U.K.-based Neom Wellbeing Plots United States Expansion With New York City Store

With its sights set on the United States, Neom Wellbeing has landed in the Big Apple.

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The UK-based wellness brand was founded by Nicola Elliott in 2005, and since then has been centered around four key pillars: better sleep, less stress, more energy and a boosted mood. Now, the brand is bringing these four benefits to the United States with a 481-square-foot New York City Wellbeing Hub in the West Village, which officially opened last Monday. At the store, guests can receive complimentary hand and arm massages, experience in-store activations and find the pillar they should focus on via a scent discovery test.

While the company is now bullish on the U.S., Elliott was initially a bit hesitant on the market.

“Like so many British brands, we were slightly nervous coming to the States because in many ways [the U.S. has] wellness totally sewn up, way more than we do in London,” she said.

However, after further research, the team recognized a significant opportunity to bring in Neom Wellbeing, which is available in apothecaries, spas and Nordstrom, and has plans to launch with another U.S. retail partner in the coming months according to Elliott.

“[The U.S. has] wellness sewn up when it comes to quite elite wellness for that woman who’s got quite a lot of cash to spend, quite a lot of time, maybe that Goop girl,” Elliot said. “I’m hoping that we can make it a bit more accessible to more every woman, man, person in America.”

With that, the brand is gender neutral; however, its customers skew female. Per Elliott, the 25-year-old customer is shopping just as much as the 45-year-old customer, though Neom Wellbeing tends to target the busy mom.

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While there are similarities across their U.K. and U.S. customers, Elliott has noticed several key trends. For starters, U.S. consumers are a bit more wellness savvy, immediately jumping on the bandwagon with hot ingredients like magnesium which is featured in the brand’s bestselling Perfect Night’s Sleep Magnesium Body Butter, $43.

“We found that the American women have got a bit more time to spend on themselves,” she said, adding that products that take a bit longer to use like the Intensive Skin Treatment Candle, $48, do particularly well in the U.S.

With an increased focus on the U.S. market, the company is projecting significant growth.

According to the brand, direct-to-consumer sales on the U.S. website alone are expected to exceed $1 million this year. In addition, with the opening of the store, its U.S. business is expected to grow by 85 percent this year, making up 10 percent of the overall business.

“Neom [Wellbeing] continues to scale outside of its U.K. home market, and the team and I are delighted to have an immersive, bricks-and-mortar experience with our new flagship U.S. store, which further strengthens our successful distribution channels in the U.S. market,” said Neom Wellbeing chief executive officer Isabel Malbois in a statement. “Our new Bleecker Street Wellbeing Hub builds upon our established U.K. and Ireland omnichannel sales portfolio, including six Neom Wellbeing Hubs, a premium wholesale distribution with branded counters in leading department stores, such as John Lewis and Selfridges, and a fast-growing D2C business across the U.K., U.S. and RoW markets.”

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