The African Beauty Retailers Global Brands Rely On

Dr. Joyce Gikunda recalls a time when she had to wrestle skin bleaching products away from the hands of clients at the then little-known pharmacy she owned alongside her husband on the outskirts of Nairobi in the 1980s. Gikunda, who was trained as a dermatologist, would often return to Kenya from her travels with suitcases full of creams, serums and cleansers from brands not yet available in her country.

“When people would come in looking for particular bleaching products, I would spend time talking them through their skin concerns and convert them over [from those harmful products] to [alternatives from] new brands that I had identified in [overseas] department stores.”

Over two decades and through word-of-mouth recommendations, Gikunda and her business, Lyntons Pharmacy, became an authority in skincare and cosmetics in the Kenyan capital. Buoyed by a loyal consumer base and a rapidly growing beauty segment, the Gikundas decided to shed the pharmacy business, and focus instead on establishing a “pure-play beauty store.”

Lintons Beauty World, the company’s dedicated beauty offshoot, launched in 2008, and quickly expanded to new retail locations at the city centre and in Nairobi’s then newly developed malls, a move which further attracted the attention of international brands.

“The cost of capital was through the roof and interest rates were incredibly high so you really had to get [your expansion strategy] right,” said Gikunda. “Having the support of Estée Lauder pretty early on assured us that we had made the right decision by focusing on beauty. There was a strong appetite for it.”

Estée Lauder Companies launched its namesake label, Clinique, Aramis, Tom Ford, Michael Kors and other brands in 2012 at Lintons Beauty World through a franchise agreement which saw two full-service counters dedicated to the beauty group’s brand portfolio. In the years since, the retailer has secured deals to sell other international brands including MAC, Fenty Beauty, Lancôme, Clarins, Dior and Chanel.

Today, the Lintons Beauty World business spans 29 stores across Kenya, from Mombasa in the east to Kisumu in the west, and in neighbouring Uganda where it has two branches in Kampala.

Lintons is one of many independent multi-brand retailers across Africa that have built sizable businesses by tapping into the continent’s growing middle class and its youth demographic while responding to shifts in consumer behaviour. A number of them have become important distribution channels for global beauty brands looking to enter or expand in the region.

“Having the right local retail partner [ensures that] a brand’s product range is positioned right, from customer experience to pricing,” said Cairo-based Susan Sabet, former editor-in-chief of the Egyptian edition of Elle magazine. “Brands need to trust local experts who know the market well and lean on their networks when they launch because the partner could make or break it.”

On a continent where global multi-brand chains like Sephora and Ulta Beauty do not yet have a footprint and mono-brand boutiques are few and far between, local multi-brands across Africa have an outsized importance whether they operate a single store, a nationwide footprint or cross-border businesses.

Bold Entrepreneurship

When Arc Stores in South Africa was founded by Jamie Lane, Kelly Fung and others in 2020, it sought to disrupt a market dominated by department stores such as Edgars catering to an older clientele. The retailer, which has grown from one to nine stores across the country, is now the premier carrier for buzzy labels like Laneige and Kérastase as well as luxe brands such as Sisley Paris and La Mer.

But insiders say that some representatives of top beauty brands can still be sceptical of the readiness of markets like South Africa.

“There’s a common misconception that African consumers will settle for less,” said Mathebe Molise, founder of Beauty on Tapp, a multi-brand beauty retailer headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, which carries international labels like La Roche-Posay.

Molise cautions against international brands treating African markets as a “product dumping site” where labels launch on the continent only to get rid of merchandise with low sell-through rates in other markets without proper consideration of the tastes and affections of the local shopper.

In Nigeria, local entrepreneurs Abiola Kasumu of Essenza and Alali Hart of Montaigne Place have been running their respective multi-brand stores for decades, establishing nationwide distribution networks for brands in the luxury fragrance and skincare segments. Kasumu has even opened several outposts in neighbouring Ghana.

