Skincare and beauty brand DECIEM has begun converting the signage of some of its stores, renaming them The Ordinary, after one of the company’s popular brands.
Signage was changed recently from DECIEM to The Ordinary in multiple locations in Canada, including the Distillery District, Queen Street West and Yorkville in Toronto and Metropolis at Metrotown in Burnaby among others.
DECIEM currently operates 38 stores with 11 stores in Canada.
The Canadian stores are located in Vancouver with two and the rest in the Greater Toronto Area. The company just opened a new store in Melbourne, Australia.
“When we started the stores, the stores were all branded as DECIEM, which is our parent company,” said Nicola Kilner, CEO and Co-Founder of DECIEM. “Inside the stores they have multiple DECIEM brands. When we launched The Ordinary late 2016 into early 2017, The Ordinary kind of exploded. Customers know The Ordinary but they don’t necessarily know DECIEM.
“So we decided with many of the stores to rebrand these stores to be ‘The Ordinary’ so that we can really bring The Ordinary brand to life more than we could do when it was a shared space with our other brands.”
Kilner said not all DECIEM stores will become The Ordinary but a large portion will as the company moves to a retail strategy of just having one brand in different stores.
“We’re just actually starting a process of kind of redefining our retail strategy because when we first opened the stores back in 2017, 2018 we didn’t have much bricks and mortar distribution. So really our stores were one of the only kind of physical locations that you could go and buy the product because we were largely sold online,” said Kilner.
“But now here in 2023 especially in Canada we have a huge presence with Sephora. We’re actually their number one skin care brand. Now we’re redefining our retail strategy because the landscape today is actually we have these wonderful stores but we also have wonderful Sephora’s around the corner which also sell the product.
“I think we’re going to redefine the strategy to make sure our stores can become more experiential, tell the brand story in a way that other retail partners can’t and to make sure we can have that difference. We’re just redefining that strategy now and hopefully by kind of spring time we should have more to share on that.”
Kilner said the DECIEM brand is growing.
“There was recently a study saying that when we’re seeing all this coverage of the cost of living crisis, inflation and pressure, consumers are actually looking for value. Value doesn’t always just mean the cheapest. These are scientifically-backed products. So they know that if they spend their money they’re getting value in terms of results and efficacies,” she said.
“And these are things that just really ring true to The Ordinary. I also think when COVID first happened we saw a huge uptick in demand. We’re kind of seeing some lessening now but I think sometimes when these market conditions happen we’re actually a brand that tends to do relatively well in these times.”
She said the company is restarting the incubator engine at DECIEM and it’s hoping there will be two new brands within the next year.
It is also planning to accelerate plans for Avestan and NIOD, two sister brands to The Ordinary from the DECIEM incubator, as well as continuing to support the growth of The Ordinary.
