The France-headquartered company has been present in the country for over 20 years and has a number of corporate stores in New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec.
However, the geographical nature of the country means it is impossible to reach all consumers through corporate stores alone, explained director of communications Christina Hane.
“Offering franchise opportunities is part of the strategy we have always had for the market in Canada, but we wanted to build up our base first” she told CosmeticsDesign.com.
In France, 70 percent of Yves Rocher stores are franchise and the company will be looking eventually towards a similar percentage in Canada, she explained.
In addition, the market is ripe for franchising, she claims. In an economic downturn people are looking for alternative ways to make money and franchise and other business opportunities tend to be particularly popular.
New store concept
The franchise stores will be modelled on the new concept – Atelier of Botanical Beauty – which was announced a few months ago.
Redesigning the stores was part of a programme to revamp the brand and logo to better communicate the botanical nature of the products.
Yves Rocher may have been innovative when he launched a range of cosmetics using plant-based ingredients back in 1959 but the company is no longer operating in its own category.
Natural and botanical ingredients are one of the biggest trends of the cosmetics market today and Yves Rocher found its offering could not easily be differentiated from the rest of the market.
“We started seeing that we were losing our voice, our visual communication wasn’t communicating that plant aspect of our products. The new visual design and Atelier were designed to reflect this” said Hane.
According to the company, sales from the revitalised Atelier stores are significantly stronger than those from the old concept.
The objective was to generate 15 percent more in sales, and in test stores in France where the concept has been trialled, sales have increased by 20 percent, according to the company.