“Gratifyingly, more and more brands are seeking us out,” said Hart, in a 2021 interview with BoF, citing Montaigne Place’s 80-strong brand list which includes Lancôme, Clarins and Yves Rocher.

However, Hart conceded that the import business could be “frustrating” because certain international brands have classified Nigeria as “a no-go area despite the potential opportunities,” in part because “the business environment [in the country has been] getting tougher and somewhat riskier.” Interestingly, the reticence of some global brands has meant more opportunities for local players, especially those leading the ‘A-Beauty’ movement.

“More and more we see homegrown Nigerian and African brands giving the big guys a run for their money especially as these brands are more agile and adept at jumping on micro trends in the market and capturing the zeitgeist,” Hart said.

A similar trend is happening in South Africa where Arc Store and other retailers increasingly seek out local brands like Suki Suki Naturals. The body care and hair care brand uses ingredients indigenous to the continent such as extracts from the marula and baobab trees as well as the prickly pear which is known for “treating textured hair and skin in drier climates,” said brand founder Linda Gieskes-Mwamba.

Across every African subregion there are market leaders reshaping the beauty retail landscape.

In Côte d’Ivoire, Zino started as a retailer of cigars and leather goods before founder Kamal Daswani’s son Ram converted it into a beauty store. In Angola, retailer Fidalga, operates 11 stores across the country selling mostly luxury beauty labels. Elsewhere, Color Cafe in Zambia, Beauty Spot in Ethiopia, Fabella in Senegal and Mazaya in Egypt each capture a portion of beauty sales in their respective countries.

While most players on the continent are focused on local spending power, those in popular tourism destinations such as Mauritius, the Seychelles and Cape Verde also tap into international travel retail spend. Mauritian retailer Mado sells labels like Shiseido and Armani to both locals and visitors; Seychellois e-tailer Care to Beauty, which stocks a range of brands from Chanel Beauty to K18, is more geared toward locals looking to find products they discovered overseas.

Multi-category e-commerce majors such as Jumia, Takealot and Konga also have a small but growing share of the market in countries like Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria, capturing around 6 percent of beauty transactions in 2023, a figure that has more than doubled from 2018, according to data from Euromonitor International.

Trading Up and Down

The beauty market of the combined Middle East and Africa region was worth $44.36 billion in 2023, according to Euromonitor, and is expected to reach a value of $49.34 billion in 2028. The market research firm estimated that the African market alone was worth $10 billion in 2019.

But experts say that brands looking to reach African consumers by partnering with local multi-brand retailers must understand the nuances of the continent’s 54 diverse national markets, including which among them are the highest and lowest priorities. For markets identified as priority targets in any expansion strategy, brands must invest in local capacity building and be creative when addressing challenges around infrastructure, the business environment, price sensitivity and trade barriers.

“There’s a lot of unlearning to do. But it’s a task of approaching the market with the same level of diligence and respect that you would give to another fast growing market,” said Denis Gikunda, managing director at Lintons Beauty World, adding that early-mover brands in their respective categories will be in a better position than their rivals.

“Coming in at the ground floor is a huge opportunity versus entering an advanced retail environment or market that is hyper-competitive and the growth opportunity is much smaller.”

High-end brands have become more aware of the Africa market opportunity in recent years. The region’s population of high-net-worth individuals is expected to grow by 65 percent in the next ten years, according to Henley and Partners estimates, up from 135,200 HNWIs (US dollar millionaires) today.

Sabet says the dynamic nature of markets like Egypt means that brands across luxury, prestige, masstige and drug-store segments have an opportunity to win over consumers regardless of their budgets.

“A jobs crisis and, in some countries, a currency crisis is making consumers trade down, so instead of buying an expensive Chanel face cream, they would buy lipstick. Others are seeking locally produced products from local brands,” she added.

Sabet says brands looking to enter retailers across North Africa, such as Fortune in Egypt and Faces in Morocco, must clearly define who their audience is.

Chalhoub Group’s Faces chain, which sells everything from Hermès fragrances to Clarins cosmetics, has three branches in Casablanca as well as regional outposts in Marrakech, Rabat and Agadir, cities where consumer preferences can be markedly different.

