How Eastern inspired Rituals is taking accessible luxury into global markets
Published July 20, 2011 - Retailer and manufacturer Raymond Cloosterman, Founder and Chairman of Rituals, the beauty and homeware brand inspired by Eastern culture, is looking to expand his accessible luxury label in global markets. He tells yourbeautyassistant.com that while some companies have been hit by recession this is the perfect time for expansion.
“We want to create a global luxury brand with accessible prices,” says Raymond Cloosterman. “We want to do what Zara has done for fashion with beauty.” Raymond benchmarks the standard of his company against the very best premium brands, with equal elegance and quality, but with 40-50% lower prices.
Accelerated Growth
It is this price level and brand proposition that has seen Rituals move into an accelerated growth pattern, explains Cloosterman. “Rituals is about awareness and quality of life. We help people to enjoy the little things of life and to change daily routines into meaningful rituals. We believe we’re recession-proof. There’s always a need for pampering. People might postpone buying a new house or car, so they’ll treat themselves to a small indulgence. Also, people are trading down from very expensive face creams to more affordable but high quality products like ours.”
Using mainly natural and organic ingredients and renewable resources, Rituals was founded in the Netherlands at the end of 2000. It already has around 175 stores in 11 countries and while it has big plans for expansion, this will be carefully managed, according to Cloosterman. “Rituals stores are in Holland, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, the UK and Germany and we recently moved into Italy and Sweden. Store openings in Turkey and Brazil are on the agenda as well, therefore we will be present in 13 countries. We’re talking to many different countries but we have to be careful. We’re still young and we need to manage our growth and manage our supply chain.”
House of Fraser stores in store
Cloosterman says that Rituals has a three-fold growth plan: “Our epicentre is our stand-alone stores, moving out to store-in-stores followed by distribution in airlines and luxury hotels, an area that’s building rapidly.”
Store-in-stores offer a major opportunity for Rituals and inspired by its success in the high-end Dutch department store chain de Bijenkorf, where, it is the second largest beauty brand, the company is planning to open several outlets within House of Fraser. “We feel very confident about this and hope to achieve a leading position in UK department stores as a lifestyle brand,” says Cloosterman.
City Spas expand lifestyle proposition
This lifestyle proposition has opened another avenue of growth: City Spas. Rituals has opened its fourth city spa in Heemstede (Holland) and will roll-out the concept to more stores in the next few years. “It’s taking the concept of Rituals a step further,” says Cloosterman. “We’re offering a 30 to 90 minutes escape from reality at the high street level.” The spas, which are attached to Rituals stores, offer products and treatments based on rituals from around the world, including the Hammam and Ayurveda.
“Our long term ambition is to create a global impact in 10-20 years,” he says. “In closer markets we’ll opt to open stores ourselves. For more complex markets, we’ll also look at partners for development.” The immediate impact will be a shift from 40% to 50% company ownership, underlying the growing maturity of Rituals.
Picture Caption: “We want to create a global luxury brand with accessible prices,” says Raymond Cloosterman, Founder and Chairman of Rituals
