Body Shop

The Body Shop International plc, known as The Body Shop, is a British chain of cosmetics stores, now found all over the world. On 17 March 2006, The Body Shop agreed to a £652 million takeover offer by L'Oréal, the French cosmetics group. more...

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The company's headquarters is situated in Littlehampton, West Sussex, United Kingdom. It was founded by Anita Roddick, noted for selling its own line of products not tested on animals, and produced in an ecologically sustainable manner.

History

In 1970, Anita Perella and Gordon Roddick (who would later marry) visited the San Francisco Bay Area, and encountered a store on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley selling shampoos, lotions, and body creams. The store, founded by two local entrepreneurs and also called \"The Body Shop\", publicized environmental concerns, and offered customers discounts for bringing in their own bottles instead of using new ones from the store. The original \"Body Shop\" business continues in the Bay Area as a small chain under the name \"Body Time\", a name they adopted after they sold Roddick the US rights to the \"Body Shop\" name in the early 1980s.

The Roddicks' first Body Shop opened on 26 March 1976 in Brighton, United Kingdom with only about 25 natural handmade products. This store opened next to an undertaker, who complained to the local council about the name of the store. The local bookmaker nearby took bets on how long it would be before The Body Shop closed. In response to these oppositions Anita Roddick wrote a letter to the council stating that she was a housewife with children trying to make a living.

Like the San Francisco store, The Body Shop offered homemade skin care and moisturizing lotions advertised to be made with natural ingredients. Products featured exotic ingredients such as jojoba oil and rhassoul mud from local herbalists and had simple, descriptive names such as Tea Tree Oil Facial Wash and Mango Dry Mist. In contrast to high street retailers, the packaging included details about ingredients and their properties. Customers could return to the store to refill product containers for a 15 percent discount.

Products were priced between the mass market and exclusive designer brands, and were never sale priced. Eschewing traditional cosmetics marketing, the company promoted itself with offbeat brochures, exotic ingredients, and a founder who made herself extremely accessible and popular with the press. Roddick made social and environmental activism the centerpiece of her company's marketing.

These were revolutionary ideas in the industry, and inspired a loyal clientele. By the end of the 1970s a chain of outlets had sprung up throughout the UK, and Anita Roddick hired a public relations firm to manage the ever-growing press attention.

The Body Shop experienced rapid growth, expanding at a rate of 50 percent annually. Its stock was floated on London's Unlisted Securities Market in April 1984, opening at 95 pence. In January 1986, when it obtained a full listing on the London Stock Exchange, the stock was selling at 820 pence. By 1991 the company's market value stood at £350 million ($591 million). After a volatile period of ups and downs, including the selling of the Littlehampton manufacturing plants and outsourcing of manufacturing in 2000, its 2004 market value would end up about the same as in 1991 (£334 million as of September 2004).

Read more at Wikipedia.org