In 2016, Rituals enjoyed considerable shop presence growth with new outlets at airports including Edinburgh, London Gatwick, and Manchester.
Neil Ebbutt, Director Wholesale, Rituals Cosmetics: “Our travel retail business acts as a highly effective shop window to fast forward international status and awareness for our brand, and an important accelerator of our overall geographic expansion.”
“We have enjoyed considerable success in all our travel retail business channels over the past six months or so, not least in airports, but also onboard cruise ships and ferry lines, all of which taken together accounts for 65% of our sales in travel retail,” enthuses Neil Ebbutt, Director Wholesale, Rituals Cosmetics.
When it comes to travel retail in airports, the luxurious home & body cosmetics brand has a flexible business model that means it can partner with duty free retailers as a wholesale supplier for shop-in-shop fixtures, as well as deliver Rituals branded standalone airport shops.
“Expansion of our airport standalone portfolio is very much a priority for us,” Ebbutt explains. Rituals currently has a strong presence at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol with two airside shops in T1 and T3, and a third landside. The brand also has stores at London Stansted, Stockholm Arlanda, and Zurich airports, and it recently opened standalone shops at both Vienna Airport, managed by Welcome Trading, and Eindhoven Airport, managed by Lagardère Travel Retail.
“The great advantage of a standalone shop is the extra space it gives us to offer a very much wider range of products, and to create opportunities for experiential engagement with them,” says Ebbutt. Indeed, the brand’s stores at Schiphol are the perfect place for travellers, with each having a spa attached.
Looking ahead, Rituals is determined to continue its success in the future. “Rituals’ ambition is to build a global lifestyle brand and our global distribution strategy covers direct retail, wholesale, online and travel retail,” Ebbutt concludes.
