Hello ladies!

We had such a beautiful day today! We were lucky enough to be invited to the opening of the Bloom boutique in Boucherville and we had such a great time. It was our first time putting on a pop-up store alongside another company, and the experience definitely made us want to do it more often! I met Rosie, the owner of Bloom, through social media and we made an instant connection. We agreed to meet each other at Quarter DIX30 and when we did, I immediately had the impression that I was talking to a friend I’d known for years. I have to admit that it is SO refreshing to have the chance to exchange ideas with someone who is in the same field of work, without feeling any sense of competition or envy from either side. Even though Rosie and I both sell makeup, we share a mutual sense of support and respect. Entrepreneurship is such a complex life choice, and the most beautiful thing we can do as part of the community is respect the work of our peers.

In March we worked tirelessly on merchandising for nearly all our new points of sale locations within the pharmacy giant, Jean Coutu company. By the end of April we will have finished with displays in around 175 Jean Coutu stores, plus around 10 Brunet and 50 Familprix locations. In all sincerity, this was a much more complex exercise than I originally expected. Well actually… that’s not true. We knew it was going to be complicated, but living it was far more intense than dreaming it up ha ha!

For Jean Coutu, we developed two different merchandising displays: the floor display and the gondola. The space available in each branch determines how and where we will display our products. I’ve often reached out through social media to ask you where you would most like to find Sans-Façon cosmetics. After compiling all your replies, I came up with a list of the most requested cities. From this list, our marketing team came back with potential branch locations for us to work with. Obviously we want to share our little dream in as many locations as possible, and we want you to be able to find our products wherever you wish to, but in some cases this isn’t realistic. Individual branches have the right to refuse our brand if they are not interested in it or don’t have the space to accommodate us, so even if a city with a lot of requests made the list, they might not have made the final cut (yet).

We had MANY discussions with our team to see what businesses were interested in working with us and what types of merchandising displays they could accommodate. And let me tell you, creating these displays was quite the exercise too! We wanted something that would represent our brand well. We didn’t want to create the feeling of a pharmacy-related publicity stunt; rather, we wanted to introduce new customers to the brand gently and without pressure. I already loved our floor display, but I must admit that I fell in love with our gondola. Last week I was visiting the gondola at a Jean Coutu location in Quebec with Sarah, the SF social media manager, and she turned to me and said “Do you realize that this is yours? Like, it was you who did this?” I was a bit stunned for a second and then replied “Yes. Well…I think so…”

In fact, what I find hard to grasp when I’m standing in front of our gondola, in front of our brand which can now be found in more than 250 point of sale locations throughout the province, is that it sits right alongside some of the biggest global cosmetics brands. And you know what? I look at SF and I believe that it has found its place there (is that pretentious? Or just incredible?) I mean, surely these bigger brands know what they’re doing more than we do. They have so many years of experience and learning, of market knowledge. They have more money, more resources, more everything. When I look at these giant companies, I don’t envy them or see them as obstacles or unattainable competition. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: they inspire me, and I’m proud to have my work showcased beside them.

When I stop to think about how far we’ve come after only our second year of existence, I can’t help but smile. The deployment of Sans-Façon products throughout various pharmacy points of sale across Quebec was a HUGE step forward. It was very, very risky, but we managed to succeed. I am so proud of the entire team who worked relentlessly throughout this entire project – everyone from the chemist to the warehouse workers to the finance/administration employees with whom we reviewed the numbers over and over again. And now, our representatives make sure everything goes smoothly in our many sale locations, and we in marketing continue to come up with more ways to make you want to discover Sans-Façon.

And of course, we are so so grateful to you. It’s YOUR enthusiasm for the brand that has allowed us to take this huge step forward! It’s your enthusiasm for Sans-Façon that has us now working on around ten new products in development. It’s your excitement that lets me live a dream I didn’t even know I had.

- Andréanne Marquis, founder of Womance & Sans-Façon Cosmétiques