Premium Beauty News – How do you see Nocibé’s future?
Nicolas Debray – I firmly believe that we can shift our positioning and become the benchmark holistic beauty destination, by building on our strengths, including our service, expertise, closeness to customers, and customer experience.
As a reminder, Nocibé is the French subsidiary of the Douglas group, the leading selective beauty player in Europe, and it is ranked second in the French market, with 23% market shares. The company boasts 550 stores, including 440 owned stores and 110 franchises. Our revenues exceed one billion euros and we employ 3,350 beauty advisors, including 1,000 beauticians for 800 treatment rooms: all of this makes us unique.
Premium Beauty News – What is a “holistic beauty destination” to you?
Nicolas Debray – It means we are shifting away from the traditional model. Tomorrow’s beauty will be a 360-degree experience, with the products, obviously, through a judicious brand selection including exclusive products and a broadened offering, but also customer engagement, through consulting, the application, and treatments – the full value of our beauty salons. It is already an underlying trend in Asia, and I can see it is amplifying in France. One French woman out of two is already a beauty salon customer. And six women out of ten say they have planned a treatment in the next twelve months.
Premium Beauty News – Who is the typical Nocibé customer?
Nicolas Debray – We have about 12 million customers in France, aged 25 to 85. They are loyal customers located across the whole territory, which shows how strong our selective network is in this country. They interact with us across multiple channels. Today, most purchases are still made in stores, but the digital channel keeps gaining importance: almost 20% of our customers are mixed customers who both visit stores and the e-shop.
They mainly seek advice, closeness, and a personalized, comprehensive experience. That is why our new store concept includes more treatment rooms.
Customer satisfaction is a top priority. We have high recommendation rates, and our customer satisfaction rate is rising in all regions. In late 2025, our NPS (Net Promoter Score) reached 81 for our salons, which shows our customers trust us and are attached to us.
Premium Beauty News – How are your objectives conveyed in stores?
Nicolas Debray – We have focused on highlighting our treatment rooms, which almost all our stores are fitted with, and on deploying new services, in particular the Instant Institut concept: 15 to 30-minute express treatments, with no appointment necessary, designed to naturally fit in the shopping journey. We offer facials, as well as treatments for a brightened complexion, hair styling, and efficient, quick, affordable services inspired from Korean rituals. The store we opened last year at the La Défense mall, West of Paris, perfectly exemplifies this effort. We carry out dozens of treatments every week, for a conversion rate of 79% in cross-selling. Customers who come to the salons visit the store five to six times a year, compared to twice for a standard customer in selective perfume shops.
Premium Beauty News – How are you planning to enhance your product offering?
Nicolas Debray – We are trying to find the right balance between iconic brands, emerging brands, and exclusive brands, which are only available at Nocibé. We have also been developing our private labels in skincare, perfumes, makeup and hair care, so we can offer quality, innovative, affordable products.
The offering is also in line with market trends, in particular K-Beauty in skincare, as well as hair care, for example with brands like Kérastase and Les Secrets de Loly, in keeping with our salon services and vision for 2030.
Premium Beauty News – What have you focused your investments on?
Nicolas Debray – We have initiated a key transformation in our network of shops – almost a hundred of them over the past two years. We carry out about 35 projects per year, combining six to eight openings, but mainly renovations, transfers to better locations and extensions, for an ideal surface ranging from 300 to 350 m2, so we can integrate treatment areas without compromising on the breadth of our product offering. We do not necessarily intend to massively increase the number of stores, but rather to optimize their quality and potential. The new concept is more refined, brighter, and the visual identity shifted from our historical red to warmer, beige and terracotta shades.
Meanwhile, as pioneers in e-commerce, we will keep investing in this channel, which accounts for 30% of our revenues, mixed clients included. These are technological investments, in particular to offer AI-powered personalization. Social media also represent a key lever for Nocibé, as they enhance both fame and traffic in stores and on the e-shop. Plus, they drive a 360° vision of beauty through inspiring contents, collaborations with influencers, and social commerce. We aim to build up a consistent ecosystem, and it is all the more important since 75% of customers do online research before making a purchase.
Premium Beauty News – What are your main challenges now?
Nicolas Debray – There is a human challenge: we need to recruit, train, and retain expert teams to deliver both qualitative and competitive an experience in a challenging economic context, as new players are emerging. But we boast 40 years of expertise, an extensive network of stores, and over 3,600 trained and dedicated beauty professionals. These human and service resources represent a major asset for our company.