For the latest in our member spotlight series, we caught up with the Lush team who have been a feature on the Ancient Market Place for over 20 years. We find out what sits at the heart of the business and their exciting plans for 2022.
Lush Kingston is located in the Ancient Market Place.
We were the 4th shop opened in the company and have been here, in Kingston, for over 20 years. Due to our large shop space and our long standing, loyal customers we were the first shop in the country to become a Lush Spa. We offered bespoke handmade, tailored Spa treatments to the highest standard.
The Spa concept grew throughout the company and were rolled out in our “Lush Flagship” stores, unfortunately outgrowing the space we had, the Spa is no longer open but we have kept that legacy of pampering experiences with our tailor made skincare and fragrance consultations.
Environmentally conscious and cruelty free shopping has been very much in the mind of our local community in the past few years and we are the one stop shop for all your cosmetics needs.
Our products are hand made at our factory in Poole using fresh and ethically sourced ingredients. Lush has been at the forefront of fighting against animal testing and combat over-packaging by developing products that can be sold ‘naked’ without any packaging.
Charitable giving is something that we pride ourselves with, through donations to local charities and social enterprises and by selling Charity Pot Body Lotion where all the money, minus VAT goes to our charity fund.
At a shop level, we can use our space as a platform for grassroots charities in South West London by hosting Charity Pot Parties, where we invite a local group to use our space and share with our customers all the great things that they do for animal, humanitarian and environmental causes. If you know a small local charity in need of some support, please get in touch with us and we can check if they qualify for a donation. The groups need to have an annual income of less than £250,000 and do not need to be a registered charity.
We pride ourselves in providing a great customer experience for our visitors, with a warm welcome and an attentive customer service tailored to your needs.
In June 2020, we reopened as a kiosk and the response from the local community was impressive. After so many months, we could chat with our customers again, helping them with all their cosmetics needs.
As restrictions were lifted, shoppers’ confidence improved.
We reopened our shop fully in August 2020 and we were positively overwhelmed by the response. We made sure that the whole team felt comfortable and confident in this new phase of retail. The main message that was communicated was to be patient and to be kind to all the people walking through our doors as many were venturing out for the first time and others did not want to directly interact with others.
The festive period brings lots of challenges at the best of times and so we had to brace ourselves and focus on our strengths of excellent customer service and beautifully merchandised displays.
After the second lockdown, in April 2021 we reopened once again with a fully remerchandised store and a new customer journey to bring back on skin demos, sit down consultations and product making workshops. That human interaction, those conversations about our products and sharing our values with our community, that’s the core of Lush Kingston.
Since Summer 2021, we have been steadily busy and relaunched our in-store parties.
Our store is a very popular venue for birthday parties as the children of Kingston want a special event for their important milestones like turning 10! A Lush Party is all about fun and hands on activities, including a product making session and plenty of on skin demos. We also place a great emphasis on ethics and values behind our products, so a fun and educational experience for everyone, adults included.
Our 2022 Vision for the store is to become the #1 Party Venue in town, to be the #1 shop for tailor made gifting and to be a main contributor in the community for charitable giving.
With all our experience in hosting successful parties, we are ready to launch new Lush Experiences.
From February 2022, we are planning to host in store events to showcase all that we can offer with themed weekends focused on Spa Experiences and Fragrance workshops.
As a company Lush decided in November 2021 to switch off all of our social media channels so Facebook and Instagram. So, from now on, the best way to stay up to date with our events and workshops is to come and visit us and have a chat.
Lush Kingston
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