France's second largest selective perfume retailer, Sephora, with an estimated 23% of the market, is to redesign its boutiques. Company president Jacques Levy said the aim was not to change everything but to improve certain details so the outlets did not end up as the outlets preferred by "mother". The architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte is to provide new lighting, improve the legibility of customer information and suggest new lines of designer furniture.
The first boutique to be revamped will be opened at the Gare de l'Est in Paris in May at the same time as work starts on the company's leading outlet in the Champs-Elysees. Over 140 boutiques will be adapted in Europe this year out of a worldwide network of over 1000.
Levy has said Sephora is also testing M6 Boutique, a new online sales concept, noting that online perfume sales account for some 30% of the beauty market in the US. Sephora's current internet sales site, launched two years ago, is among the five leading outlets in the network in sales terms.
However, M6 Boutique will reflect current trends towards the use of food products and minerals as cosmetic products and these innovations will be integrated into an offer made up of some 15,000 reference products, including 1,400 under the Sephora brand name. Sephora branded items posted a 44% increase in sales in 2007 and the company is launching about 300 new items a year.
Meanwhile, the company will expand its network in France and internationally this year with 22 new boutiques opening in France in 2008 after the establishment of outlets in Toulouse, Marseille and Neuilly in 2007. Just under 200 new points of sales will be set up worldwide, including between 60 and 70 in China where the company currently has 30 boutiques. In early 2009 Sephora will open outlets in Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore and Malaysia.