Golden Skin

As a chain-smoking pot-bellied character with appalling teeth and skin, I’m the last person that has any right to be spouting opinions on health & beauty, but I shall proceed to do so anyway. Part three of the scintillating series chronicling my grand tour of the great and good of Canadian retail sees me casting my eye over the HBC scene in Canada, and I must confess that a lot of what I saw was fairly impressive, both in terms of comparisons to the sector a few years ago and in terms of what is going on in the sector elsewhere in the world.

 

My back of an envelope guestimates suggest that Walmart is the global leader in HBC retailing and number three in pharmacy, so a brief mention of Bentonville’s finest would not go amiss here, particularly as this is supposed to be a blog about Walmart.

 

As in categories such as grocery and consumer electronics, HBC appears to have been one of the departments that has flourished amid the whole Project Impact and store remodelling programmes. Some areas, such as fragrance and cosmetics, have been improved beyond recognition, with the inclusion of some heavy branding by the likes of L’Oreal and Revlon lending the department a great deal of authority and no small amount of style. Yet another sign that Walmart is transitioning away from the jack of all trades approach to mass-merchandising and instead devoting expertise and resource to the categories it can do well.

 

  

 

HBC is one part of the store where the use of co-branded Save Money Live Better end-cap displays are used extensively, suggesting that vendors in this category are seeing a lot of benefit from participating in the co-promotion, as it presumably doesn’t come cheap. All in all, HBC – like consumer electronics and grocery – is an area where Walmart has improved its offer exponentially in North America.

 

Canada’s specialist health & beauty retail sector, as compared to areas like grocery, home improvement or electronics, is one that is relatively bereft of incursions from the USA. While one could have been forgiven for assuming that the likes of Walgreens, CVS or Ulta would have become active in Canada by now, the fact of the matter remains that retailers such as Walgreens still have huge potential for ongoing expansion in the US before they even have to think about looking for international opportunities.

 

The market leader by a mile is Shoppers Drug Mart with around 1,300 stores trading eponymously and under the Pharmaprix banner in Quebec. In the two or three years since the last chance I had to amble around an SDM store, the retailer has really raised the bar, particularly in areas like beauty products, grocery, organics and private label.

 

 

 

The stores I saw had really benefitted from the addition of Beauty Boutique areas: instore departments selling a convincing range of mid- to high-end cosmetics and skincare. Brands such as Lancôme, Bare Escentuals, Smashbox, Biotherm, Benefit, Guerlain, Dior and L’Occitane (I really don’t have the faintest idea what I’m talking about here, totally alien territory) were housed in a very charismatic way, with distinct branding and lighting. The department would not have looked out of place in an upscale department store such was the quality of the fixtures, flooring, lighting etc. The nearby fragrance and jewellery area was pretty darn nifty too.

 

 

 

The food category has got a lot better too, boosted by the arrival of the Nativa organic private label range. Nice product and nice packaging.

 

The real highlight from Shoppers Drug Mart was the relatively new Murale standalone beauty concept. The store I saw was located in the Don Mills retail development on the outskirts of Toronto. Everything all the way from the store front to the charming customer service at checkout was a delight. The décor was colourful without being garish and the overall store design was logical and well segmented. The range was extensive across a wide range of beauty categories and there were myriad value added services available, such as makeovers, personal shopping, a brow bar and a bridal makeover service. Only one negative sentiment: in the 30 minutes I was in there, I didn’t see a single other customer, so I don’t know if they might want to stick a bit of cash behind marketing to drive awareness.

 

   

 

Elsewhere, I was pretty impressed by Rexall, the chain of independent pharmacies operated under the Rexall brand by Katz Group. The store I saw was in Southampton, the namesake of my majestic hometown, and I’m delighted to report that the version in Ontario is as picturesque and beautiful as Southampton in the UK.

 

 

Rexall offered a very clean and well organised store design. The food and drink section was executed to a very high standard while the mainstream HBC range was notable for its breadth and depth, complemented by a clearly demarcated fragrance and cosmetics area with dedicated shelving and lighting. Customer service was faultless. Good work.

 

Perhaps less enticing was PJC, although I think I’m right in saying that I didn’t visit what Jean Coutu would regard as one of its flagship stores. Located in a fairly grubby strip mall, the store was a bit on the small side and therefore slightly cramped. It certainly sold everything that you would expect from a drugstore and had a busy pharmacy counter, but overall the experience was one not dissimilar to if Walgreens opened a store inside a phone booth. It was hard to gauge the level of customer service, as I think the shop assistant had been rendered somewhat emotionally damaged by my increasingly risible attempt to ask for ‘nail clippers’ in French. C’est la vie.