Cosmetics e-commerce app Noin helps luxury brands get the yes in Japan
Japanese cosmetics e-commerce app Noin, which has gained a formidable following amongst Generation Z users, has partnered with trading companies to help non-Japanese brands to enter the Japanese market from concept to launch.
In the first half of 2020, Noin, Inc. received investment from Itochu Corporation and Marubeni’s corporate venture capital fund Marubeni Ventures. Previously they had also received funding from venture capital firms such as Coral Capital. However the partnership with Itochu this time has greater significance due to their advancement into a new business.
As a continuation of their own private-brand endeavors, Noin plans to utilize these partnerships to acquire licenses for famous non-Japanese brands that don’t have cosmetics products and handle cosmetics product development for them, from product planning to selling. Additionally, for foreign brands that are yet to enter the Japanese market, they plan to produce their products to help them expand into the country by providing data marketing and sales support.
So why did these major trading companies decide to partner with Noin? CEO of Noin, Inc., Ken Watabe, explains.
“Noin has the reach and is esteemed for having an e-commerce platform whose core target is Gen-Z — the future driving force of the beauty market — and for having producing power that includes product development. However, ultimately, our ability to properly handle each brand that we deal with over e-commerce and become a partner that can grow together with them has allowed us to be chosen by Itochu, as that’s an area which they lay importance on.”
For Noin too, there are big advantages. If they can continue to develop products for foreign luxury brands that wish to enter Japan and such opportunities increase, they can differentiate themselves much greater from other cosmetics e-commerce sites. Additionally, by introducing luxury brands to Gen-Z users, not only can they strengthen communication with users, but this can also broaden the horizons of customers, and Noin’s position as a cosmetics platform can grow stronger.
However, there is an issue that needs to be considered. Noin has a unique way of communicating with consumers that comes with a human touch. Products they send come with hand-written messages as well as its original product descriptions and this is one reason for their strong support among users. However, when they start handling non-Japanese luxury brands that are strict when it comes to creative control, a pivotal point will be how they’ll balance the styles of their platform and of the brands.
In regard to this, Watabe says that “Noin’s more heartwarming style is being favorably received by overseas luxury brands. At the same time, we’ve already begun trialing ways of communication that allow the spirit of the brands to be kept intact.”
This is exemplified by “LOOKBOOK”, which aims to convey the merits of brands visually through creative content. With this, they’ve gained the participation of up-and-coming creators who are active in the advertising industry as well as models popular among teens and twenty-somethings. This content, containing looks that Noin users are likely to “go the extra mile to try out”, is uploaded daily to the LOOKBOOK website and Instagram account.
Noin has many users in their teens or twenties who use the service to do their very first online shopping. Therefore, “the excitement and sense of relief that these users feel the moment when a product arrives is, as a shopping experience, extremely important, and we realize that this is not something that can merely be conveyed through packaging or design”, says Watabe. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a low-priced or luxury brand, “in the end it’s Noin’s job to convey that product and story, and we don’t plan to change our approach of carefully selecting quality products and recommending them”.
Noin is also working on a data solution business for brands and makers. For brands yet to reach Japan that Noin will focus on producing and also for new brands, this is a way for them to begin utilizing the Noin platform.
There are two plans to choose from: a “data marketing support plan” that provides consulting in line with a company’s issues and requests and an “online selling support plan” that offers services, such as app/web tie-ups, sampling, monitoring, and video production, based on the advertising expertise Noin has cultivated through media management.
In one example of the service, they extract target users, issue them multiple pieces of creative content and, similar to A/B testing, verify which is the most effective, whether it be a particular catchphrase or other content. They also analyze the differences between content that has reach and content that has a high rate of conversion.
The strength of Noin’s data solution is being able to present marketing data that traces a customer’s awareness, consideration, purchasing, repeat purchasing, and transformation into a loyal customer as well as comprehensively proposing solutions to all of these areas. Such strength is set to be a huge boost for brands looking to enter the Japanese market.
Text: Ching Li Tor
Original text (Japanese): Mina Shimizu
