Digital Dive: Top stories on digital developments making waves in the APAC beauty industry

1 – China expansion: SENSAI leads with e-commerce strategy to accelerate growth of brand awareness

Luxury skin care brand SENSAI has launched a Tmall flagship store as part of its e-commerce-led strategy to accelerate the brand’s presence in the competitive Chinese market.​

SENSAI is a high-end beauty brand owned by Japanese personal care major Kao Corporation. The brand, considered one of Kao’s most prestigious names, was launched for the European market in 1983.

It only recently made its Asia debut in 2019 as part of Kao’s bid to strengthen its position on the global market.

The brand first launched in Japan and eventually entered China via the Alibaba-owned cross-border e-commerce platform Tmall Global in September 2019.

2 – Brave new digital world: Incoming tech such as smart glasses will take beauty retail ‘beyond our imagination’

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the development of new retail experiences such as virtual stores, but one expert believes this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential of extended reality in the beauty space.​

In the last 18 months or so, we have seen rapid digitisation in the way we work, socialise, and shop.  From independent brands to beauty multinationals, companies accelerated the digital push to survive the pandemic.

Beauty giant L’Oréal rolled out a virtual Lancôme store to better connect and engage with consumers in a contactless world.

The virtual stores were recreated using extreme photorealism and featured interactive elements such as minigames and live tours hosted by celebrities and influencers that appeared as avatars in the virtual world.

3 – Baby boom: MyGlamm expanding into mum and baby care with over 80 new products on the way

Amazon-backed MyGlamm is set to launch over 80 new personal care products to tap into the rapidly growing mum and baby care segment​ in India.

This news follows the company’s announcement that it was acquiring online parenting platform BabyChakra and investing INR100cr ($13.5m) to build a mummy- and baby-centric content-to-commerce platform over three years.

Naiyya Saggi, founder and CEO of BabyChakra will join the MyGlamm group as co-founder and president and will spearhead the mum-baby vertical for the company.

The company is gearing up to launch over 80 products in this category under the BabyChakra brand in the next eight to 12 months.

4 – Stepping up: Lillycover to expand into hair care and make-up this year following $4m fundraise

Seoul-based personalised beauty start-up Lillycover has announced plans to launch personalised scalp and make-up products​ this year after raising U$4m in Series A funding.

The funding round, held late August, was led by POSCO Capital, TBT Partners, IBK and KITE Entrepreneurship Foundation.

Founder and CEO SunHee An told CosmeticsDesign-Asia​ that the funding it received was “more than we expected” and that it would be using the new funds to expand its business.

She elaborated that the funding will help the company in “stepping up efforts” to improve its products and services.

5— Instant gratification: Sephora, Amorepacific and Watsons among retailers stepping up on-demand delivery services in China

Beauty majors like Sephora, Amorepacific and Watsons are stepping up its on-demand retail services in China as consumer preferences for speedy deliveries show no sign of waning post-COVID​.

On-demand deliveries have gained huge strides in China following the outbreak of COVID-19, which saw movement restrictions and lockdowns across China.

Dada Group is one of the leading on-demand delivery and retail firms in China backed by JD.com and Walmart. The company operates two on-demand delivery platforms – JD Daojia (JDDJ) and Dada Now.

The company grew on the back of the need for grocery deliveries, propelling the company to becoming the largest local on-demand retail platform in the supermarket segment by gross merchandise value (GMV) by the first nine months of 2020.