Liht Organics aims to create more immersive beauty experiences

The pandemic has led to massive shifts in consumer behaviour – be it shopping for food, fashion or beauty products – as consumers have become careful about how and which brands they shop at. Staying with beauty, research indicates that consumers have become conscious about their beauty habits leading to a shift towards clean beauty brands. A market segment that’s estimated to surpass $11,558.5 million in 2027 according to BrandEssence.

“Absolutely, consumers today lay lot more emphasis on clean beauty, and are now choosing quality over quantity. They also prefer the convenience of multifunctional, hybrid products that they can use while on the move which offer the same efficacy. For example, our foundations double up as makeup with nourishing skincare benefits,” said Nerissa Low, Founder, Liht Organics.

Tech-fication of beauty experiences

Besides a definite shift towards clean products, there is growing interest among beauty brands to leverage tech pieces such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).

For instance, Liht Organics recently brought its first (VR) beauty experience to the Middle East. The brand’s VR-backed podium that popped up at Mall of Emirates could analyse consumer features and lifestyle needs in order to make personalised recommendations from Liht Organics’ portfolio. In addition, the podium enabled consumers to try on Liht Organics’ makeup on a VR avatar to experiment with looks and gauge outcomes without having to physically try them on.

“We wanted to explore an innovative way to help women experience the metaverse a space that is typically male dominated. So, we built a Metaworld to launch BeautyVerse right here in the Middle East. This channel is vital as consumers are looking for interactive experiences in retail and education, and it is all about the balance between bringing this innovation to the masses and still keeping a personalised element in our services,” Low explained.

The brand is also leveraging technology tools to strengthen the back end of the business, especially areas such as inventory management at a time when supply chain continues to be disrupted. “We are definitely incorporating technology and using tools for backend functions such as supply chain and inventory management and we try to automate as much as we can.”

Winning over channel agnostic consumers

“Our primary focus is to educate consumers about the reality of what they are putting on their skin when using chemical-based makeup and skin care versus using organic cosmetics. We try to simplify the ingredient terminology, which is quite complicated, to make it comprehensible for users. There is a theory in sales which says that 20% of people will always be your customers, 20% of people will never be your customers and 60% of people can be convinced and brought onboard,” Low stated.

“That said, we experiment with different channels and types of messaging in our marketing campaigns, and at the end of the day it is about what touches the hearts of the consumers. And consumers these days support brands that share their values, and there are many elements to our brand that speak to them. What we are looking for is not just to build a customer base; our mission is to build a tribe of likeminded individuals who share the same values,” she added.

Since the brand launched slightly before the pandemic hit, initially it primarily operated offline with some online presence. “Just when we were about to scale, all the warehouses were closed, and flights were discontinued which affected our ability to scale online until markets started reopening. Now the online-offline breakup is about 50:50, and it is the perfect time to scale as people have become more comfortable shopping online.”

Asked about a mistake that taught the brand a big lesson yet made the business more resilient, Low shared, “In the beginning, I was very aggressive in my expansion plans and wanted to grab every opportunity that came along. We were growing rapidly and steadily and didn’t expect a global pandemic that would not only continue for years but erode almost everything we had built from the start. Today, I’m more prudent in my expansion decisions and have a much more far-sighted vision to consider the limitless possibilities of what might go wrong. The pandemic has opened my eyes to always be prepared for the worst.”

“We have become more prudent in our choices for expansion and are more focused on the regions we are currently present in. We are very careful about our geographical expansion plans given the ripple effect from what is happening globally. That’s why we have placed a lot more emphasis on technology and are always looking out for innovative ways to reach existing and new markets. Product-wise, we are very cautious about the lines we roll out. Through in-depth market research we try to determine what would work best for a particular market and roll out products that we are confident would sell in that specific market to prevent wastage. This also ties in with responsible consumption and production where our mission of love for self, humanity and the planet is evident from our ultra clean products to reusable packaging to prevent wastage.”

What will the brand’s digital transformation strategy entail?

Going forward, the brand’s digital transformation initiatives will focus on three key areas.

• Supply chain enhancements to ensure efficient management across all warehouses in countries where it operates.
• Continued automation to improve turnaround times for delivery of products.
• Create more immersive retail experiences, both online and offline.

Rupkatha B