L’Oréal Travel Retail has underlined its commitment to a digital future in the duty free channel – but says that to achieve all the benefits that digital can bring will require much stronger collaboration between retailers, landlords and suppliers.

The biggest beauty player in DF&TR was clear in its strategy when it outlined plans at the TFWA Cannes show last month. Speaking to media, Thomas Laroia LTR’s Digital Manager said boldly: “Digital is the only future for travel retail.”

Laroia added: “Guess what? The customers in travel retail have all gone 100% digital. We all search for information online, we book our travel tickets and hotels on websites and on top of that, the very first thing we do when we travel is to look for wifi. Shopping is the only behaviour that has not gone digital for travellers.”

He said that this was not because travellers don’t want to… but because “the airports, suppliers and travel retailers have not been able to provide a retail model that has been good enough to be adopted”.

AIMING FOR 100% DIGITALLY-INFLUENCED TRANSACTIONS

“At L’Oréal we are committed to change this in order to be closer to our customers which is in line with our overall group digital strategy,” he added. That is a based on a 20-50-100 concept where 20% of sales are done via e-commerce, 50% of transactions are enabled through direct contact, while 100% of transactions are digitally influenced. The plan is to achieve this within the next five years.

L’Oréal brands globally already have substantial digital/online presences but it now plans to put that to work in DF&TR with the clear objective of serving both retail partners and travellers.

On the retailer side, a so-called PIMDAM (Product Information Management and Digital Assets Management) service currently provides retailers information on 2,400 products from seven brands in nine languages. Next year, an automated product information management system will be deployed which will cover the company’s entire product catalogue. “It will be hugely time-saving and, more importantly, it can be customised to each of our retailers,” says Laroia.

STORE PENETRATION

Digital is also helping to drive footfall in DF&TR stores – and a good example is the Polo Red campaign in the Americas. This was a clever and award-winning use of digital via social media and ibeacons to drive in-store product sampling at Miami and Rio and São Paulo airports via increased penetration at the main DF&TR stores at these US and Brazilian gateways.

“We believe that digital will be a game-changer but this can only become a reality if we as an industry manage to unite,” says Laroia. “That means stronger collaboration between retailers, landlords and the best suppliers they can find on the market. Nothing will be possible if we don’t work together and we are ready to do so.”