Lush eyes former Debenhams and House of Fraser stores

Speaking exclusively to Retail Week, the ethical beauty retailer’s chief executive and co-founder Mark Constantine revealed he was interested in opening more larger-format stores to better showcase Lush’s full range of products and services.

Its Liverpool flagship, which opened last March, spans three floors and includes experiential elements such as a spa, hair lab and perfume library.

Constantine said the 15,000 sq ft concept is “basically a department store” and sees scope to roll out the format into even bigger units.

“Would I like to only run large stores like Liverpool? Yes, I really would,” he said, adding that he sees scope for “a whole series of department store Lushs” in the coming years.

His bold vision comes at a time when both Debenhams and House of Fraser are seeking to streamline their portfolios. Debenhams plans to shut 19 stores this month alone and a further 28 next year, while House of Fraser owner Mike Ashley is fighting to secure better rental deals with landlords at sites across the UK.

When asked whether he would consider taking on the leases of former Debenhams and House of Fraser stores, Constantine said: “Yes, I could see us going for a lot of them.

“I can see us going for anything where the landlord would work with us. It is the same thing as [Mike Ashley] says, if you can get a deal, you’ll do anything. We are opportunists, in the end, us retailers – if there is a window we will go through it.”

In addition to its Liverpool flagship, Lush also opened its largest store in Asia and second-largest store in Europe last year – a four-storey Tokyo flagship in Shinjuku station and an 8,400 sq ft store spanning three floors in Munich.

Constantine said Lush’s store count of “just under 1,000” has held steady for the last five years, but the stores “are getting bigger”.

“We can do all these different things, which people didn’t realise, and we can also fill a big store,” he said.

“Any landlords that are now thinking to themselves they have a large department store space and they’d like to fill it, we’d be very keen to work with them – but they’re going to have to pay for quite a bit of it because we haven’t got lots of money, we’re not going to borrow lots and we’re not going to take lots of investment.”