I arrived in Taipei last week. A very cool city! On my first day I was walking past the Taipei International Exhibition Centre (I was actually on my way to meet a friend for coffee!) when I saw big posters advertising the 7th Asia Organic & LOHAS Expo from 31st October to 3rd November. I had come across the term LOHAS several times in Taiwanese stores and on product packaging – obviously organic and LOHAS is a lifestyle and/or marketing trend in Taiwan just as much as in other Western and Asian countries. I decided that I simply had to visit the Organic & LOHAS Expo – and it turned out to be a compact and interesting little show.
Category Archives: Industry News
Retail notes from Taipei: [Show Report] Asia Organic & LOHAS Expo 2014
Filed under Asia, Industry News, Retail, Show Reports, Trade Shows, Travel, Trends
Retail notes from Tokyo: [Store Profile] Organic beauty at Cosmekitchen
If you’re interested in organic cosmetics, a visit to Cosmekitchen (Mash Beauty Lab) is practically mandatory. It is Japan’s biggest organic beauty store chain: the first Cosmekitchen store opened in 2004 and the company currently operates 30 outlets across Japan. The majority of the stores are in the Kanto area on Honshu island.
Although the organic beauty market in Japan is growing constantly, I think it is still primarily an urban trend – I noticed that Cosmekitchen stores seem to be mostly located in larger cities. The retailer’s outlets are usually shop-in-shop areas that are based in department stores; in Tokyo, for example, five of the Cosmekitchens are situated in outlets of the Lumine department store chain.
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29/10/2014 · 10:42
Retail notes from Tokyo: [Store Profile] Retail at RanKingRanQueen
There is a Japanese store chain which is even more focused on the trend aspect of FMCG retail than @cosme. RanKingRanQueen sells cosmetics, confectionery, beverages and books strictly according to what the three top-sellers are in each category. There are four RanKingRanQueen stores in Japan; two in Tokyo, one in Yokohama and one store in Osaka.
The stores are located in busy train stations since this is where commuter traffic and especially the trend-driven younger consumers (the main target demographic of the store chain!) congregate. I visited the RanKingRanQueen store in Yokohama – it’s located in Azamino station (one of the stops on the Tokyu Den-en-toshi line from Shibuya) directly opposite the main ticket gates.
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Filed under Asia, Industry News, Retail, Store Profiles, Travel, Trends
Retail notes from Tokyo: [Store Profile] Online/offline beauty @cosme
I was eager to see the stores of @cosme, a Japanese beauty chain with a retail concept that is strongly driven by social media network. The @cosme approach is an ingenious merger of online and offline retail.
[EDIT 30/01/2018: @cosme finally has an English-language version of the website! Check out: https://www.cosme.com/en; it’s just a part of @cosme’s huge Japanese language database but still, yay!
EDIT 24/01/2020: A couple of weeks ago @cosme opened a massive multi-storey outlet in Harajuku, opposite the Omotesando entrance of Harajuku JR station. This new store is stupendous – it makes all other @cosme outlets in Tokyo look boring and even dated; so if you’re in Harajuku or Omotesando area, do yourself a favour and visit it!]
@cosme is Japan’s largest cosmetics online store and it is also the country’s biggest virtual beauty community. The company’s websites are www.cosme.com and www.cosme.net so every Japanese Internet user who searches for anything to do with cosmetics ends up at @cosme sooner or later. @cosme’s main target group are consumers aged 16-25 which means that the website and its online community are hugely influential in the trend-driven teen and young adult consumer demographic in Japan.
@cosme’s very successful retail venture actually started with a simple review website: cosme.net was launched in 1999 and became popular very quickly. In 2001, the company behind @cosme (marketing agency iStyle), launched online store cosme.com. @cosme sells an extensive range of Japanese, Asian and Western mass market, masstige and premium brands. Whether you are looking for a Japanese face mask, a Korean eyelash lotion or Chanel’s latest whitening face serum, it is all available on @cosme.
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Filed under Asia, Industry News, Retail, Store Profiles, Travel, Trends
Retail notes from Tokyo: [Show Report] Cosme Tokyo 2014
This week I attended CosmeTokyo, Japan’s most important cosmetics trade show. The fair took place from 20th to 22nd October in Tokyo’s Big Sight exhibition center, which is located near Tokyo Bay. CosmeTokyo 2014 was the third edition of the show; it was held in conjunction with CosmeTech, a trade fair for ingredients, packaging, OEM manufacturing and so on. A total of 542 exhibitors from 36 countries attended the two shows and over the three days of CosmeTokyo/CosmeTech, there were 20,754 trade visitors.
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Filed under Asia, cosmeticsbusiness.com, Industry News, Retail, Show Reports, Trade Shows, Travel, Trends
Salon C&T in Poland: Article on cosmeticsbusiness.com
One of the articles I wrote in connection with the Warsaw trip: a brief analysis of the Polish salon market with a particular focus on skin care and hair care. Market research data courtesy of Kline Group. Please respect the copyright (HPCi Media/cosmeticsbusiness.com)!
Filed under cosmeticsbusiness.com, Industry News, Retail, Travel
Natural Cosmetics Conference 2014: [Show Report] Day Two
The second part of my article about the Natural Cosmetics Conference here in Berlin: again, be warned: this is a long text! Continue reading
Filed under Berlin, cosmeticsbusiness.com, Industry News, Retail, Show Reports, Trends
Natural Cosmetics Conference 2014: [Show Report] Day One
Last week the annual Naturkosmetik Branchenkongress (Natural Cosmetics Conference) took place in Berlin: two days of stimulating presentations, interesting people and so many new ideas, inspirations and things to research that my head is still spinning.
This year the conference was all about trends and changes: how the organic beauty market is changing and how it might look in five or ten years. Topics included customer journeys, the way that consumers are changing the retail market (social media, peer reviews, shit-storms…) and how they are starting to influence what brands are doing, the role of e-commerce and how this is changing C&T distribution and how authenticity and transparency are amongst the most important factors in successful brand management.
I will be splitting this article into two separate posts – Day One and Day Two – which should improve the readability. It is still a long text though. You have been warned! Continue reading
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Filed under Berlin, cosmeticsbusiness.com, Industry News, Retail, Show Reports, Trade Shows
Mintel articles: Kauf dich Glücklich and Beauty & Nature
Here are two more Mintel articles, from June and July 2014 – concept store Kauf dich Glücklich in Berlin and organic perfumery Beauty & Nature in Leipzig. Continue reading
Filed under Berlin, Industry News, Mintel, Retail, Store Profiles
Cosmetics Polska: Study tour in Warsaw, Poland
I just returned from a brief trip to Warsaw, where I attended the annual Cosmetics Polska study tour. This is an EU-funded program to promote Polish beauty companies abroad. The organizers are Warsaw-based media company SPC House of Media, they also make sure that Poland has a large presence at every major international C&T trade show. Once a year they organize a study tour in Warsaw for international journalists, beauty buyers and distributors. And this year I was invited. Thank you SPC Media! Continue reading
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Filed under Industry News, Retail, Trade Shows, Travel
TRENDS. TRAVELS. AND BERLIN 