The purpose of this research was to understand student’s perceptions of ethical
practices in The Body Shop in order to increase sales of ethically sourced/ traded
products to the student market group. The research took place at the University of
Chichester were students were targeted as they are the first generation to have
been brought up around ethical and green issues. An online questionnaire and semistructured
interview were used to collect data from students, and highlight
relationships between both the quantitative and qualitative data.
The main findings showed that students have positive perceptions of The Body Shop,
but their awareness of The Body Shop’s ethical practices varied considerably. The
questionnaire highlighted that students were much more aware of The Body Shop’s
older ethical practices, including against animal testing and Fairtrade, whereas the
most recent campaign enrich not exploit had the lowest awareness among students.
This exposed a relationship between student’s awareness of these ethical practices
and whether they influence their decisions to purchase products from The Body
Shop. The interviews showed that students found social media and in store
promotions the most effective in raising awareness and increasing the sales of
ethically sourced/ traded products in The Body Shop.
The results that this project has provided will allow The Body Shop to adopt new
promotions in order to better target the growing student market, and increase sales
of ethically sourced/ traded products.