Focus On Personal Care: 2 October

Focus On: Personal Care by Jimmy Nicholls (jimmy.nicholls@thegrocer.co.uk)

Download the synopsis here

Publishing: 2 Oct 2021

Advertising deadline: 16 Sept 2021

Submissions deadline: 9 Sept 2021

The story

Brits have let themselves go over the past 18 months of lockdown and home working. Supermarket sales of cosmetics, shampoo, hair styling and deodorant slumped in the months following Covid-19’s arrival on these shores. Now, as the country tentatively reopens and people start to return to offices, retailers reckon the personal care category is in for a revival. So, how are they and their suppliers preparing for this in terms of product development, marketing, merchandising and the like? And how has the market changed since pre-pandemic days?

Key themes

Market performance: Retailers such as Boots and online player the Hut Group are banking on a boom in sales of cosmetics and other personal care items over coming months as we return to some kind of normality. This feature will pay close attention to the personal care sector that were hit hardest and proved most resilient over the past year, and why; it will also explore what brands and retailers are doing to revive sales.

Oral care: Even oral care has declined over the past year, with retailers selling 12.2 million fewer packs of toothpaste and mouthwash, a decline of 3.6%. However, value is flat and some brands, particularly those focused on specific oral medical issues, are in growth. To what extent have people let their oral health slide over the past year? Will sales pick up again as things return to normal? Will premiumisation buoy market value in the coming year?

Retail channels: This feature will explore how the pandemic has changed where shoppers are buying personal care items. Has the rise of direct to consumer and pure play online platforms accelerated over the past year? Which brands and retailers have benefitted from growth in online and how badly hit were High Street retailers and supermarkets? Which channels will shoppers be using over the coming year?

Innovation: Central to this story will be an exploration of current and rising personal care trends – naturalism, specific health care needs, the environment, etc – and how they are impacting NPD. We will be profiling four upcoming launches in a separate boxout. For this we require a high-res product image, launch date, rsp and full product details.