Aroma Zone chief executive Sabrina Herlory Rouget has teased further expansion across the UK and Europe, but told Retail Week there is “no rush” to open more stores yet.
At Aroma Zone’s debut UK shop in Westfield London, Herlory Rouget spoke to Retail Week and said the retailer didn’t initially have UK stores on the cards.
“Westfield actually approached us,” she explained.
“We work with them in a few locations in France and they wanted to partner with us for European expansion, starting with the UK.
“It’s rare for a mall to approach a brand, but it made sense. Otherwise, we might have taken longer to plan or open.”
She added that there are no immediate plans to open more stores yet in the UK, and that there is “no rush” as the retailer wants to build trust with British consumers, as Aroma Zone isn’t well-known in the market yet.
“Everyone told us to focus only on online and social, but we did want a physical presence. It’s through in-person interactions that we gain accuracy in what we do.”
The next step for the UK is to build on the very recent website launch, which doesn’t yet serve customer orders.
“The full online experience will take time and we don’t yet have a warehouse. That should be ready in the first half of 2026, along with a full website launch in the spring or summer of 2026,” she added.
Aroma Zone focuses on community-based branding, affordable products and sustainability, but Herlory Rouget said expanding into new markets may see differences in the needs of French customers compared to UK ones.
“We’re ready to learn and adapt as long as people have needs. Coming to the UK might reveal needs we haven’t seen in France. If we expand to Italy or Spain, we’ll discover more.
“But there is no fixed expansion plan yet as we want to see how things go and build genuine relationships.”
While European expansion has been teased, the group isn’t yet done with openings in France.
There is huge demand from its home market, and sales in 2024 grew 56% year on year with 3 million active customers.
Herlory Rouget explained that the retailer receives “hundreds of comments” from people asking when a new Aroma Zone will open near them.
She pointed out that while she doesn’t want to disappoint the community, she also doesn’t want to open too many stores at once.
“We currently have 28 stores in France, which is still small. We’ll never have 1,000 stores, but we’ll continue to grow where there’s demand.
“We prefer launching and improving step by step, learning through real interactions.”
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