New Chinese cosmetics retail chain The Colorist sees red hot growth
In China, new cosmetics retail chains are popping up one after the other. We took a closer look at one trailblazer, The Colorist.
According to a report released by China’s Guoyuan Securities on industries of goods for households and individuals, in the Chinese cosmetics market of 2018, e-commerce accounted for 27% of all marketing channels, and this was the first time it had come out as the leading channel. Hypermarkets, or “superstores”, which had previously maintained the top spot, had now dropped to 25%. However, among the brick-and-mortar ‘real’ stores there was one channel growing steadily — cosmetics retail chains.
New cosmetics retail chains have been popping up and expanding one after the other, gaining on the existing major chains such as Watsons and Sephora. Of these newcomers, The Colorist has been particularly fast in increasing its number of stores and building consumer support.
Run by KK Group (Guangdong Kuaike E-Commerce), an enterprise known for its data-driven approaches to business, The Colorist first opened shop in October 2019. Their first two stores were opened simultaneously in the cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province. Although newly opened, the stores were constantly crowded with over 14,000 visitors, and store entry limits reportedly had to be set up. This level of popularity extended across China, with its first Beijing store achieving 200,000 yuan (US$28,000) in sales on its first day, and its first store in Changsha City in Hunan Province reaching 2.2 million yuan (US$307,660) in sales within its first 12 days. As of April 2020, they’ve expanded to over 60 stores within 20 cities across China. In May, they plan to open another 30 or so stores in cities including Shanghai.
The Colorist styles itself as China’s first specialty store for makeup only. Their stores tend to be between 300 to 800 square meters wide and stock over 6,000 SKUs worth of items. In line with their target demographic of 14- to 35-year-old women, The Colorist adopts more freely opened-up floor spaces and colorful interior designs that just beg to be posted about online. One standout feature is an entire wall piled up to the ceiling with a rainbow of different-colored makeup sponges by American brand Beautyblender. This wall has become a photo-taking spot, with many users posting such photos on Weibo and other Chinese social media platforms.
In this way, The Colorist is crafting stores designed to encourage virality on social media, although instead of relying on influencers, they are placing more importance on initiating natural word-of-mouth by actual consumers. To help store visitors enjoy the physical shopping experience and instantly share it on social media, they’ve stationed plenty of product testers in stores. Accordingly, they’ve also set up large garbage bins next to each shelf — a practical consideration. On top of this, some stores also have video streaming booths set up, allowing users to tour the location live and try out makeup on the spot.
The Colorist is also more considerate of customers’ personal space. Normally in stores in China, staff are prone to come up to you while you’re browsing and recommend this or that, often preventing you from examining the products at your leisure. However, at The Colorist stores, staff won’t interrupt you unless you talk to them yourself.
Since early this year, in order to curtail the spread of the coronavirus, they’ve been forced to close stores and reduce store hours along with other companies. However, in February they began additionally selling through other online platforms apart from their own app in a further shift towards online.
On WeChat, there is now a The Colorist mini-program where online purchases can be made. Here, along with providing discounts, they’ve set up a system where users can share pictures of products within WeChat and earn incentives if their followers purchase the products through those posts.
As to how The Colorist became such a hit, CEO of KK Group Yao Peng has herself given three reasons. First is their business model that makes available an enormous collection while also recreating the innovative ‘fast fashion’ model. Second is their continuous research on visually and spatially effective imagery to grab people’s attention through original spatial aesthetics and create immersive experiences. The third is how they use data, such as actual sales numbers, to daily adjust the in-store brand-specific areas and product arrangements and totally rethink their displays, giving consumers a feeling of freshness.
An announcement in April by L’Oréal Group expressed the view that after lockdowns are lifted in cities around the world, the demand for cosmetics will swiftly return, and it was mentioned that China was already in the process of recovery. Going by this prediction, we can expect The Colorist to see even more remarkable growth.
Text: Ching Li Tor
Original text (Japanese): Team Roboteer
