With professional skin centres and beauty salons being among the hardest hit during level 3 and 4 COVID-19 restrictions in New Zealand, it has been difficult for many.
Because even though their clients were eager to support them with the move to level 3, many salons were not set up with websites that they could retail from. Like many in business, they have been forced to pivot and react quickly.
However, for approximately 60 businesses that stock Dermalogica, it seems it has been less of a pivot and more of a shift in focus. These salons were able to utilise a feature on dermalogica.co.nz where customers can ‘choose’ their local Skin Centre when finalising their sale in their shopping basket. In turn, this ‘choice’ sees that the Skin Centre receives a very generous commission from that sale.
“The affiliate commission has offered us a financial lifeline and has meant we’ve been able to service our customers’ needs virtually,” The Beauty Room Wellington’s Nicole Moore said. “While we can’t open our doors for any services or to sell retail product, we are able to send our customers to dermalogica.co.nz to buy their prescribed skincare products. Best of all, thanks to the increased commission offered over the COVID-19 period, we make the same commission on the product that we would if we sold it ourselves in the salon.”
The team at Two Hundred Doors, who are the long-standing distributors of Dermalogica in New Zealand, have always offered this affiliate option on the dermalogica.co.nz website. However, during level 4, when their doors and warehouse were also closed, they updated the scheme so that the commission was doubled, matching that made in-salon for when trading recommenced.
With the increased confidence in using technology and greater desire for consumers to ‘support local’, the affiliate scheme has come at the perfect time – and in doing so, helped support the industry. The month of April saw an increase in affiliate commission of over 400% compared to the average month.
“The Professional Skin Therapy channel is what our business was built upon, and many of the small business owners have been partners with us for over ten years,” CEO of Two Hundred Doors, Natasha Bourke, said.
“With many not equipped to retail online, we wanted to do everything we could to support them digitally, so doubling the commission paid on product sold through our website was one of the first things we implemented. This means that they now make the same profit on a web sale that they would usually make in-store, but without the overheads or investment in stock.
We are also covering shipping, loyalty programme points and promotions. Where we initially thought this would be a short-term lifeline, we are considering keeping this running for the next year, as we foresee many businesses taking a while to bounce-back.”
For a full list of Dermalogica Platinum Skin Centres, visit here. For more about Two Hundred Doors please visit: www.200doors.co.nz.
