The Body Shop Referral Code

The reward has been quoted inconsistently across sources — in pounds and in rupees, as a fixed amount and as a percentage. Sorting that out leads to the genuinely useful fact: which company you are dealing with decides who honours your gift card.

The reward for this referral has been described inconsistently, so start there. The website given is thebodyshop.in — the Indian store — while one figure quotes the reward as "£10". Other descriptions give something different again: 20% off a first purchase for the referred person, 10% off a next purchase for the referrer, and a minimum spend of ₹500. Pounds and rupees, fixed amounts and percentages, all describing one scheme. Treat the percentage version as the more specific and check it in your account — but the more important question turns out to be which company this page is really about at all.

What happened to The Body Shop, and where.

In February 2024 The Body Shop's UK business entered administration — three months after the German private equity firm Aurelius acquired it from the Brazilian group Natura & Co. More than 80 British stores closed with the loss of over 750 jobs. US operations ceased and the French subsidiary moved toward liquidation.

The scale of what was owed is worth stating plainly: suppliers were owed around £219 million and were expected to recover no more than a quarter of it. Those suppliers are unsecured creditors — the same queue a customer holding a gift card stands in — and a recovery of 25p in the pound is what that queue typically looks like.

In September 2024 the business was bought out of administration by a consortium led by the British cosmetics businessman Mike Jatania, under the private equity firm Auréa Group, and early trading under new ownership was reported as a £2 million profit on £28 million of sales in the first three months.

And now the part that explains why Indian customers saw nothing.

The Body Shop India is operated by Quest Retail Pvt Ltd, a franchise partner. Its group chief executive, Shriti Malhotra, stated at the time that the news related to the UK only and had no effect on The Body Shop India whatsoever. Across the world the brand runs in roughly 83 markets with more than 1,300 outlets, and most of those stores are operated by franchise partners — India, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea among them.

This is a fourth distinct structure now documented across similar cases. They are not interchangeable:

Bought out of administration — a buyer takes brand, domain and customer list but not the liabilities, so old gift cards become unsecured debts. Brand licensing — a brand-management company owns the name and never operates shops; when the licensee fails, the brand is untouched. Pre-pack administration — the sale is arranged before the administration is announced, specifically so trading never stops. Franchise — the local operator is a separate company that can survive the brand owner's insolvency entirely.

And here is why it matters to you rather than to a lawyer.

In a franchise, your gift card, your loyalty points and your right to return something are obligations of the local operating company — not of the global brand. So a Body Shop gift card bought in the UK was exposed to the UK insolvency. One bought in India was not, because a different company was standing behind it. The shop looks identical either way.

The two-minute check that resolves this anywhere: find the registered company name and number in the website footer or on the receipt — it is frequently not the brand name — and look it up on the relevant companies register. That check, applied to a fashion brand, an energy supplier, a lighting retailer and a cosmetics chain, has given a different answer every time.

Two standing precautions follow, and they apply to every retailer: never hold a large gift-card balance — buy it, spend it. A gift card is an interest-free loan to a shop with no protection if the shop fails. And pay by a method with a chargeback or Section 75-type route where one is available to you, because that is a claim against your card provider rather than a place in the creditors' queue.