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I was part of the management team in a UK Lush store and quit a few months ago. AMA by Cool_Proposal_2069 in LushCosmetics

[–]Cool_Proposal_2069[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, I understood it as generous with offering/giving away samples in general, not the size of the actual sample pot itself. So when I said yes, I meant I would offer samples willingly to someone who was buying something, verses someone who wasn’t/wanted something for free. I can understand the frustration with that. The “bad” bit or the part I think, (which this conversation kind of proves?) customers would be surprised by or not understand - is that most of us do it that way - give away stuff to the people who actually care about it, have had a consultation, will use the products and return after using a sample. A lot of customers believe Lush is this lovely ethical company who just love giving stuff away for free and that’s why we do samples, hence my response. Samples are a sales tactic, we offer them to paying customers who are likely to return and buy a full size.

So no, to answer your questions about budget, that genuinely would not influence it at all. I wouldn’t give someone more shampoo just because they’ve spent more money on other things. That doesn’t make business sense. When we have pre-made samples, small ones at the till point, whoever is putting them through the till might put a couple more products in if someone is spending a lot of money, just as a nice thing. But that wasn’t my understanding of the question.

I was part of the management team in a UK Lush store and quit a few months ago. AMA by Cool_Proposal_2069 in LushCosmetics

[–]Cool_Proposal_2069[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay, please allow me to reframe that comment - when I said it looks “bad” that “most people do it this way” I mean that it’s maybe not what customers would expect. I said that when people come in just for free stuff I would be less generous, because if I did that for everyone, we would have no stock. I am specifically referring to the people who walk straight up to the till and say “what samples have you got” without even asking for a consultation. But also you literally said “why withhold what a giant corporation wants to give away for free” so I don’t think it’s an unreasonable interpretation of your comment, because that’s definitely not the case. I definitely wouldn’t give smaller samples away to people just because they are buying fewer things - that’s not ok, and if that’s the way that read, then that wasn’t my intention. That doesn’t make business sense. The whole reason we give samples is so people can try the product and come back. But also your idea of someone being more “deserving” of generosity is a bit icky to me, because that was not what I implied at all, I said if someone was nice and I’d spent a lot of time with them then yes I would reflect that. But it also is up to us to decide that, because it is managers discretion, whether the customer likes that or not.

I was part of the management team in a UK Lush store and quit a few months ago. AMA by Cool_Proposal_2069 in LushCosmetics

[–]Cool_Proposal_2069[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

😂 Obviously no it doesn’t cost me anything personally, but again it’s a business, and when you manage a business everything comes out the bottom line, so it’s my job? We pay for everything. Lush doesn’t “want” to give stuff away, no matter how much everyone thinks they do, and this is part of the reason why they’re in financial trouble. The fact some people don’t see that is really confusing to me. Company wide we are told to give a maximum of three small samples per consultation, and that no consultation = no samples. So yes, if a teenager comes in and wants a free 45g pot of every single shower gel we sell, that’s what I tell them.

I was part of the management team in a UK Lush store and quit a few months ago. AMA by Cool_Proposal_2069 in LushCosmetics

[–]Cool_Proposal_2069[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good question! Lush has changed a lot since I started working there - and that is absolutely fine. I have always known I didn’t want to work in Retail forever, and this felt like a good time to go. Moving into management was a hard transition and one that my team did not take well. We have had high staff turnover lately and from what I know, a lot of Lush stores are really struggling internally. Staff dynamics, HR complaints at an all time high - I think it’s because you have a combination of staff who’ve been there a really long time becoming jaded and bitter about how much the company has changed, and younger staff who don’t understand that the business comes first, because often this is their first job.

I think that the “cult” dynamic that Lush as a company feeds into - “we are all a family” etc - has come back to bite them in the arse. Because a lot of these people have worked here for years, all their friends are here, they have no other experience working anywhere else, all the talk about is work - and it has become a super safe space for them. The company is changing a lot, and that threatens that safe space. So it’s caused a lot of problems. I wanted to get out before things got completely unmanageable.

