Liberty is widening its range of own-brand products and expecting beauty sales to drive growth, under plans that could lead to new stand-alone stores.
The department store’s CEO Adil Mehboob-Khan is hoping it can harness the popularity of own-brand goods to expand the business, reports the Financial Times.
Last year Liberty launched LBTY, its beauty brand offering five luxury perfumes inspired by its prints.
The business now plans to launch a full beauty offering along with its existing own-brand accessories, jewellery, homeware, womenswear and menswear.
Speaking to the publication, Mehboob-Khan said the retailer’s own label was among its best-performing lines, and that its new perfumes were “doing phenomenally — we’re struggling to keep up with demand”.
He also noted that there was “a lot of pull for that to go international”.
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The plans come as department stores increasingly aims to capitalise on own-brand products that have more generous margins and can deliver a competitive advantage.
The Liberty boss claimed there was “a lot of demand for [Liberty’s brand] to go outside beyond our ecommerce” that could lead to its first new shops since last century, which would only sell the retailer’s own-brand goods.
Mehboob-Khan said: “I do imagine, under the Liberty brand umbrella, we will have locations…If it continues like this, there will be demand and justification for us to have our own stores of our own brand.
“But I don’t see us try to replicate [the] Liberty [store]. It’s very difficult to get the magic of the place to travel.”
The news comes amid a challenging market for luxury fashion, with the CEO adding: “The jury is out on what the fashion market will do, but we expect beauty and accessories to do well.”
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