INTERNATIONAL. Contineo Labs, owner of Generation Research, and The Moodie Davitt Report have struck a partnership that will offer regular data & analysis on the performance of the travel retail industry across a number of key categories.
In a first step, The Moodie Davitt Report will lend in-depth commentary to Contineo Labs’ TR Toolbox data, led by its Lighthouse Index, a robust tool that tracks global sales evolution by region on a monthly basis, in partnership with category champions. This vital benchmarking service will soon be available on a subscription basis each month.
Contineo Labs and The Moodie Davitt Report will also support each other on other projects.
Contineo Labs & Generation Research CEO Alex Seret said: “Contineo Labs and Generation have been working tirelessly over recent years to improve the access to reliable sales data in the industry. While most of this work is happening in the shadows, we are glad to be able to count on our partnership with The Moodie Davitt Report to bring life and context to our data. The industry knowledge and network of our partner is key to the growth of our Lighthouse project, and we are looking forward to next steps.”
The Moodie Davitt Report Founder & Chairman Martin Moodie said: “We are pleased to partner with Contineo Labs and Generation on this benchmarking project that we hope will soon span multiple categories. There is an urgent need for data & insights on category sales and trends in our channel, and we see potential to develop joint research that will add value to the industry.”
The initial Lighthouse project – for the fragrance category – combines thousands of data points with the latest business aggregration methods, leaning on sales from a global prestige beauty house. The TR Toolbox dashboard that outlines how the category has performed on a month-by-month basis through 2019 and 2020, worldwide and by region.
In particular, the findings offer a forensic look at the impact of COVID-19 in 2020. As that turbulent year began, fragrance sales based on the Lighthouse data slipped by -4.3% year-on-year worldwide in January. But the effects of the pandemic on Chinese travel in the run-up to Chinese New Year were already becoming evident – with sales in Asia Pacific sliding by -16.94% in the month. Against this, they increased in both the Americas and Europe markets and recorded a slight decline in the Middle East, with the full impact worldwide yet to hit.
From that point, the acceleration of the decline became more acute at global level, with fragrance sales falling by -18.8% in February, before the calamitous halting of international travel brought much of the business to a standstill from March (-63.53% for the category year-on-year).
The pace of decline mirrored the speed of lockdown by region, with Asia slowing dramatically (March sales were -71.82% compared to -41.24% in the Americas, where governments reacted later to the pandemic, in broad terms).
April, May and June proved the worst months of 2020 for the entire travel retail sector, reflected in year-on-year declines in fragrance of over -90% in each, a picture mirrored across each key region.
The performance of fragrance offers a useful snapshot of how the short-lived recovery in travel retail took shape around mid-year, as the northern hemisphere travel season began and markets, led by Europe, partially opened up.
July sales fell worldwide by -76.16% year-on-year, with outperformance in Europe (-73.5%) and Asia (-72.38%). The Asia performance can be mainly attributed to recovery in China domestic travel and in the surging offshore duty free business in Hainan – where a new system of increased allowances took effect from 1 July 2020. Even though fragrance plays a secondary role to skincare or makeup in this key market, the turnaround in sales says much about the strength of the recovery in China and the rise of the domestic duty free business.
The relative improvement of sales in Europe continued to lead the way in August and September (global sales were down by just under -70% in each month), but government restrictions on travel from this point smothered the previous partial recovery.
In mitigation, the return of domestic and some regional travel in the US and other Americas markets fuelled a limited recovery in Q4, with the year-on-year differential in fragrances as low as -56.28% in the Americas in December. China’s recovery continued to deliver signals of positivity in Asia, with sales down by -51.75% in the same month. The pick-up in Middle East travel, which like other markets benefited from a lift over the holiday period – meant that fragrance sales were -50.88% in that market, contributing to a global average of -61.09%, after falls of -72% in each of October and November.
Highlights of the past two years’ data are available here: https://www.tr-toolbox.com/lighthouse
Contineo Labs will feature monthly updates on the data to clients, with regular updated commentary from The Moodie Davitt Report on the changing shape of the fragrance market and the dynamics underpinning sales.
Data & commentary on a further ‘Lighthouse’ project – for the confectionery category, will follow soon.
As noted above, the partners will also collaborate on further projects, including:
- Developing new ‘Lighthouse’ projects by key industry category
- Analysis of the ecommerce market in travel retail
- Commentaries on the output of Generation’s category panels (led by Beauty and Confectionery)
*More information can be found at this link: https://www.tr-toolbox.com/lighthouse
It houses a dashboard outlining the full two years’ worth of fragrance sales data. A chat box on the website allows guests to interact with the research specialist on how to build further data, how to receive monthly updates and to deliver similar insights for other categories, with Contineo Labs seeking further ‘champions’ for data partnerships.
For more contact: alex.seret@contineolabs.com or martin@moodiedavittreport.com
