Perfect Diary is building up its offline presence with plans to launch 600 bricks-and-mortar stores countrywide within the next hree years, Chinese media reported. The company is well-known for creating new customer growth models.
Why it matters: Perfect Diary is among a rising group of homegrown brands, known as guohuo in Chinese, that are finding increased popularity among younger demographics.
- The brand capitalized on China’s mature e-commerce environment to create brand awareness.
- They used online-focused marketing strategies that include WeChat-based CRM as well as content marketing across platforms like Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and Bilibili.
- They’ve also worked on co-branded products with KOLs, idols, and the British Museum and Chinese National Geography.
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Details: Yatsen E-commerce, the parent company of Perfect Diary created a new retail division at Fengxian District of Shanghai this Thursday.
- The company already has offline stores in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Nanjing. They will be launching new stores in eastern China’s Changzhou and Ningbo soon.
- The Guangzhou-based company plans to speed up its offline expansion over the next three years by opening 600 stores countrywide. 200 will be located in eastern China, a more developed region in the country.
- Targeting at the lower-tier market, the company’s retail head Feng Qiyao told local media they are aiming to have 80 stores in China’s third- or fourth-tier cities by 2020, up from three so far this year.
- To fuel the offline expansion, the firm plans to hire 3,000 beauty consultants for the new stores.
Context: Founded in 2016, Perfect Diary is an e-commerce-based cosmetic brand targeting young Asian female users.
- The company reportedly completed a new financing round from Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia Capital and Chinese Culture Group at a valuation of over $1 billion this September.
- As part of Alibaba’s new brand and product-boosting initiative, Taobao and Tmall president Jiang Fan pledged to help launch 100 million new products as well as incubate another 100 new brands with the goal of generating RMB 1 billion ($149 million) in sales each over the future three years.