From South Korea to Canada: An International Cosmetics Experience

Korean cosmetics have recently seen a growth in popularity. As a beauty junky, I was thrilled when the Korean cosmetics brand The Face Shop opened a location in West Edmonton Mall in 2014.

Background

            The Face Shop emphasizes the use of natural ingredients. Products include various skin care, makeup, and hair products; there are even men’s collections! As stated on their North American website, The Face Shop “is a beauty destination offering affordable prices on high quality products.”

An assortment of The Face Shop products

            The Face Shop’s first location was launched in December 2003 in Seoul, South Korea. Within a year, it had entered other Asian countries. By May of 2006, The Face Shop had opened its first North American location and possessed over 100 overseas locations. Jumping ahead to April 2012, The Face Shop had expanded to 930 stores in 21 countries. In April of 2014, The Face Shop had reached 2,300 stores in 29 countries worldwide.

Atmosphere

            One way The Face Shop emphasizes their brand image is through atmosphere. The stores use bright lights and very earthy, clean colours to highlight “natural” beauty. Signage is minimal, with banners in the front windows and posters of models portraying the “natural” look. Products are categorically organized, making them easy to browse. However, they are arranged so pristinely I feel I am disturbing their shelves by touching them. While there is a large selection, the WEM location often experiences stock-outs that can last months, causing frustration for loyal customers. I have been unable to repurchase several of my favourite products for months; however, I always return to see if it has been re-stocked.

The Face Shop in West Edmonton Mall

         
            The Face Shop also effectively utilizes the concept of a transition zone. Most customers turn right when walking through transition zones. The Face Shop keeps their pricier, high-end products on the right! Also, customers are greeted immediately. Personally, I have experienced a 100% interception rate by employees. However, employees often follow-up too frequently, I find browsing stressful and the staff pushy. Despite this, they offer great product knowledge and someone is always available to help.

Celebrity Endorsement

            The WEM location has used endorsement campaigns from various Korean celebrities such as singer Suzy Bae and actor Soohyun Kim. It has utilized cardboard cut-outs of both Korean icons. My friends and I – avid fans of Korean pop-culture – have gone to the store simply to take pictures with the cut-outs! We heard of The Face Shop because of these campaigns. Originally our loyalty was with the celebrities, but after trying the products our loyalty expanded to the brand itself.

Suzy Bae (left), Soohyun Kim (right)

            The store also plays Korean pop music; my friends and I have stayed in the store longer just to hear our favorite songs. The longer we are in the store, the more often we make a random purchase because we usually go in as unplanned shoppers. Since The Face Shop’s opening, I have never left without buying something.  
While the use of Korean pop-culture may draw in a specific segment of people who enjoy this subculture, it may act as a deterrent to those who feel they do not meet the brand’s target demographic.

Value

            For many retailers, value does not equal price. Compared to other stores, The Face Shop offers high-quality products at all prices. I am willing to spend more on higher-end products since I am confident in their value. It is impossible to ignore the fact that The Face Shop offers great products at an affordable price.

References

http://international.thefaceshop.com/index.jsp

https://thefaceshop-america.com/en/

Duchess: Experience World-Class Pastries Without Leaving the City

Since 2009, Edmonton has been home to a unique and one-of-a-kind-bakery located on 124^th Street that cannot be found anywhere else in the city and the store goes by the name of Duchess Bake Shop. This bake shop integrates European culture alongside Edmonton culture to provide an exceptional experience for their customers. The store focuses on providing high quality pastries and baked goods but as an added bonus, an additional store is connected to the bakery by the name of Duchess Provisions that sells all the best bake ware and ingredients used to make their delicious treats. The owner of Duchess, Giselle Courteau had first gone to Japan for four years to learn how to cook and through that experience, perfected how to make a macaroon and many other pastries. This small store now has become so big that it can serve a couple hundred people within the first hour of opening on weekends. Although there is only one store, the quality of food and service is enough to convince people to make the drive down to the bake shop even if the store is inconveniently located. People are even willing to stand in line for long periods of time so that they can make their purchases and most will overlook the price because of the high quality products.

