Swedish cosmetics major Oriflame plans to expand operations in the Northeast by increasing its consultants’ strength by 40 per cent this year.

“The Northeast has emerged as the fastest growing market for Oriflame, with a growth of 30 per cent last year. The region contributes over 50 per cent of the company’s growth with Guwahati as our strongest business centre. Hence, we plan to strengthen our presence by raising the strength of our consultants from 36,000 to 50,000 by the end of 2013,” Pradnya Deshpande, sales director of Oriflame India, told reporters in Guwahati recently.

The direct selling company is now offering the best success plans to its consultants, thereby enhancing business opportunity in the region. “Slowly and steadily we are broadening our horizon and strengthening Oriflame’s business proposition in the Northeast,” she said.

Founded in 1967, Oriflame India has offices in 14 cities across the country. It started operations in the Northeast in 1995. Today, it has 159 service points (called Service Point Oriflame) and four stock points — the highest in any zone — in the region — at Aizawl, Dimapur, Itanagar and Shillong. The service points cater to those cities where the company does not have a branch. “We plan to increase the number of service points to 200 by the end of 2013,” she added.

Asked about Oriflame’s USP, she said, “Our USP is the quality we maintain in our products. We have over 550 products in five categories. Of them, skincare, fragrance and colour cosmetics are the three top selling categories in the Northeast. Our products are trendy, natural and made the ethical way — they are not tested on animals.”

Oriflame operates in 62 countries through 3.8 million consultants. “In India, the company operates through 2 lakh independent Oriflame consultants, with 90 per cent of them being women,” Deshpande said.

On the selling advantage of Northeast, Partha Kalita, senior area manager for East, Oriflame India, said, “We offer the best success plans to our consultants in the region. So there has been an overwhelming response with an increasing number of persons wanting to be associated with the company. The fashion consciousness and knowledge about beauty and cosmetics here also works to our advantage.”

Asked about the products lined up for summer, Kalita said, “We are coming up with a range of deodorants for both women and men this summer. That’s apart from the skincare, haircare items and cosmetics.”

On the growth targeted for this year, he said, “We are eyeing a growth of 30 per cent.”