SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
The Body Shop is focusing on products made out of natural products and natural ingredients. They believe these products will give the Body Shop a distinctive niche which will attract customers whom believe in environmental friendly products and that are more environmentally aware.
The brand value of the Body Shop will be of a high standard, due to the education of their staff and service. Their staff has a clear-cut strategy of branding their product. The Body Shop also have a manufacturing industries in the third world which have created many new job opportunities and have improved the reputation of the Body Shop globally. The products the Body Shop supply to the market or often of a high quality priced between mass merchandised cosmetics and exclusive department store lines, which further will attract customers.
The Body Shop is also a highly attractive employer with as much as 5000 applicants at one point. This allows The Body Shop to be selective when hiring in order to make sure employees share the values and beliefs of Body Shop. This is to further implement the view customers have of Body Shop being environmental friendly and a caring company.
The profound and technological knowledge behind the products supplied by the body shop has been done through fieldwork. Fieldwork made by the owner asking, people with great skin on their particular secrets for their skin.
Weaknesses:
A weakness of the Body Shop could be its excessive political involvement, which can disturb the sales of the products or cause internal complaints as not every franchiser share the exact same views as Anita Roddick.
The company is limited by only reaching out to the female market and has limited products attractive to the male market. In contrary of the environment friendly product the transportation of the products are not as environmental friendly.
The
References: Independent (2006a) L’Oreal buys Body Shop for £652m [Online] Available from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/loreal-buys-body-shop-for-pound652m-470244.html Independent (2006b) Body Shop 's popularity plunges after L 'Oreal sale [Online] Available from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/body-shops-popularity-plunges-after-loreal-sale-473599.html The Scotsman (2007) Roddick reveals she has hepatitis C 'and it 's a bit of a bummer ' [Online] Available from: http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/roddick-reveals-she-has-hepatitis-c-and-it-s-a-bit-of-a-bummer-1-682194 Bloomberg (2007) L 'Oreal Body Shop Acquisition Gives Investors Greener Returns [Online] Available from: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aGBHjOUx95c0 Source: Forbes 2007 [Online] Available from: http://www.forbes.com/2007/10/16/environment-energy-vermont-biz-beltway-cx_bw_mm_1017greenstates.html