The store format resembles an early 19^th Century Parisian style having white walls with gold moldings and gold ceilings. They have modern tables and chairs that do however resemble French café style seating. The display counters that hold the pastries are clear and not very cluttered so that consumers will be able to see all the desserts they offer. All the pastries are made the day of, at the back of the store in their kitchen. Unlike stores like Tim Hortons that continuously make their donuts throughout the day so that they do not run out of stock, Duchess makes only a specific amount of each pastry in which they sell till they are out of stock. The only exception to this is their very popular Macaroons, which is the most sold product which is why they produce lots of them in order to meet demands. While a person can just stop by the store to purchase some pastries, the store also has a seating area so that people can relax and enjoy their treats. The owner of Duchess, Giselle Courteau, has gone above and beyond to make sure that customers know that their experience is a priority. They have even gone as far to have their drink menu be drawn by hand with extensive detail.

I’ve heard many great reviews about Duchess from many friends but it never meant anything to me until I had gone myself to Duchess a couple weeks ago for my first time. The overall experience of my trip to Duchess had made me fall in love, from their physical environment to the wait staff and even their pastries exceeded expectations. The store was designed to look elegant and comfortable so when I was there, it felt like my purchase was luxurious and so the price was overlooked. Although the store is far away, I would make the trip again.

 Resources:

http://duchessbakeshop.com/pages/about-us

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/food-trends/behind-the-scenes-of-edmontons-duchess-bake-shop/article25499694/

http://landfaculty.com/work/duchess/

Converse: Will the Timeless Shoes Ever Go Out of Style?

Converse is debatably one of the most iconic and recognizable shoe brands of the past century. Walking through the university halls between classes, and provided you’re looking, it’s hard to go more than a few minutes without seeing someone wearing a pair of their classic sneakers. The company started in 1908 primarily making galoshes and other rubber shoes. Then in 1917 Converse revolutionized their product selection with the introduction of the All Star “Chuck Taylor” basketball shoe. Sales started off slow but eventually began to gain traction as consumers began to purchase their shoes for many purposes other than playing basketball (ChuckConnection). Converse publicly recognizes this unique fact about the popularity of their All Star shoe on their website when they write, “The name stuck. What didn’t stick was their intention… We made them to sink jump shots on the court. You, however, saw them as something more… and started wearing our sneakers to do whatever you wanted.”(Converse). The popularity of Converse shoes has been consistently stable through the ages, with periods of popularity explosion as seen in the 80’s 90’s. Now in the mid 2010’s it seems that the classic Converse shoes are back in style and the brand could very well on track for yet another explosion in popularity.

Throughout the ages Converse shoes have provided people with a unique way to portray their identity. In the 80’s and 90’s Converse experienced a Grunge Explosion phase where the shoes were extremely popular with “rebels, rockers and punks”; they even became the shoes of choice for bands like Guns N' Roses, Pearl Jam, and eventually Green Day. Ironically during this phase Converse was still trying to position itself in athletic footwear as they were named the official sponsor of the Los Angeles Olympics, but yet again consumers refused to use the shoes for the purposes that Converse had been promoting them for (Bustle). No matter how Converse chose to promote and position their shoes, the grassroots trickle-up trends and styles for wearing the shoes led consumers to challenge norms and use the shoes for reasons of self-expression. 

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYPzPXMfp8Y

Nothing helps you make a statement or stick out in a crowd like a loud and norm challenging pair of sneakers. Converse eventually recognized the unique relationship consumers had to their shoes, and responded by increasing the breadth of their product selection. Now you can get a pair of their classic shoes in almost any style, material, and color. This increase in product selection demonstrates how Converse is not only utilizing, but promoting the unique trickle-up trends and use of their shoes for individual expression. The sheer size of Converse’s selection essentially allows consumers to customize their individual style and way they express themselves.

