Popular skincare company The Ordinary has opened its first bricks-and-mortar store in Australia, in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy.The new Gertrude Street store will offer treatments and clinical technologies at reasonable prices, and feature experts who can provide custom skincare regimens and advice on site.The new store follows the Slowvember initiative, which saw the brand’s parent company Deciem offering 23 per cent discounts on The Ordinary and Niod products as an antidote to Black Friday. The company also launched in Singapore, Malaysia and India this year as part of a widening of its Asia distribution network.Deciem CEO and co-founder Nicola Kilner believes the store will become a spot for new and existing customers to explore products, and learn more about their skin needs.Although 80 per cent of customers shopped online last year, data from the 2022 Adyen Retail Report revealed that 73 per cent of Australians prefer to shop in-store – higher than any market globally. The desire to shop in-person was a key motivation in opening the store. “People are spending more time in their local neighbourhood and wanting to shop locally, so it made sense for us to choose this location over the CBD,” Kilner told Inside Retail. “We’ve felt the absence of a standalone store, and are excited to spend time with our customers again,” she said.Amid cost-of-living pressures, Kilner hopes that the products will continue to be accessible in uncertain times.“We empower our customers to make educated skincare purchases and only want them to shop for what they truly need,” she said.“We will never try to upsell or add on an additional purchase to make a sales target.”Connecting in real lifeAs covered by Inside Retail, Deciem has become well-known for its policies around financial assistance, domestic leave and diversity and inclusion.According to Kilner, a key consideration in choosing Fitzroy as its location is that it’s accredited as carbon neutral, and is committed to environmental leadership in response to the global climate emergency.She said that the brand is working on a range of emission-reduction activities, which are focused on energy efficiency, as well as switching to less carbon-intensive activities.This includes purchasing renewable energy certificates (RECs), which are issued to energy providers when one megawatt hour of electricity is generated and delivered to the electricity grid from a renewable energy source.“Recognising that the global Covid-19 pandemic shifted the way our employees worked and continue to work – many from home offices – we expanded our use of RECs to also cover our employees’ home office energy consumption all over the world, going back to March 2020,” Kilner said.The Ordinary has sold over 300 million units since its inception in 2017, and is continuing to grow in Australia. While Kilner believes that e-commerce will always have its place, she stresses that connecting in real life and having human conversations is important, especially as skincare is so personal.“Every customer that comes into The Ordinary store should leave further educated about our products and their skins’ needs than when they entered,” she said.“They will also have the human connection which so many of us crave, particularly as we may be spending the remainder of our day sitting at home alone working.”Cosy neighbourhood destinationThe store officially launched on 3 December, with the first 100 customers who made a purchase receiving a new, secret formula that’s not yet available.Kilner said that the brand is excited to launch many new initiatives over the next six months, which will be driven by customer requests and product recommendations.She added that Deciem will have six new products launching from January to June – with formulations created with customer requests in mind – and has launched O.Lab, its new innovation engine. She also emphasises the importance of the new store within the local community.“Our aim is to collaborate with local creatives and businesses to power good within the community,” she said.“We have created this store to be a cosy neighbourhood destination and we want to get to know and support our new neighbours.”