Outlook for J-Beauty
The future for J-Beauty hinges on how the customer experience can be enhanced, and how new things can be tried out with a fresh perspective.
On September 12th this year, the 1st Beauty Tech Symposium was held at the Diet and Beauty Fair 2018, and the panelists’ discussion yielded many clues on how Japan’s beauty industry can progress and develop within this increasingly digitized and technologically-advanced age. One way forward is the creation of customer experiences that utilize technologies such as AR and VR.
Virtually inspiring customers
Perfect Corp. Japan, developer of YouCam Makeup, an app that lets you play with virtual makeup through AR technology, has from this year seen a substantial increase in inquiries from companies wanting to use their technology in their stores.
President and Representative Director Rob Isozaki explained that, previously, customers would try on an average of 2 to 3 different colors in-store when buying cosmetics. However, after stores incorporated touch-panel-style digital signboards that feature YouCam Makeup, that average rose to 12 different colors. Customer’s choices have grown thanks to enabling them to try on different variations more quickly and efficiently, and this has led to increased sales.
Stores where YouCam Makeup was incorporated, have seen sales grow up to 400% in comparison to stores that hadn’t incorporated the technology. It’s also tended to have an in-store chain effect, with other customers being drawn in on seeing others having fun with the device, leading to a more stimulated environment within the store.
Another company employing the power of new technology is JOLLY GOOD Inc., which specializes in powerful, immersive VR experiences. For example, the system they offer is used in agricultural exhibits where it can transport potential customers to the fields of which the product is grown “so well it’s as if you were actually there.” The experience can later be re-lived on a smartphone in an app that leads customers on to purchase the produce. CEO Kensuke Joji explains that by allowing customers to experience the story behind the product — where the product was produced and who the farmer is, for example — they feel they want it even more. There have been cases where, thanks to JOLLY GOOD’s VR technology, user conversion rate has grown by around 10%.
Enlarging the online shopping experience
Providing the tool #CBKscnnr, where AI analyzes fashion snapshots to find similar-looking items, is Newrope. Representative Director Satoshi Sakai says that there’s certainly an increase in users who buy items online having seen them in a full coordination with other clothes. And with AI recognizing such items and offering up alternatives, such as when a certain item goes out of stock, potential purchasing opportunities are expanded.
Customer-centric digital marketing
On the other hand, Tsuguhide Nagase, former CDO of L’Oreal Japan and now the CDO of entertainment enterprise LDH JAPAN Inc., pointed out that with digital marketing, although it’s easy to track cost effectiveness that leads to conversion, there’s a tendency to lose sight of what customers think and how they behave.
“Digital marketing tends to disregard the brick-and-mortar world, though one mustn’t forget where business is actually taking place.” He says what’s needed in the stores of tomorrow is the ability to track the small changes in customer’s behavior, such as facial expressions or changes in voice, and then instantly analyze those changes in order to provide a service more accurately aligned with customer’s expectations.
Tapping the overseas market
At the symposium, there was also discussion about how Japanese cosmetics can be better marketed overseas.
One of the speakers was Yoon Mijoung, the founder and CEO of PRIN Co., Ltd. Her company runs the service Mearri, which supports the global advancement of South Korean cosmetics as well as those from other Asian countries. She says that in many cases the merits of Japanese cosmetics aren’t conveyed properly, and that by just slightly changing the way of showing and selling products to align with local needs in other countries they have the potential to become much more successful.
Also represented at the symposium was C Channel Corporation, which runs Japan’s largest video media platform aimed towards women, C CHANNEL. The corporation recently acquired LUCE Networks, a company based in Shanghai running the beauty media platform LUCE, which in China gains over 16 million views monthly. C Channel Corporation has started a cross-border e-commerce-related business that offers a total solution, from online promotions to selling, and that makes use of social media platforms such as WeChat and Weibo as well as influencers.
President and Representative Director Akira Morikawa explained how “when establishing an online store overseas you need to acquire a license, so it’s already challenging from the start. So before starting full-scale selling overseas, it can be a good option to use a platform like C Channel to conduct test marketing.”
Akihiko Ohmura, Representative Director of COUXU Corporation, which connects manufacturers and global buyers through the web service World Connect, talked about the recent trend where “many overseas buyers are not just looking to the cosmetics themselves but to whole services that cover personnel and equipment, in order to, for example, expand salons in that country.”
It seems there are still possibilities for Japan’s cosmetics companies to achieve considerable advancement in overseas markets, but it will mainly come down to them fully utilizing the most modern methods and expertise available.
