"We really believe the white space is out there for us to attack," Neil Fiske said during a presentation earlier this week at the Citigroup Retail Conference and Field Trip in Miami.
Fiske said he expects to double sales to $5 billion, grab a larger chunk of the beauty product pie and add "destination brands" to the company's offerings by focusing on products, distribution channels and store platforms. Through that three-prong approach, Fiske said he hopes to turn the Columbus, OH-based firm into the dominant beauty retailer in the marketplace.
The bath and beauty chain, which has more than 1,700 outlets nationwide, has already begun the transformation. The company plans to roll out a series of new products and will add what Fiske termed "destination brands" such as C.O Bigelow, Henry Bendel, American Girl and Pat Wexler, to its mix of in-store offerings. Those "destination brands" will also show up on the shelves in stores owned by the firm's parent company, Limited Brands, to give the beauty product retailer a multi-channel outlet for those products, said Fiske, who called it "an exciting new concept for us."
But it's not only about branding. The company also plans to give its stores a vibrant new look that it hopes will ring up higher sales at the cash register. A new website, which broke even after only three months of operation, and a planned catalog may help. Last year, the company struggled with uneven performance and a lackluster holiday shopping season to emerge from a three-year turnaround period as a $2.3-billion-a-year retailer.
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