São Paulo – O Boticário is getting ready to open its second store in the United Arab Emirates in January 2019. “We were really surprised. It was the country where it took me the least time to open a business,” said International Expansion executive Andrea Gutierrez on the opening of the brand’s first store in the country this year. Gutierrez talked about the subject at the 1st Brazil-United Arab Emirates Business Forum, in São Paulo, this Monday (05).
The second store will be at Dubai Mall, one of the world’s largest malls. According to Andrea, the brand’s interest in the UAE came from the region’s focus on fragrance and perfumery. “They have history on the field, thus, it’s a region that makes a lot of sense to us,” she told ANBA in an exclusive interview.
About the entry process in the country, the brand had to grasp the culture in which it was getting into. “We thought about the cultural challenges. It was surprising and the idea of Brazil being a dangerous place began to be debunked after we brought the influencers from [the UAE] to Curitiba. We also took Brazilians to the UAE,” recalls the executive.
The brand’s assessment of the Arab market has been positive so far. “The store is doing great. We sell a lot of fragrances and the Nativa SPA line has also been well received. We have high expectations based on clients’ reactions. People have been visiting the store and they really like it! I am very pleased with the operation over there,” celebrates Gutierrez.
The opening will be scheduled for some time between January’s second and third weeks and the stores have a standard size, 110 square meters. “The second one will have more products on display and the concept is to show how the products are made,” says Gutierrez, explaining that one of the possibilities to achieve this is via storytelling videos narrating the perfumery’s manufacturing process.
The country with the fastest process for opening a store
The executive was greatly surprised with the minimum red tape in entering the market in a new country. “The thing that takes the longest is not opening the store. Sanitary registration with regulatory agencies is the slowest. It took us only 30 days getting these registries approved and getting clearance to enter the UAE with the products, whereas in other cases it can take as long as 6 months,” Andrea Gutierrez points out.
While it plans new marketing initiatives for the new store, the company is also contemplating future expansion. “We see many opportunities in the Middle East. As we said, we are looking into Saudi Arabia, but still assessing, there is nothing decided yet,” concludes the executive. One of the solutions to enter Saudi Arabia’s market could be to get the products to the country via the UAE free trade zones, which is being analyzed by the company.
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
