Each supplier to The Body Shop is required to sign a declaration guar-
anteeing that none of the ingredients used has been tested on animals
during the previous five years. To show its complete opposition to cruelty
in the name of beauty, in 1989 The Body Shop resigned from the Cosmetic
Toiletry and Perfume Association amid accusations that the trade body
lacked the necessary passion and imagination to eliminate animal testing
quickly enough.
Franchise system
At the start of the company, Anita and Gordon Roddick could not afford to
open new shops themselves even though business was booming, so they
developed the concept of ‘self-financing’. If someone else would put up the
money to open a new shop, the Roddicks would help with their expertise
in running the operation, help re-fit the shop, and grant a licence to use the
company name and sell the products. The company now has a franchise
manager, who provides a consultancy service and organizes the relocation
of older shops to prime sites.
The franchise system also operates overseas, with a head franchisee for
a country or group of countries who is granted exclusive rights to use The
Body Shop trade mark and to distribute its products. Those who operate
their own shops successfully are given the right to subfranchise within
their area, and have responsibility for training subfranchisees.
As in the UK, shop designs and graphics are strictly enforced and fran-
chisees have to stock 85 per cent Body Shop products. Unlike the UK,
however, no annual operating fees are charged to overseas franchisees and
products are sold subject to an overseas distribution discount.
Scandinavia was the first overseas area in which The Body Shop became
popular, followed by Canada, which became the first overseas operation to
manufacture products itself. Samples are still sent to the UK for quality
control before each batch is bottled, and the ‘heart ingredients’ are pro-
vided by Body Shop International and blended in the UK. Other ingredi-
ents are approved by the UK before manufacture in Canada.
The Body Shop philosophy
In essence, Anita Roddick promotes an ethical code of behaviour for the
global citizen – and that includes multinational companies. She believes in
the empowerment of people, through jobs, work, honest earning. ‘Our idea
of success is the number of people we have employed, how we have edu-
cated them and raised their human consciousness, and whether we have
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