TheIndustry.beauty LIVE! Building your brand mix: Liberty on what a major retailer looks for when they add to their line up

During TheIndustry.beauty LIVE! ‘Marketing In Beauty – The Next Frontier’ in partnership with More2 and Noatum Logistics, a crowd of beauty industry professionals learnt about the ways to deploy tech, data and creativity to stand out from the crowd, reach new customers and retain and grow existing customers.

For the first panel of the day, Rhea Cartwright, Head of Beauty Buying at Liberty, sat down with TheIndustry.beauty's Editor-in-Chief, Lauretta Roberts, to share her pearls of wisdom and tell us about what a major retailer looks for when expanding their brand mix.

Cartwright took on her position at Liberty with no buying background. But, by no means did she cut any corners. The beauty industry veteran started out, as many of those in the beauty field do, on the shop floor.

She told the crowd of eager listeners about the excitement she felt after securing her first job at Space NK – even reminiscing about the shade of Tom Ford lipstick she wore to the interview. Cartwright worked at several beauty counters before moving into consulting work and eventually down the path of beauty journalism. After working for the likes of Vogue and The Zoe Report, to name a few, she was enlisted into Liberty’s Hall of Fame.

Sarah Coonan approached Cartwright, explaining she was looking to appoint "an opinionated leader who will shake things up and get things done".  Cartwright laughed, "well my ex-boyfriend would certainly agree I am very opinionated."

As the guardian of the beauty division, which sits amongst a cornucopia of products, she brings a fresh perspective to the heritage brand.

She has now held the role for just over a year, telling us about the trials and tribulations of working within the walls of the historic landmark. For example, though Liberty is "the ultimate home of discovery" it is situated in a heritage building with limited space. Cartwright hints and the beauty division plans to expand, with details to be revealed in the following months.

What cements Liberty as a leader in the beauty sphere?

We have a unique commitment to new and niche brands. By putting them on our shelves, we give them a stamp of approval that solidifies their brand globally.

What’s more, brands come to us because we’re a smaller business. We’re not as risky as Space NK, for example. We only have two storefronts, on Carnaby Street and online. Liberty is not going to cannibalise a brand and roll the product out across hundreds of stores. It’s important that the growth of new brands is sustainable.

What makes a brand attractive to a company like yours?

Product first. There’s a lot of newness and not a lot of great new products. Something can look great and have a great marketing plan, but if the product is bad we don’t want it. We don’t want a spike in sales and then it dropping off after a month or so.

Saying this, aesthetics is also important. Our customers are very design-led, so they want their products to look good in their makeup bags and on their shelves.

When I’m approached by a brand the first place I go to is to their Instagram. One of the questions I ask myself is, for example, does it look diverse?

For example, if a haircare brand says its products are for all hair types but isn’t showing curly hair models on its page, that’s a problem. I am the first black beauty buyer in the country, so I take that very seriously. I am open and I tell brands "you need to correct this".

Profit is also important. At the end of the day, we’re a business. Many new brands don’t understand margin and it sounds so simple. But, rhey also don’t always understand that we need to take a slice of the profit. So, they need to have a good distribution strategy and an understanding of their margins.

About 10-15 years ago liberty ‘kicked out’ a lot of the larger brands, would you ever reconsider established brands?

The look and feel of most department stores are very similar and I don’t want our store to look like Terminal 4. I want it to look different and fit within the 150-year-old architecture. So, if a brand approaches us that is already selling their product down the road, that’s not interesting to us.

However, we still want to cater to what people expect from a luxury department store and beyond. For example, I consider myself the host. Say you visit my house and want ketchup; I hate it but if you want it, I’ll have some for you.

How do you cater to brands big and small?

We are a design-centric store – it’s part of our DNA and it’s a thread we weave throughout everything we do, whether that’s a small or big brand. We want to encourage shopping multiband, buying from one brand is very old-fashioned. Brands that push that message are the ones who aren’t in much public favour as it feels like an archaic message.

What’s more, we’re in the process of revamping the marketing team. When I joined Liberty, we had a lot of gaps. So we’re working on improving our digital marketing. From January, I will be having open office hours for brands – so we can strategise and ask them what they’re expecting from us.

We also bring out beauty kits quite regularly. So every month, smaller labels can take advantage of this brand exposure and get involved in our beauty kits.

One of the department store’s most beloved beauty offerings is a monthly beauty box, which retails for £20 a month on a subscription basis. In terms of big brands, This is a way for tens of thousands of shoppers to access the product range. Though we’re a small team and a small store, advent calendar is the biggest on the market. In fact, were the first.

When you receive products, who tests them?

Loads of us!

I'm certainly the biggest product junkie, I love trying new things. But, if it's hair-specific, for example, we’ll find someone in the business with the particular hair type and ask for their honest opinion.

So, if brands are considering sending us products, one is great and two is even better. Any more is excessive as we're cautious of waste. We can always ask for more!