From catalog cosmetics to personal care retail

In the midst of the pandemic, Natura added more than 40,000 people to its network of sellers in Mexico, however, the company wants to go after consumers who do not resort to direct sales by catalog when buying cosmetics or personal care products. , but half of the opening of 6 stores in shopping centers and electronic commerce.

According to the general director of the company in the country, Hans Werner, studies indicate that 1 in 4 consumers in the cosmetics, fragrances and personal care market, buy direct sales, but there are another 3 who are consumers who do not and they seek the convenience of e-commerce or the experience of going to the store and trying the products.

“We want to start knocking on those doors, reach that market, they are other competitors, not only direct sales, they are other consumers with another type of habit and preferences, where we want to take our proposal, so that they have the possibility of knowing the brand, conquer new consumers and turn them into customers”, he stated.

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In an interview with Forbes Mexico, the manager says that the goal of the stores is to strengthen their brand in other markets and platforms, so that other consumers start talking about Natura, since they want to be the number one player in direct sales in Mexico.

“Direct sales is and will always be our main engine of growth, the consultant, the entrepreneur, will always be the person we are going to care for and protect the most so that they continue doing business, but in order for them to continue doing so, we have to strengthen the brand, bring more customers, for that we have to go to another side of the market, to those 3 out of 4 who do not know us”.

Therefore, within the strategy of physical branches, Natura contemplates the opening this year of 6 stores in shopping centers in a first block to learn from this new model; the first will be in Interlomas, the rest in Satélite, Santa Fe, Perisur, Punta Norte and one in Queretaro, without specifying the amount of investment, which would employ 50 people.

While the e-commerce strategy is based on the same logic as the store: go for those 3 consumers who do not buy direct sales, go for that person who likes convenience, being at home, comparing prices online, through from your Natura page directly.

Pandemic does not stop growth

Hans Werner says that the past year was "atypical and accelerated", where in the first months of the pandemic uncertainty did generate a drop in sales, however, in the end they managed to recover, achieving double-digit growth, in addition to adding to close to 40,000 new consultants who saw in them an option for entrepreneurship.

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In this sense, he specified that in direct sales the image is usually that of a personal business, but they had already been working on its digitization and the pandemic took them prepared to continue operating and not stop at any time, adapting to the policies and regulations that he was tracing the government.

“Some plans that we had planned to do in the next 2 years had to be done in 3 months, without a doubt the words atypical and accelerated are what summarize the year; however, it was very positive for Natura, we had 2-digit growth, many people joined in wanting to market our products”, he highlighted.

In fact, he highlighted that they reached more than 300,000 consultants in 2020, against about 260,000 in 2019, which represented a growth of approximately 40,000 people, who saw a business opportunity due to the low risk, being very small investments.

He also said that, although in the period from March to May 2020 there was a drop in the client's consumption rate in the face of uncertainty, later they began to get back on track and the earnings of their consultants remained in line compared to previous months. .

Hans explained that they also registered a change in the trends and products that people bought, since in the hardest moment of the pandemic the nail polish and makeup categories fell; while in articles such as liquid soaps they increased.

“This year we started very well, with double-digit growth, the growth rate of consultants continues with more people joining, we see that digitization is here to stay… we see that the categories of makeup, solar projector, enamels similar to pre-pandemic ones return , so much so that we now encourage ourselves to expand a little more to open stores and e-commerce”.

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