After launching in 1999 at Reed Gift Fairs, home fragrance company Urban Rituelle is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
Co-founder Leanne Haining says the company emerged from an inner city artisan market after she and [her now husband] Scott met travelling in southern Turkey.
“Our experiences travelling restored an appreciation of life’s simple pleasures and filled us with the inspiration to create a unique range of bath, body and home fragrance products that enhance and celebrate every day rituals,” she explains.
“Our first products were handmade soaps and we soon realised that each week, our customers were returning to our stand to experience our new fragrances and try something new. They were creating their own unique weekly rituals, bringing simple pleasure into their lives through fragrance.”
The business literally began on a trestle table, with Haining and her husband wrapping handmade soaps with raffia and gift tags at home on the kitchen table.
“Before we knew it we had retail partners across the entire country. My background in visual merchandising led us to design and lovingly build our timber point of sale packages to assist our retail partners with their instore display, a unique concept in the industry at the time. Over the early years of our business development we listened carefully to our customers and designed products to meet their needs.
“Originally, simple and minimal packaging was designed for each product, but now, as much time is devoted to researching and developing packaging design, as our new fragrances and formulations. We are now heavily invested into the marketing of the brand and product, with weekly EDMs being sent to our national database and daily updates shared on social media,” she adds.
Urban Rituelle now has distribution in more than 1,000 retailers across Australia as well as growing international markets.
The company has also won GALA Awards in 2008, 2014, 2015 and in 2017 for best bath and body fragrance. This year Urban Rituelle won best stand at Reed Gift Fair in Sydney for the fourth time.
After 20 successful years in the industry, what can we expect in the next 20 years? It’s all about evolving and expanding says Haining.
“We are constantly driven to be leaders in our industry and we are evolving alongside our retail partners. Our long term strategy is to build on and further develop our relationships, providing solutions and support to our partners in a changing industry.
“We are also excited about the opportunity to sell our product into international markets including China, when they change their current importing regulations. We will be laser focused on our vision, which is to create rituals that make people feel good and this will be the direction for all new product development.”
By Marion Gerritsen
