Dr. Zbigniew Inglot, co-owner and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Inglot Cosmetics, joined the company in 2000 as Director of Business Development. With a PhD in nuclear physics, Zbyszek, as he prefers to be called, is credited with opening Inglot stores, the company founded by his brother Wojciech Inglot, in many new markets around the world. After the passing of Wojciech in 2013, Zbyszek took over the reins of Inglot Cosmetics and is now spearheading the growth of the brand both domestically and internationally by opening two stores a week and expanding into skin care. Here, Zbyszek discusses how quick decision making and empowering his young, multicultural and dynamic team will help the company achieve one common goal – customer satisfaction.

Beauty Insider: Please talk about the brand’s growth plan over the next three years.


Zbyszek Inglot: We are a family company. For the next three or four years we have a stable plan to open 70 stores all around the world. We strongly prefer to control growth. There are a lot of middle-sized companies which reduce the number of stores especially in tough times. As we are a family company we prefer to sleep well and we have a lot of comments from economic professionals who say you should grow faster and faster – but we prefer to sleep well. At the moment we have over 600 stores in 80 countries. The fastest growing market is the Middle East where we have 55 stores. We should reach 100 by the end of 2016. One of the most important markets is Australia, where we currently have 16 locations, including the legendary Queen Victoria Building. In Poland we have nearly 200 spots, about 75 belong to franchisees. Sweden is a fresh market for us; we opened a flagship there in the prestigious Mall of Scandinavia in 2015. In the US we have several stores in New York and a partnership with Macy’s in 30 of their stores. We would like to develop this partnership carefully. We still have to learn a lot and we will open maybe 12 to 15 new stores together with Macy’s; a store is planned at The Venetian in Las Vegas, too. My dream is to open a store on Oxford Street in London.

BI: What is Inglot’s point of difference?


ZI: What we see is that we are able to offer our customers cosmetics in the same quality as the big players but at a lower price. I think especially now people are looking for lower prices and this is a great chance for us.

BI: What is your plan for the US?


ZI: I think in the US we are still not a well-known company. We have been in the market since 2009 however I think there is still room for opportunity. So right now we participate in all the largest shows for professional makeup artists and it seems that that will work. We have also received a lot of requests regarding franchising possibilities in Washington DC, Houston and Dallas. The US is a tough market. I think we will really be able to start the ideation in 2017.


BI: Talk about Inglot’s global presence a bit more.


ZI: Our Asian position is pretty strong. We have good partners in India, a store in Nepal, and Malaysia. Korea is a target and we have quite a bit of negotiations going on there. Our first store will be open in 2016. Regarding China, we probably will not enter this market in the near future. The answer is simple in that China requires for all products to be tested on animals and we don’t do that and we are proud that we don’t. This is the key problem in the Chinese market for us.

BI: What are some of your best selling products?


ZI: There is no golden rule. We have what is a best seller in Australia, which are face products; in the Middle East it’s nail polish; we have really dominating products in the US, such as Freedom System, that allows customers to mix and match products and to make a custom designed palette of almost any size.


BI: What are some plans for the future?


ZI: My dream is to get deeper into skin care. We will not start this in 2016—we are very busy this year investing in advertising and investing into the Polish market. But it is my ambition to get into skin care in 2017. Having 700 to 800 stores all over the world would make it easy to introduce it on a global basis.