Yves Rocher, the French cosmetics company, remains committed to doubling the number of its stores in Thailand over the next five years, although consumer spending power has yet to return to normal.
Ian Longden, managing director of Yves Rocher Thailand Ltd, said the company plans to spend 300 million baht to open 65-115 new Yves Rocher stores in Thailand over the next five years, up from 85 stores planned by the end of this year.
The company operates 81 Yves Rocher branches in Thailand, including the latest flagship branch on the second floor of CentralWorld.
The four new branches scheduled to be opened this month are in Nakhon Pathom, Central EastVille, Rama III, and Century Mall, which is near Victory Monument.
The company plans to open 12 new Yves Rocher branches next year, while rolling out new products and marketing activities.
"Consumer spending power in the beauty market is not yet back to normal. But we will continue to expand our business here as Thai ladies are very beauty-conscious and focus on looking after themselves," said Mr Longden.
Yves Rocher was established in France 59 years ago to provide botanical beauty care products before the global trend emerged.
Mr Longden has 20 years of experience in the beauty and food retail businesses in Thailand, working with Watsons, Big C and Tesco Lotus.
He said Thai consumer behaviour has changed rapidly in light of the digitisation wave, as people are better informed about which products they want to buy.
"Independent people who are experts in beauty also tell consumers which products are good. This benefits beauty brands that offer good quality and properly price products," said Mr Longden. "We are confident in the huge potential of Yves Rocher, which offers botanical beauty products."
Sales of Yves Rocher via e-commerce account for 3% of the total, with that figure expected to double in the foreseeable future.
Total sales figures were not available.
"Business via e-commerce is going well. We've got new customer groups who are younger than those in the regular channel. We expect e-commerce sales to grow by 50% per year over the next three years," he said.
With shop and online channel expansion, Mr Longden is quite optimistic the company's sales growth will exceed 10% a year from 2018 to 2022.
He forecast Thailand's beauty business to grow by an average of 6-8% over the next three years.
While Asia is the fastest-growing market for Yves Rocher, it contributes only 2% of Yves Rocher's total sales.