British company Molton Brown recorded impressive growth of +57% in 2016 for its travel retail business.
The increase was driven by strong organic growth (+23% like-for-like) and the addition of new business with Zainab Duty Free and Ambassadors Choice. Overall global growth in 2016 was +9%.
Molton Brown Associate Director, Export Sales Tim Pluess said: “Shoppers in every channel and region of Molton Brown’s business are embracing the brand more than ever, and it is a really exciting time of sustained growth. I’m delighted that travel retail is leading this increase through the close business partnerships we have, and our go-to-market strategy for travel retail – yet there is still so much more we can achieve.”
Molton Brown focused heavily on the improvement of its in-store execution last year and concentrated its investment in four key areas:
- Increasing staffing and level of services to build up its customer experience in travel retail locations
- Improving the look and feel of its counters through refits such as London Heathrow Terminal 4 and increased visual merchandising props investment in key locations
- Increasing the frequency of promotional activities to support all three blockbuster campaigns
- Driving footfall to its travel retail locations through a partnership with Condé Nast Traveller and collaboration with British Airways.
Pluess added: “We have been looking at ways to align the customer experience in travel retail with our stand-alone stores. For example, we are now able to offer our signature hand and arm massages in more locations in travel retail thanks to the sinks we have introduced as part of our refit programme.
“We’ve been able to create exciting in-store theatre in key locations by investing in the same visual merchandising props and decoration as our stand-alone stores to bring to life our beautiful and compelling stories of exploration. This created a very positive environment for our products to perform with all our key categories and core blends being on a plus, and our new product development being very well received by our customers.”
2016 also saw “record-breaking” launches for Molton Brown’s Dewy Lily of the Valley & Star Anise and Rosa Absolute collections. Pluess said: “We’ve seen dramatic growth for our EDT and home fragrance categories showing that our strategy to offer an overall luxurious fragrance experience as opposed to just a bathing ritual is paying off.”
Molton Brown will continue to pursue its strategy of international travel retail and duty free expansion in 2017. The brand said it is keen to look at opportunities to strengthen its collaboration with key partners such as Dufry and Lagardère Travel Retail to meet its objective to be featured in the top 20 airports by 2020.
