan,      or conference. But because of the pandemic, we
So, how did you react to all the change?                a last-mile service provider or platform. We rolled      launched our first virtual Sephora Day, which
What changes to your business model did                 out this service, which allows customers to go onto      literally allowed us to reach millions of viewers
you undertake? What lessons did you learn?

As a global prestige beauty company, we have
always been centered on consumers. Consequently,
our retail concept, which we call “True Retail,”
takes a holistic view of the full omnichannel retail
experience across all customer touchpoints. This
                                                               I truly believe that Sephora is on the right track
thinking was very helpful to begin with. It enabled            in China. The real concern was how to protect
us to quickly adjust and optimize our strategy,
proposition, and priorities. Fundamentally, we                 and make sure our employees were safe during
initiated a more direct and close conversation with
the consumer, leveraging the online ecosystem                  the pandemic.

© Oliver Wyman                                                                                                                                                            3
RETAIL & CONSUMER JOURNAL                                                                                                                                     INTERVIEW

much more directly. To maximize the viewership,        some are located in residential and in commercial       try them on. And the Smart BA will then be
we partnered with other platforms, like JD.com and     areas. The type of customer visiting each of those      able to help the customers when they come in
Tmall. Together, we presented 100 new products —       stores has different requirements, both in terms of     the store.
from Sephora and leading global brands.                the time they can spend at the store and in terms of
                                                       their beauty needs. So the stores will be tailor-made   Brilliant! Sounds like you have the right answers
Finally, when launching our Sephora Cross Border       to suit the clientele of the specific environment.      for a lot of the challenges and changes faced by
Tmall Global flagship store, we also coordinated                                                               your business. Still, are there some concerns that
it with key offline stores connected through the       Digital tools will also play an important role in       keep you up at night?
virtual “shelf” in more than 40 physical stores.       meeting the beauty needs of our customers.
                                                       We’ve already mentioned the ability to arrange          The things that keep me up at night are not the
Talking about stores, what do you see as the           a delivery from your store within 30 minutes.           strategy or whether the business is growing — I
future of your stores? Your stores have become         But there are also other digital tools available that   truly believe we are on the right track in China.
famous as real destinations for customers. What        help customers to shop better. For example, we          The real concern was how to protect and make sure
role will they play tomorrow?                          are developing a fragrance ID tool that creates         our employees were safe during the pandemic. At
                                                       a profile for the customer, which, based on             the start of the crisis, we had a very strict focus and
Physical stores will continue to play a key role for   personal fragrance preferences, makes fragrance         protocol that was built around protecting employees
us — especially in building a sense of community       recommendations. There is also a tool that allows       and customers. So many things were happening all
around our brand. We will continue opening brick-      you to visualize how a makeup foundation will look      at once that we had to figure out what to prioritize
and-mortar stores in the right places. However,        on your face, which helps to narrow choices before      in terms of serving the customer and executing fast.
what we see as different for the future is how we go   physically trying them on at the store. Similarly, we   What we learned as a result of COVID-19 is that we
about empowering our community. In the future,         also have Visual Artist 2.0, which is a technology      have a very resilient organization and workforce,
we see the store as being the hub of the community.    that allows you to try out different types of           one that is getting better as we continue to learn
While many of our stores are in shopping malls,        makeup before going to the store to                     and evolve.

© Oliver Wyman                                                                                                                                                           4
Oliver Wyman is a global leader in management consulting that combines deep industry knowledge with specialized expertise in strategy, operations, risk management, and
organization transformation.

In the Retail & Consumer Goods Practice, we draw on unrivaled customer and strategic insight and state-of-the-art analytical techniques to deliver better results
for our clients. We understand what it takes to win in retail: An obsession with serving the customer, constant dedication to better execution, and a relentless
drive to improve capabilities. We believe our hands on approach to making change happen is truly unique — and over the past 20 years, we’ve built our business
by helping retailers build theirs.

For more information, please visit: www.oliverwyman.com

CONTACTS
Sirko Siemssen                                           Maria Miralles                                           Frederic Thomas-Dupuis
Global Retail & Consumer Goods Practice Leader,          Retail & Consumer Goods Practice Lead,                   Retail & Consumer Goods Practice Lead,
Germany                                                  EMEA and LatAm                                           North America
sirko.siemssen@oliverwyman.com                           maria.miralles@oliverwyman.com                           frederic.thomas-dupuis@oliverwyman.com

Pedro Yip                                                Ronan Gilhawley                                          Rainer Muench
Retail & Consumer Goods Practice Lead,                   Retail & Consumer Goods Practice Lead,                   Retail & Consumer Goods Practice Lead,
Asia                                                     Australia and New Zealand                                Germany
pedro.yip@oliverwyman.com                                ronan.gilhawley@oliverwyman.com                          rainer.muench@oliverwyman.com

Nordal Cavadini                                          Coen De Vuijst                                           Salim Poonawala
Retail & Consumer Goods Practice Lead,                   Retail & Consumer Goods Practice Lead,                   Retail & Consumer Goods Practice Lead,
Switzerland                                              The Netherlands                                          France
nordal.cavadini@oliverwyman.com                          coen.devuijst@oliverwyman.com                            salim.poonawala@oliverwyman.com

Duncan Brewer

Retail & Consumer Goods Practice Lead,
United Kingdom
duncan.brewer@oliverwyman.com
Copyright © 2021 Oliver Wyman
All rights reserved. This report may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the written permission of Oliver Wyman and Oliver Wyman accepts no liability whatsoever for the
actions of third parties in this respect.
The information and opinions in this report were prepared by Oliver Wyman. This report is not investment advice and should not be relied on for such advice or as a substitute for consultation with
professional accountants, tax, legal or financial advisors. Oliver Wyman has made every effort to use reliable, up-to-date and comprehensive information and analysis, but all information is provided
without warranty of any kind, express or implied. Oliver Wyman disclaims any responsibility to update the information or conclusions in this report. Oliver Wyman accepts no liability for any loss arising
from any action taken or refrained from as a result of information contained in this report or any reports or sources of information referred to herein, or for any consequential, special or similar damages
even if advised of the possibility of such damages. The report is not an offer to buy or sell securities or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell securities. This report may not be sold without the written
consent of Oliver Wyman.

Oliver Wyman – A Marsh & McLennan Company                                                                                                                                          www.oliverwyman.com
You can also read