New heights for BPerfect Cosmetics as they experience online boom

This summer, Brendan McDowell, multi-award winning MD and founder of global beauty brand, BPerfect Cosmetics, should have been jetting off to South Africa with the other all-Ireland finalists of the Ernest & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Instead, he and his growing team of 40 staff are re-emerging after lockdown with a new impetus, new strategy and a new vision for the future of BPerfect, and Brendan will be attending a ‘virtual’ trip with the finalists trip from his new Lisburn based offices instead.

Brendan explained: “As we entered lockdown, we had literally just moved to new premises to accommodate our growth – they are four times the size of our previous and included three warehouses and a huge office for our 40 plus staff.

“Lockdown was announced and the team and I went into shock – but after a few hours of listening and monitoring the changing news – we decided to get our heads down and get a plan in place to not only survive, but to thrive.

“And I am over the moon that we have one just that. We have emerged stronger as a team than we went into it.

“When we moved into the new premises – I have to be honest and say it did cause a little trepidation due to the sheer scale of them, but as lockdown down happened and social distancing was introduced, we quickly realised it was a blessing.

“We now had these huge warehouses and offices which allowed us to space everyone out and no guidelines were therefor breached and we were able to operate at full capacity whist safeguarding the health and wellbeing of our entire team.

“This also meant we were able to retain everyone’s employment and no one had to be furloughed.

“As our offline retail dried up instantly – which was a huge blow as we are stocked in over 2,000 outlets across the world – our online retail took off with lightening speed.

“We couldn’t keep up with orders and had a huge backlog at one stage. We even sold out of our Ten Second Tan – and had to bring forward the launch of our latest product – our Ten Second Tanning Strawberry scented lotion – and it sold in huge quantities through our website and online platforms.”

Thanking his loyal customers, Brendan added: “It has been an uncertain time in the world for everyone, but one thing was for sure and that was our customers stayed loyal and we managed to grow our online sales by 400%.

“The time away from the day-to-day running of the offline part of the business also gave us much-needed time to take stock of where we are as a business. To say that the past few years since we launched have been a whirlwind would be an understatement. We feel like we have always been running to catch up.

“So we were able to sit down regularly as a team and discuss where we are, how we got here and where we are going.

“We have been able to take a close look at logistics, processing and how each of our departments are communicating. We were able to move staff about to meet demand which meant cross department learning and understanding which ultimately strengthen our team and knowledge base. And also got much-needed time to wok on new product ideas we have and have ramped up plans to launch our new palette collection – which is due out later this year.

“We also got time to spend investing in doing the office up to be an amazing space to work, shoot our video content and meet new clients in. It has exceeded everyone’s expectations and is a brilliant space to work in.

“Being shortlisted for the EY Award – and being only one of two from Northern Ireland is such an honour – I am disappointed not to get to South Africa with the other finalists, but you can’t dwell too much on what might have been.

“We are looking forward to the next few months with renewed hope, new ideas and new products ready to roll out!”

Visit www.beperfectcosmetics.com

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