Launching a brand’s offering in a staggered manner can be especially beneficial in the region, said Jamila Halfichi, the Morocco-born fashion editor for Asharq Al Awsat, a leading pan-Arab newspaper. “It’s all about finding a balance,” she asserts.

Localisation Strategies

While in the United States, the ‘Black is Beautiful’ cultural movement has evolved thanks to the diminished appeal of skin bleaching and the legislation of protections for textured hair, in some countries across Africa, the movement still has strong reverberations as citizens wrestle with relics left over from centuries of colonialism such as the dominance of Eurocentric beauty standards.

At the same time, the continent is emerging as a cultural powerhouse where award-winning fashion brands like Thebe Magugu and Lagos Space Programme are gaining global recognition and Afrobeats musicians can go head-to-head with their Western counterparts.

“With uniquely African aesthetics and culture going global, the continent is re-positioning itself from being a follower of global trends to being a leader,” said Bola Balogun, chief creative officer of Glam Brand, a boutique marketing agency based in Lagos which has worked with Lancôme and Issey Miyake fragrances when those brands launched with retailers in Nigeria.

The localisation of marketing strategies has become increasingly popular for some brands. In 2022, MAC collaborated with Nigerian singer Tiwa Savage on a collection of lipsticks; Lancôme, which tapped Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o as its face in 2014, invested in an all-African influencer trip to Tanzania eight years later. And when Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty launched in eight African countries in 2022, the brand was supported by campaigns featuring models from across the continent.

“It’s not enough for brands to just choose a retailer and to let products gather dust on a shelf,” said Balogun. “They have to put money behind the brand by hosting launch parties and using African talent in campaigns. We’re not asking for much, just the same treatment they would give a market like China or India.”

Some labels have secured retail partners off the back of local marketing campaigns. In May, skincare brand Topicals inked a partnership with Beauty Hut, a multi-brand beauty retailer founded in Nigeria, five months after the brand invited 17 influencers to Ghana with the purpose of creating brand awareness in the anglophone West Africa subregion.

Opportunities in Challenging Times

Inflation, currency volatility, political and economic instability and other headwinds have left some well-off customers in African nations with less spending power than a few years ago. In some cases, consumers who once travelled to shopping hubs in Europe, the Middle East or the US with the purpose of stocking their wardrobes and bathroom shelves can no longer afford to do so.

Travelling to a burgeoning shopping hub much closer to home — and on the African continent — has become increasingly attractive for some consumers. For others, it has become a necessity.

Well-off individuals fleeing countries in francophone West Africa marred by conflict and insecurity, such as Burkina Faso and Mali, have recently settled in Côte d’Ivoire’s capital Abidjan, helping to cement that country’s status as an increasingly important retail market in the subregion.

“The affluence of people coming from the neighbouring countries, because of the political instability they’re facing in their own countries, carries with them certain purchasing power,” said Laureen Kouassi-Olsson, Abidjan-based chief executive of investment firm Birminan Ventures, noting that Côte d’Ivoire is seen by some as a relative safe haven.

“And while the typical Ivorian may have been price-sensitive, things are changing in terms of consumption habits and readiness, making this the right time for an international retailer or brand to venture into that part of the world.”

A similar trend is happening in southern Africa. While countries like Namibiaand Botswana have relatively stable economies, their local beauty industries are fragmented and dominated by informal retailers such as family-owned stores, open-market stalls and unlicensed resellers.

Smaller players in Mozambique like retailer Eh Bonito and distributors such as Bradas da Nossa Carapinha are slowly introducing international labels to local consumers, for example, but many affluent shoppers from that country still tend to journey to South Africa, said Vasco Rocha, founder of Mozambique Fashion Week.

“While it would be ideal to have a more robust multi-brand retail network so brands would choose to launch [directly in more African markets, having consumers] travel to [an anchor country] is the next best thing,” said Rocha. “But we’re used to it, the [Mozambican] consumer is agile, and the brand must be too.”