PESTEL---- Social Cultural

PESTEL stands for six forces in general environment, which can affect business management ,they are Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural, Technological, Environmental and Legal factors. Today I want to talk about the effects of changing consumer preference on cosmetic industry based on PESTEL analysis----socio-cultural factors.

                                       THE BODY SHOP----The original "green shop"

                                                 

In recent years people put more and more emphasis on green issues and animal rights and  charity ,The Body Shop is an roll model in the beauty industry, which has 2,400 stores in 61 countries and has its headquarters in West Sussex,England. They have five theories: protect our planet,against animal testing,support community fair trade,activate self esteem  and defend human rights.

                                 

• protect our planet

They launched the campaign of recycling the empty bottles and plastic bags, to improve the awareness of environmental protection ,The Body Shop also is famous for its 3R policy--Reduce Reuse and Recycle.

• Support community fair trade

There are special groups in the company will teach backward areas farmers to grow crops and buy their raw materials at reasonable prices in order to  maintain their stable income and let their children have the opportunities to go to school.Besides, the body shop protect the rain forests and other natural resources. Supporting Community Fair Trade has been one of their core Values since 1987. As is illustrated in the picture in 2010 TBS totally spent 8.9 million pounds on community fair trade.

• Against animal testing
  
  
  

he Body Shop has always been against animal testing – it was one of their earliest and most ground-breaking campaigns, and led to them being the first international

cosmetics brand ever to be awarded the Humane Cosmetics Standard.

Lets look at those two pictures ,the retail sales are around 1470.5 millions in 2012, and the body shop totally owned 2837 stores around the world. Its really a giant organisation, I am a super fan of The Body shop too,not only because their star products are fantastic but also their enthusiastic star theories. Nowadays The consumers prefer healthier and environmental-friendly products, because according to the  PESTLE analysis,which  is not just a simple theory, like PORTER'S FIVE FORCES it is a tool to help organisations to improve their performance,Social -cultural factors,the consumers are changing their preferences. and The Body Shop noticed this idea and took full advantage of it, thats why this company is so successful and has so many fans.