CH15: Retailing

Cosmetic products are processed material. After Kiehl's was sold to L'Oreal in 2000, the company expanded its 1 flagship store at Manhattan to more than 30 stores cross the world. 

Marketing strategy

Sampling 

Kiehl’s uses a “grab-what-you-want” approach when it displays the products on the counter, while its competitors keep their products under glass until a salesperson arrives. Committing to its “try before you buy” approach in marketing its products, Kiehl’s gives out a lot of free samples to potential customers. This helps to signal the quality of their products, as well as convey the strong confidence in the effectiveness of its skin care, body care and hair care product ranges. Sampling makes up around 60% of Kiehl's marketing budget.

Road show

Kiehl's organizes a plethora of road shows and events to raise awareness for their brand. In some countries where the Kiehl's brand is already widely known, road shows and events help to increase the awareness to trial ratio amongst skin care users and also to increase consumers' brand preference for Kiehl's.

Kiehl's uses innovative themes for its road shows and events in order to stand out from its competitors, and slowly edge its brand into consumers' top-of-mind recall.