By: Chanda Kumar
Last updated : November 05, 2025 3:46 pm
With India emerging as a key market, L’Occitane’s offline strategy is to refresh its existing stores with its new global store design & experience concept to deepen customer engagement and create memorable, sensorial experiences. Simi Dewan, Deputy General Manager of L’Occitane India, shares more about it in this exclusive conversation with Retail4Growth.
‘L’Occitane en Provence’ instantly transports us to the sun-dappled warmth and golden hues of the French countryside. Founded in 1976, iconic French beauty house L’Occitane is celebrated for its use of natural ingredients, sourced primarily from the south of France and the Mediterranean region. Recently, L’Occitane unveiled its immersive global retail concept the ‘Haute Provence Concept’ with the reopening of its boutique at Ambience Mall, Gurgaon, and the launch of a new store in Chennai that beautifully captures the soul of southern France.
With India emerging as a key market, L’Occitane aims to reimagine its existing stores to deepen customer engagement and create memorable, sensorial experiences. As Simi Dewan, Deputy General Manager of L’Occitane India, shares, the new concept is “more than a design evolution; it’s an invitation to pause, explore, and indulge in the sensory richness that defines L’Occitane.” We recently spoke with Ms. Dewan about the brand’s expansion in India, its vision for experiential retail, and how it’s blending the best of human touch and digital innovation in its new store concepts.
Can you tell us about L'Occitane retail store expansion plans in India?
The brand entered India in 2008, a time when the presence of international luxury beauty brands in the market was still nascent. Currently, our stores are primarily concentrated in the tier one cities, where the retail infrastructure best supports us.
Our reopened our boutique at Ambience Mall, Gurgaon, which reflects L’OCCITANE’s latest Haute Provence concept, an evolution of our retail identity that blends sensorial immersion with meaningful customer connection.
India remains a key market for L’OCCITANE, and we are continuing to expand and refurbish boutiques across major cities to bring this concept to life. The idea is to make every store visit feel like a journey to Provence — where customers can discover textures, fragrances, and rituals in a warm, natural environment.
How does L’Occitane create a differentiating experience at retail compared to its peers?
Fortunately, L'Occitane comes with a very beautiful story. Customers are encouraged to try the products, where beauty advisors establish rapport and educate the customer on the ingredients we use. So, all this happens when a consumer steps into a store, an experience that online cannot provide. The store experience allows customers to soak in the brand story and legacy, the ingredients and the science behind it.
The new concept includes The Expertise Zone, featuring the signature fountain testing ritual, offers full skincare and haircare ranges. The adjacent Beauty Room provides a private space for personalized consultations. The Home & Gifting Zone completes the journey with curated essentials and iconic yellow gift boxes.
Tell us about customer engagement and experience at your stores.
In terms of customer engagement, our stores are designed around experience zones, from skincare and body care to haircare and gifting. What sets us apart is the personal, hands-on demonstrations we offer. Our beauty advisors conduct face, hand, and scalp analyses to help customers truly understand their needs.
We’re focused on elevating the in-store customer experience, from the way our beauty advisors engage and bring the brand story to life, to how they understand, anticipate, and respond to each customer’s unique needs. Our customers have evolved significantly; they’re highly aware and discerning, and our retail experience is evolving with them.
Can you tell us more about the reopened boutique store in Ambience Mall, Gurgaon? Who designed it and what was the concept?
The Ambience Mall boutique has been designed in partnership with our global retail design team and local partners who brought the Provence-inspired aesthetic to life through natural materials, warm lighting, and zoned layouts. Going forward, our focus remains on creating service-led boutiques — spaces where customers can slow down, discover, and engage meaningfully with the brand, supported by expert advisors who bring the spirit of Provence to every interaction.
Can you share how the store has incorporated digital interfaces to enhance experience at retail?
In the beauty segment, you have to be a little softer unlike apparel or a sneaker brand, where the displays are in very loud. Our stores in malls do have screens with dynamic content on the brand. We've got these eye-catching and interactive videos to educate people about our products, and help with attracting consumers to our store.
We do not use digital lookbooks or touchscreen interfaces in these zones because our philosophy is rooted in face-to-face interaction. We believe in human connection, expert guidance, and sensorial learning rather than relying on digital tools. This approach helps customers experience our products in the most authentic way. However, we've got the scalp and hair diagnosis consultation where our beauty advisors have got specific machines and tools to analyse the scalp and the hair of the customers and advise them on what products to use for best results.
Tell us about the sustainability initiatives at the store.
Sustainability is one of its key principles at L’Occitane. We've launched the ‘Big Little Things’ recycling program where we collect empties from any beauty brand and we give customers an opportunity to earn points to try our sample size products, customers are introduced to the brand via this program at the same time we do our bid for the environment
What are the main challenges for brands like yours to set up offline stores across India?
Consumers across India are very well aware of our brand now, including Tier 2 and 3 cities and we see that from orders we get from other cities besides Tier 1. So brand experience at offline retail cannot get diluted when we move to emerging geographies. The need is to have adequate retail infrastructure which justifies a brand like L'Occitane or any other premium luxury brands. All this while understanding the individual nuances of a city or region.
Definitely developers and service partners have improved and way better now. But the only challenge right now would be retail infrastructure, which I think will also pick up in the 2-3 years because there are a lot of new things coming up