Source:  https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/44/de/7c/44de7ce7e709299fd4a35f7d1471bc9d.jpg

Just last summer the increase in popularity of Converse caught my eye. Sure, I had seen them around and had known of them for many years, but this was the first time I had ever considered purchasing a pair for myself. I let it slide for a few months because I don’t usually like making impulse purchases, but I finally had to give in and jump on the bandwagon. I purchased two pairs of the Chuck Taylor All Star’s, white and black, both low cut. The next night I wore a pair out to meet up with my friends only to find that two of them had made the exact same purchases as me. Immediately a heated debated erupted as to who would be returning which pair. This wasn’t the first, and certainly won’t be the last, instance of a group of friends all making similar purchases in a response to explosive trends in brand and style popularity. But I believe that Converse’s cyclical popularity explosiveness, followed by a return to a more steady demand and popularity makes them unique when compared to other shoe brands whose demand may diminish away to zero after the consumer craze ends. Converse will always have that grassroots consumer segment of the stereotypical hipsters, if you will, who use their shoes as expression tools, until the classic shoes once again catch the attention of the style spotlight and bandwagon jumpers like myself.


References:
http://www.chucksconnection.com/history1.html

https://www.converse.com/us/en/about/about-us.html

http://www.bustle.com/articles/19882-how-did-converse-become-popular-a-brief-history-of-the-iconic-sneaker

Maintaining Relevance Throughout the Rise of Electronic Retail

Growing up with an older brother, I became familiar with video game retail at a very young age. I have vivid memories of pushing my way through the cramped, overcrowded aisles of EB Games during the holiday season in an attempt to get my hands on that year’s hottest game. The environment was always stressful and the employee-consumer engagement was minimal at best. In retrospect, I can appreciate that the store was lacking in those components, because they didn’t need to fulfill them in order to be successful. They had products that appealed to a specific niche of consumers who were going to shop there regardless of the atmosphere or the service that they received. Demand has been so high in the past that people have spent hours, even days, lined up outside of the stores in anticipation of the release of a new game. Here I will focus on GameStop whose value proposition was put to the test with the introduction and eventual growth of the interactive online market in which to purchase games.

A Brief History

GameStop began to recognize success and growth in the early 2000s. In 2002 they took their company public, and in 2004 they spun off from their parent company Barnes & Noble. In the five years following their liberty, GameStop would aquire EB Games and Micromania officially making it the world’s largest video game retailer. Although there was competition from stores such as WalMart and Best Buy, The GameStop family remained the only retail stores focused solely on gaming.

Maintaining Relevance

With the shift from buying games in stores to buying games online, it became evident that GameStop needed to make some radical changes to their business model. There initial strategy was to become more engaged with the customer. On their website now, the first core company principle listed is to “stay customer centered.” How are they doing this? In 2010 they launched a proprietary loyalty program called PowerUp Rewards, which attracted over ten million members in the first year alone.  Another strategy that GameStop has implemented is to sell digital downloadable content themselves. This approach is meant to target adolescents and teenagers who don’t have access to a credit card as well as adults who are not comfortable giving out their personal information online, yet still prefer the digital content to the physical discs. This strategy was successful in increasing the traffic into the store. Perhaps the most successful strategy that GameStop has implemented, that gives the company an edge over the online world, is their trade-in program. Consumers are encouraged to return their video games and game consoles to the store in exchange for store credit or cash when they are no longer being used. This strategy is targeted at the individual who wants to play a game, beat it, and then move on to another game. This gives the consumer the incentive to continue purchasing the physical discs and also increases traffic into the stores. As the industry moves towards digital downloads, GameStop continues to have a competitive edge by offering benefits to the consumer that the online world simply cannot. They have proved to be a very adaptable and innovative corporation.

Sources

http://www.gamestop.com/

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=130125&p=about#ourhistory

http://careers.gamestop.com/about-us/core-principles/

http://www.businessinsider.com/gamestops-strategy-is-working-2015-1