With its headquarters in France, BÉABA UK & Ireland is having to adapt to both the French and UK lockdown procedures, PreschoolNews.net talks to its VP of sales and marketing, Natalie Jackson to find out more about how they are managing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Firstly – how are you and your team – we hope safe and well?
We are indeed thank you!
What is the current state of play for your business – are you running a skeleton team, or temporarily sat-out for a few weeks? Are you able to fulfil orders?
As a French-based brand, our orders are processed and dispatched from France, so due to the lockdown there, which happened prior to the UK’s, part of the team have been set up to work from home. Luckily our distribution centre is outsourced and fully operational, as they service the major supermarkets in France. This means that we are still able to process and ship orders; although understandably they may be a little slower than usual. Here in the UK, our team is working full time from home so we are able to service our customers as we normally do.
Have you seen any spike in demand for any of your particular ranges?
We’ve noticed a spike in demand for our thermometers and personal care sets over the past weeks. This is undoubtedly in response to the increased consumer awareness and demand for health-based products, coupled with panic and advance purchasing behaviours.
Are you finding that your retail accounts are still attempting to trade, even to a small local degree?
Absolutely – it’s not a case of not trading, it’s simply adapting to a new situation and trading in a way to meet our customers’ expectations and be where they are. Ultimately, consumers are now spending more time online, perhaps more than ever before. So, websites and social media platforms have just became the new shop floor.
Have you been able to offer any additional support measures for those retailers?
We have the standard product videos on our website and YouTube channel, but we need to really catch the eye of consumers and relate it to the current situation we are in at the momen. As a result, we are producing lots of content for social media at the moment, including a Learning on Lockdown campaign – turning kitchens into the new classroom!; Friday nights in with Beaba – providing inspirational cocktail and dips recipes, plus healthy snacks (as we know kids can eat us out of house and home!) Focusing on recipes that can be made quickly and simply, with most cupboard store ingredients – and enjoyed by the whole family (Mocktails to Cocktails for example!). There’s really no reason why our Babycook should be put away in the cupboard once baby grows up. It’s the kitchen buddy that can keep creating delicious and nutritional food (and drinks) whatever your age! But these are not just for our consumer audience – we want retailers to also use these – even if they don’t currently stock a Babycook. It’s providing engaging and current content that can help them attract new customers – with the added benefit that they may also create a demand for new products and ranges that they wouldn’t normally stock. It’s a win, win!
What is your (hopefully positive) outlook for when we reach the other side of this?
Someone once said to me “Babies and Pets – the safest two industries to work in because people love to spend money on their pets and there’ll always be babies born” Well, I took on board this advice literally and I’ve ticked both these boxes in my career! We WILL bounce back. The demand is still there. We might find that some of the new ways of shopping ‘stick’ once we come out of it, but that’s why we adapt and suppliers need to be there to support the shift.
