Goodbye, Bodycare.
As news comes through that Bodycare the discount health and beauty retailer is closing all remaining stores including the one in Telford on Saturday, we look at what happened.
The Health & Beauty retail sector is dominated by Boots, and discounter Superdrug is the next sector specialist. We have to go all the way down to number nine to find Savers, and the value end of the top ten.
It’s a sector that the likes of Tesco & Asda have been supplying and it’s a healthy sector – forgive the pun – showing growth in a relatively flat high street.
People are spending more on their health and beauty products. So why the collapse?
Simply ran out of cash. You buy products, you sell them for more, and make your gross profit. After your overheads such as rent, business rates, energy and staff costs, you are left with your net profit.
If the difference between your buy price and your sell price is low, your cash is squeezed. It’s hard not to pay your staff, your tax bills, your rent. Your suppliers however are a different story, if you have 140 stores.
You can extend your credit, paying your bills after 90 days instead of 60, but you can only do that for so long before suppliers get grumpy and stop supplying you.
One of the reasons given for the collapse was a lack of stock.
Faced with this, there are three things a business can do.
Cut costs. Chop the lowest performing stores, head office functions, sponsorships, renegotiate rents and supplier deals.
Put your prices up.
Sell off your non-core, slow-moving lines to turn them into cash.
The fourth thing takes a bit of vision. I don’t doubt that the highly experienced CEO didn’t think about setting up an online channel doing TikTok and Facebook/Insta lives to ship stock directly from your suppliers.
This may or may not have moved the dial eventually, but when your house is on fire, you don’t measure up for new curtains before grabbing the cat and making for the door.
A bit simplistic? Possibly, but given that in the 2024 accounts, reasons provided for a poor financial performance included the pensioners winter fuel allowances being stopped, and Trumps tariffs – they started it.
The Trustpilot reviews are a shabby 2.4 out of 5, but it’s not just this, it’s the sustained 1 star reviews, mainly for online orders, that go unanswered. Do they care?
The founders of the chain, Graham and Margaret Blackledge from Skelmersdale, started this brand from a market stall in the 1970s. I hope they got a great pay out, but even if they did, seeing your brand in this death spiral must be a hard watch. The firm was bought out in 2022 by Baaj Capital, a family office run by Jas Singh. It looks like Bodycare employees are leaving reviews for owners Baaj Capital on Trustpilot.
As ever, thoughts go out to the staff. No matter what you think, it’s never their fault. From where I’m sitting, they appear poorly supported, left in the dark, and like the chain, badly managed.
