Despite narrowly dodging administration back in 2025, Bodycare has returned to the high street with a vengeance.
With the launch of a brand new “Studio Store” format, the cosmetics retailer is targeting 15 new sites by the end of 2026, and more than 150 locations across the UK over the next five years.
It comes after the retailer was saved from administration by an investment group led by former The Body Shop CEO Charles Denton last October.
The brand has opened two of its new stores so far, with sites based in Derby and Sheffield.
Creating a “community store”
The new Bodycare Studio format is designed to drive product discovery and repeat visits, according to the retailer.
The stores seem far from dull, featuring in-store demonstration zones, feature screens, live broadcast studios and creator spaces as part of a wider digital-first strategy.
Bodycare managing director David Stern explains that “from the get go” it wanted to “create a community store”.
“We feel that the high street has lost that sense of community and lost that relationship with the customer,” he says.
“Retail is supposed to be fun. You’re supposed to be able to find what you want. You’re supposed to be able to look forward to what you’re finding.
“We really wanted to put a store back on the high street that started with that bond between the customer and the retail store.”
An emphasis on content creation
Bodycare’s new store format places heavy emphasis on content creation and influencers. Its new “Live @ Bodycare” concept gives shoppers access to free creator spaces with lighting and kit for filming social media footage in stores.
“In reimagining Bodycare, we reimagined what community would look like in 2026,” Stern says.
“Having a studio in the store where local influencers, local community people and local content people could have access to TikTok Lives and to filming content seemed to us to be an essential element of a community store in today’s world.”
“Lots of retailers will say they’re in one to one comms with their community, and they’re just not whereas Bodycare really is,” she insists.
“If you look at the way shoppers are greeted by the team as they come into the store, the store itself through its signage is communicating with them as they go round in a really conversational way,” she says.
“Everyone is getting one-to-one treatment on social media, our creators are meeting us in person, they’re not just being shoehorned into campaigns.”
Alongside its focus on content creation in-store, Courtenay-Smith reveals that the brand is launching a Bodycare academy to “support and train creators”.
“We have creators from all backgrounds and all levels of experience,” she says.
“We have people at the complete beginning, and then quite established creators who have agents and representation and are much more experienced.
“The academy, which will launch this autumn, will allow them to identify where they are in their journey.
“It will take them through training and best practice, alongside training them in live presenting and all the things they need to do to become a professional creator.”
“Data and technology is in everything we do”
As well as its focus on content creation, Bodycare’s Studio Store format revolves heavily around AI.
Earlier this month, it was reported that the business had secured a new investment round, with a view to accelerating its return to the high street and developing an AI-powered retail model.
Bodycare said its funding was led by early-stage venture capital firm Arāya Ventures, alongside entrepreneur Dilesh Mehta and a syndicate of retail operators, technology specialists and brand builders.
Stern explains that the company uses AI to digitise its stores and optimise its store layouts, store offerings, product assortments and pricing by each location.
He also notes that it enables it to optimise the content it creates and frees up its tills and merchandising to put more staff on its shop floor.
“But we really thought through how we could use that data and technology in the service of customers instead of just to save us money.
“If we do things for customers using the AI and the tech, then we’re going to win.”
Despite bringing a fresh store format to the high street, Stern emphasises that Bodycare continues to bring shoppers the value it has always been known for.
“We’re still offering value, we’re just offering it at a very different level,” he says.
“We’re selling Fenty, but Fenty is £38 on the high street and we’re selling it for £12.
With the company’s new Derby shop selling brands including Bondi Sands, Yes Studio and Monday Haircare, he insists that Bodycare is bringing shoppers “terrific brands at great value”.
Although Bodycare has only opened two new stores so far, Stern flags Leicester and Bradford as being among its upcoming shop launches.
“One of our mottos is serve the underserved,” he says.
“As we look at the map of Britain, we see community after community that we can come to and offer the same sort of value that we have described for the local community influencers and for the customers.
“We’re opening in places like Cumberland Wales, in Telford, in Sunderland, in Burring, in Blackbird, places where like Sheffield they don’t necessarily have access to the sorts of brands, products, and studio experiences that we can put there.
“We think we’re going to be extremely successful in all of these places, even before we take the venture inside the M25.
“We think there are lots of places in Britain that are underserved with really good value-oriented social experiences.”
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