Lancôme also is a world-wide Global business. It is distributed in over 140 countries based on three areas-skincare, makeup, and perfume- the brand is spread out evenly over three continents:1/3 in Europe, 1/3 in America, and 1/3 in Asia and the rest of the world. This balanced distribution has give Lancôme strength and solidity in the world.
Lancôme stores are located on well known high streets and shops (E.g. Boots, Debenhams) which are highly populated; this will let Lancôme to sell their product more because they are located in popular shops, so there are more consumers.
These factors have assisted them to maintain their high market share in the premium-cosmetic market.
One of the Weaknesses is that Lancôme is not Number one in the
Premium market. It’s main competitor Estee Lauder is the one who dominates the premium market.
Promotion is another weak factor. Although Lancôme does have advertising, but it’s very small proportioned compared to L’Oreal etc. So increasing its advertising is very important. Also from my questionnaire I found that consumers have never used any coupons or vouchers to get off money from Lancôme, so I need to also consider this area for promotion.
It is essential for Lancôme to take advantage of all the opportunities that they encounter. A key opportunity is improve its design of Juicy Tubes and extend this idea further which can also suited to older people as from the National statistics it was said that there is a growing population of older people.
As Lancôme has distributed itself over the world, Lancôme can do more advertising which can help them being known even more and the recent success of Juicy Tubes can help Lancôme its new product’s advertising as Lancôme already has a good reputation from Juicy Tubes.
Lancôme can also locate itself more in China as China is not only having the biggest population but also the biggest market of the world. Also recently China have joint in the world Trade so China will open its door friendlier to the international investment.
Recently it was reported there was a growing demand of cosmetics and this is great news for Lancôme as it will able to sell its products more and expand its business further.
And lip product shows a growing market, up by 39% since 1999 to reach £222 million in 2003. By the end of 2003, sales of lip make-up are expected to be 50% higher than 2003.
The biggest threat Lancôme now facing it’s the new product of pure pop gloss from Estee Lauder. As the new product is so similar to Juicy Tubes the consumers might attracted to Estee Lauder’s new lip pop gloss. Therefore Lancôme have to keep up with the latest makeup and try to make a new product which is better than other brand’s.
Another threat is that if the government decided to make a law which is completely against animal testing. Then when Lancôme want to introduce a new product, Lancôme would not able to use it on animal to test whatever it’s a bad effect or not. So when it used on humans, we may be allergic to the product because we don’t know what humans will react on the products due to some ingredient in the products.