Tina Jennings, Global Director of People and Development at Liz Earle
Liz Earle Beauty Co was founded on the Isle Of Wight in 1995 by Liz Earle and Kim Buckland. In 1998 their first office opened here with two employees; the company now employs over 600 people across the UK. Liz Earle has three locations on the Island. In Ryde there’s a retail store on Union Street and since 2007 The Green House on Nicholson Road has been their purpose built head office and fulfillment centre. The company was bought by Avon Cosmetics in 2010 and last year another fulfillment centre opened in Cowes.
How important is the Isle Of Wight to Liz Earle?
The Island is where it all began. 20 years ago Liz and Kim had the concept and it’s a part of our heritage. From a product and store perspective, everything we do connects back to our Island home. We’re committed to the Island. We have over 600 people that work for us and 350 of those are here on the Island. All of our products are sent from the Island and we hand-wrap all of our products to our customers at the Green House in Ryde. We also have our site in Cowes and most of our packages go to our retailers from there.
As a company you like to show off the Isle Of Wight don’t you? Your stores and literature have great landscape photos in them. It’s great to see an 01983 area code in your catalogue.
We want to celebrate the beauty of the Island. Our beauty products are “Naturally Active” and part of that is about well being, a lifestyle and trying to encourage people to embrace what life has to offer them. I’ve been on the Island and with Liz Earle for just over 18 months. I’ve relocated my family and as one of the leadership team I spend most of my time here. London is only a couple of hours away and I’m there regularly with global travel when required. When I told people that I was joining the business and going to be working on the Isle of Wight there was definitely an element of envy. It’s a fantastic dream job and an amazing location. The Isle Of Wight is definitely on the map!
Is being on the Island a barrier?
It’s more of a psychological barrier I think. You can cross the Solent in 10 minutes and in terms of talent we don’t see it as a barrier at all. There are lots of people out there who want to work on the Isle Of Wight. As one of the biggest employers on the Island it’s really important for us to support the local community. We have a role to play in the long term sustainability of the economy and we want to give back. Our first apprentice Luke Chandler joined us 18 months ago and we’re working with the Isle Of Wight College to identify and grow local talent. We’ve also got 350 people on the Island who are passionate and love working for Liz Earle. We want to invest in them and to be a great employer. We also want to work collectively with other Isle Of Wight businesses. We really are passionate about doing that and where we can support, we will.
There’s a great network here. The IW Chamber Of Commerce does a brilliant job and we’re also supporting Claire Locke and the High Sheriff’s Trust.
In the last twenty years the marketplace has changed dramatically hasn’t it? Your business now mixes mail-order, online, shopping channels and the High Street.
We are genuinely multi category and multichannel business. We operate our own direct stores, we have a web business and we continue to work on QVC. From a retail point of view we’re now in John Lewis and Boots. We’re good at driving business across all of those channels and all of those aspects are in growth. We started out as a mail-order business from the island but for the future it’s all about retail and helping customers to experience the brand. You can’t play with a product over the internet. Once you understand the brand the of course people want easy access, 24/7 online shopping and apps.
Educating people in terms of their lifestyle is very important to us so by leveraging the different channels it can provide different opportunities for our customers. We have treatment rooms in our own direct stores and customers get the opportunity to embrace the whole 360 view of the Liz Earle brand.
Having a retail store on Union Street so close to your base must be helpful. It’s something of a visitor attraction too I hear…
I was as surprised as anybody when I was told that we have coach parties that come from the mainland to visit it! Our Ryde store is a tourist attraction and they will spend a lot of time in store. It’s a flagship store for us and I don’t think we’ll see any other Liz Earle stores opening on the Island at this moment in time.
You get the same customer experience whether you’re in Union Street or the Kings Road in London. It’s great to have real-time customers in Ryde just down the road from where it’s all happening.
I guess the challenge now is sustaining and evolving the business.
Retail in general is definitely something that we will continue to look at from a growth perspective. Even though we’re a 100 award-winning brand, we’re still a bit of a well-kept secret. We need to share that love with consumers and one way of doing that is through retail. The majority of our consumers are definitely women but men are getting into their grooming so we do have the Liz Earle For Men range. We definitely have a very loyal following of customers but there are still a lot of consumers out there that don’t even know about Liz Earle. Our loyal customers have grown up with the brand over the last 20 years but it’s a brand that works for all ages and all stages of life. We still have a lot of work to do.
We want to share the brand outside of the UK. We’re UK centric but we do have customers around the globe finding us online and we now have a business in Italy and Germany where we’ve partnered with QVC. We’ve also tested our brand with the US consumer and we now have 10,000 testimonials from American women who are in love with the brand. That’s amazing! A British brand, created on the Isle of Wight, that resonates with consumers globally.
How different is Liz Earle now that it’s owned by Avon?
It’s still very much the same business. We have the great support of being owned by a large corporation but we’re independently run with our own executive team. We have financial commitments that we need to deliver on but actually the brand is still exactly the same as it always has been. We have the opportunity to learn from Avon because they do some great stuff for women around the world and there are a lot of synergies with our own aspirations.
It’s your 20th anniversary next year. What can we expect?
We are working on some very exciting plans! I can’t share too much but it will be something that will celebrate the heritage of the brand and we’ll be featuring the Island a lot. Next year will be a very exciting year for us.
First published in the June 2014 issue of Island Business magazine.
