COSMETICS brand Lush has launched a “personal shopper” feature on its mobile app in a bid to give customers with the service they are used to in shops.

The idea was tried in Lush’s Bournemouth, Belfast and Birmingham branches and has now been rolled out to all UK and Ireland shops.

Personal Shopper is a feature in the Poole-based company’s LushLabs app which allows users to connect with shop teams in “a couple of clicks”.

It allows people to seek “tailored, bespoke advice and mirror the top notch shopping experience seen daily in shops nationwide”, the company says.

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Lush says it intends to open up the process of research and development for its LushLabs app to its customers.

It says: “Like our products, the features within the app are playful, fun and experimental. We are asking our audiences to play with the features on offer and give us live feedback in order to iterate and perfect the experiences that we are offering through the app.”

Lush reopened its shops in June after three months of closure.

Changes included lower staffing levels initially, a continuous cleaning rota and the absence of “tester” versions of products on display. The shops have pre-filled sample pots of some of the most popular products, with a tamper-proof seal.

The LushLabs app for Android and iPhone allows people go scan unpackaged products, which account for more than half the range. The customer can then see ingredient information, price and “how to use” demonstrations.

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Lush, which has more than 900 shops around the world, said in July that revenues had fallen by 55 per cent in the three months to the end of May. It expected business to improve in the run-up to Christmas but feared the UK could face an 18-month recession – and could see “jobageddon” if another lockdown was imposed.

Chief executive Mark Consantine wrote: “Just in the same way that many of our customers have a lot more money than they thought as they haven’t been able to spend, so we intend to pull our horns in, build our cash reserves, open very few shops and lose the parts of the business that are not performing.”

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In the summer, it emerged that Lush would have room for 300 fewer workers at its Poole factories under social distancing. It expected to move to night time and “twilight” shifts, but some were told their existing roles were being made redundant.