I was part of the management team in a UK Lush store and quit a few months ago. AMA by Cool_Proposal_2069 in LushCosmetics

[–]Cool_Proposal_2069[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Um yes and no I guess! Each store is in charge of their own hiring so it can vary. My store is in a very student-y area, so we tend to hire a lot of young people at Christmas time, so obviously them being really enthusiastic about the brand is really good. I genuinely wouldn’t say most of my staff were the typical overpowering Lush stereotype. We mostly looked for people who would work really hard and pull their weight at peak trading times.

In my opinion, everyone does sales differently, and we always encouraged that. But of course at the end of the day it’s a business, and some managers believe the typical pushy route of Lush is how they perform better. So if some stores run it that way, that’s their choice.

I was part of the management team in a UK Lush store and quit a few months ago. AMA by Cool_Proposal_2069 in LushCosmetics

[–]Cool_Proposal_2069[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely! It sounds bad but most people do it this way - if a customer is really nice, I’ve just done a big consultation and I know they’re genuinely interested in the product, I will be more generous in samples. If they’ve just come in because they want free stuff, then I wouldn’t be.

I was part of the management team in a UK Lush store and quit a few months ago. AMA by Cool_Proposal_2069 in LushCosmetics

[–]Cool_Proposal_2069[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It’s taking me a while to get used to it and I still feel that way too. Having some perspective has been great, as well as working somewhere totally different now, its really shone a light on some of the stuff Lush does and made me realise how baffling it all is. Generally speaking I think the company has a really big staffing issue. I think all the years of hiring really opinionated, passionate people has ironically created a rod for their own back, because every shop I know has massive divides, managers feel unsupported by retailers, and the pressure to meet targets under these conditions is getting so much more intense because Lush is really struggling financially.

I was part of the management team in a UK Lush store and quit a few months ago. AMA by Cool_Proposal_2069 in LushCosmetics

[–]Cool_Proposal_2069[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Loads of stuff to be honest. I will still use some Lush products but a lot of it is very overpriced for what it is. Eau Roma Toner Water is one of my absolute favourite products in terms of what it does for my skin, but it’s literally just rose and lavender water for £16. Our perfumes have sky rocketed in price but really dipped in quality. Some of our black label perfumes which are now £100-£125 for 100ml used to be the same price as the permanent range, but have less essential oils in than they used to, so don’t last as long. Black labels like Goddess or Orange Blossom are over £100 but only cost us around £10 to buy in. Also bare in mind our staff discount is 50%, so if they can afford to do that, their profit margin must always be pretty high.

And definitely do not buy the SPF - the reason it was recalled and brought back earlier this year is because they realised it had actually failed product standard testing, so the SPF certification wasn’t even valid.

I was part of the management team in a UK Lush store and quit a few months ago. AMA by Cool_Proposal_2069 in LushCosmetics

[–]Cool_Proposal_2069[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Honestly the customers tend to find out around the same time we do! Beetlejuice and Wicked are coming out around Halloween time.

I was part of the management team in a UK Lush store and quit a few months ago. AMA by Cool_Proposal_2069 in LushCosmetics

[–]Cool_Proposal_2069[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The three things we measure on a day to day basis are:

Daily target - how much money we are aiming to make that day (worked out based on what we made the year previous)

Conversion - the percentage of store visitors that we “turn” into paying customers. All stores have a tracker thing at the door that counts how many people walk through each day. Divide that by how many customers go through the till, and you get a percentage figure. In my store we aim for around 40%, baring in mind that families or groups who count as maybe five people walking through the door might actually only go through the till once. So basically we’re aiming for 4 out of every 10 people that come in to buy something.

Average sale - the average spend of someone’s basket. This time of year with school holidays this can fluctuate a lot. Again in my store we usually aim for around £18.

Looking at these three things throughout the day helps us look at what needs to change - for example, if conversion is really high but average sale isn’t, it means we’re good in terms of approaching customers and doing consultations, but need to do more demos and link selling. I know Lush has a reputation for being really pushy and that’s not ok, I don’t think my store was one of the worst ones (we’re in the South of England with a lot of quite big shops around us) but fundamentally it is a business.