Show Offline and Sell Online — Part 2: meeco and @cosme shopping

In our second report of Japanese online cosmetics stores that specialize in beauty products, we take a look at meeco and @cosme shopping.

This time we’ll be focusing on how Isetan Mitsukoshi Group’s meeco and @cosme shopping are working to expand the array of goods on offer online and create a freer way of shopping for the customer.

meeco — an online cosmetics store by a department store industry leader

Isetan Mitsukoshi opened the online cosmetics store meeco in February this year. Sales from cosmetics make up around 10% of Isetan Mitsukoshi Group’s overall sales, and the opening of this online store is aimed at strengthening their cosmetics business.

Before meeco, Isetan Mitsukoshi already ran several online stores and cosmetics-related sites, such as “MI Online Store”, which allowed customers to purchase a selection of the cosmetics the group handles. However, because the system involved goods first being picked up from the store inventory before being sent out to customers, it would take up to four or five days for the products to reach their destination — even up to ten days if there had to be a specified date of delivery. Therefore, before the release of meeco, the company first worked on strengthening and improving its distribution system. They set up a specialized warehouse and made it so that orders received up until 10:59am would be sent off the same day, and if the destination was in the neighborhood it would reach the customer earliest by the following day.

Along with this, they combined together all the online stores to make meeco the one and only site where Isetan Mitsukoshi Group cosmetics could be bought online.

Isetan Mitsukoshi’s thinking was that the reinforcing of their cosmetics online store would create various advantages for both customers and stores.

For instance, they made it so that new products could be reserved in advance. The release of a new product would always result in lineups at the stores, however by working more in conjunction with the online store they could save customers time and energy while freeing up human resources. Additionally, the company reported a significant improvement where with the reorganization of the online store they could save the trouble of picking up products from store inventories and free-up staff on the frontline to concentrate more on customer service.

meeco says their aim is to further expand the “freedom and richness of shopping”. The goal is to have items handled by Isetan Mitsukoshi seamlessly available for purchase through either the online or offline stores.

Lately, there is an increase in customers who use lower-priced “variety shop cosmetics” alongside the higher-priced goods that are sold in department stores. meeco is saying that within the next six months they plan to handle a wider range of cosmetics, not just the luxury brands available behind department store counters, and thus curate an online cosmetics store where you can buy a more diverse range of products in the one place.

There’s also a trend among consumers where, having discovered a favorite social media personality, such as on Instagram, they choose to buy the fashion items worn or cosmetics used by that personality. Although there’s a plethora of beauty information and many quality products, there aren’t many online stores where that information and the ability to purchase come hand in hand, allowing you to immediately buy what you find on the net. meeco has been designed to make this way of shopping possible.

All in all, by unifying customers’ purchasing history, points, and records from the online and offline stores, they hope to provide an even more enriched shopping experience to customers. Also, the data obtainable from this unifying of information will no doubt be useful to the manufacturers and brands of whom Isetan Mitsukoshi deals with.

“@cosme shopping” grows its sales through stronger cooperation with brands

The greatest advantage for customers buying online is the ability to buy a huge variety of products all at once. With this in mind, the cosmetics specialty online store @cosme shopping has made the building of relations with manufacturers and brands a key part of their strategy.

@cosme shopping currently handles around 1,900 brands and 37,000 SKUs worth of products. One of their strong points is providing luxury brands which are usually not available in online stores. What has made this possible is the way that @cosme shopping is not just a shopping platform — it also involves @cosme , a marketing platform that features cosmetics fan communities made up of regular customers posting reviews of products. In addition, the way they’ve worked to make brands understand how these communities can help connect consumers and brands together is another big factor.

In the past several years, brands that sell their wares specifically in department stores have tended to hesitate to sell on large online stores due to the online world’s tendencies towards price appeal advertising and the risks of brand defamation. Considering this, it can be understood how @cosme shopping’s strategy has been a large differentiator. They’ve dared to not compete on price but deepen their relationship of trust with manufacturers and brands and provide a great variety of products to customers, and with this, they’ve been able to focus on their role of connecting people to brands.

The results of this strategy have been showing clearly in the numbers. In the past five years, they have recorded a steady annual growth of 30%. Also, their exclusive event “@cosme Beauty Day 2018”, that was held on December 3rd last year, generated a total distribution worth in excess of US$3.7 million.

With @cosme shopping being a specialized online store, they have many passionate customers with a deep love for cosmetics. Consequently, there is no shortage of highly loyal customers who, even when a product is released on different platforms at the same time, will come especially to @cosme shopping to purchase the product, forgoing other online stores. Their policy is to make sure their product information is more substantial than the competition in order to meet their loyal customers’ expectations.

In addition, in order to enhance the opportunities for customers to discover new products, there are plans to strengthen the link up with @cosme and to incorporate even more technology-enhancing options, such as chat functions and recommendations.

Text: Ching Li Tor
Original (Japanese): Jonggi HA