Avon buyers now prefer personal care products over make-up

AVON PHILIPPINES has seen a shift in the demand for its offerings to personal care products from make-up and fragrances, officials of the directselling company said, pointing to the pandemic lockdown as the reason for the switch.

Avon Director for Channel Management Christine Eugenio said antibacterial products, rubbing alcohol, and body wash as well as intimate apparel and kitchen goods continued to see demand during the lockdown.

“Hopefully, people still pick up eye make-up,” she said in a press roundtable on Wednesday, noting that lipstick has been “taking a backseat” as more people wear face masks.

The company has continued selling during the pandemic by offering online product ordering options to its sales representatives while stores are shut.

Avon General Manager Razvan Diratian said the company is adjusting to a decrease in make-up demand but noted that the brand remained the direct-selling market leader in the country.

“We are keeping our market share, so I think we are following the trends in the market. In some of the categories we are actually driving better performance than expected,” he said, referring to home essentials demand.

Avon Head of E-commerce and Digital Kevin Dayleg added that vitamin products have been bestsellers.

“Actually, the direct selling business model is unaffected by lower foot traffic in the malls. It allows us to minimize lockdown impact,” he said.

According to Ms. Eugenio, the company has been training its sales representatives or “Avon ladies” for digital sales. Avon also added rubbing alcohol and hand gel products to its portfolio.

Mr. Diratian said that there is no plan to increase local manufacturing capacity “because it is not needed.”

“Expansion at this moment? Not really, because we didn’t reach the full capacity,” he said, adding that manufacturing is not working at full capacity at this time.