Initiating the ＂Beauty Cosmos＂, Sephora is playing digital and intelligent retail.
Wen Yi Wei Wei
In addition to "beauty", how cool can the beauty conference be?
Sephora, a global high-end beauty retailer, is giving the answer in the form of innovative release full of science and technology.
On October 19 this year, Sephora was the first in the form of AR digital intelligence innovation at its exclusive new product and global beauty trend conference in autumn and winter 2022.It has brought more than 40 domestic and overseas brands, more than 230 star products and exclusive new products to China consumers.Combined with the release of five global beauty trends in autumn and winter of 2022, such as "Charming Eyes and Lips", "Precise Skin Care", "Fragrant Fantasy" and "Brilliant Beauty in the East", it presents a beautiful beauty experience in the whole universe.
Mei Li Wan Wei 2022 Sephora exclusive new products in autumn and winter and global beauty trends released.
This conference, which combines beauty and technology, is a microcosm of Sephora’s practice of its true retail concept and omni-channel digital intelligence transformation strategy.
Sephora, born in France in 1969, has accumulated half a century of high-end beauty retail experience..
Now, as a giant in the industry, Sephora has tried its best to inject new vitality into the market. On the one hand, it will bring future retail experience to China consumers through digital intelligence, and on the other hand, it will lead more beauty brands to create beauty for beauty lovers with a more open attitude and global influence.
Play with intellectual innovation and open the "beauty universe"
In recent years, with the youthfulness and internetization of the consumer market in China, the consumption of beauty cosmetics has more needs of "experiencing beauty" and "feeling beauty" on the basis of "beauty pageants".
For retail brands, how to constantly innovate the consumer experience with high quality and new technology has become an important examination question.
The transformation strategy of digital intelligence is a trump card for Sephora to cope with the changes in consumer demand and lead the new wave of consumer experience.
In 2018, Ms. Chen Bing became the general manager of LVMH- Sephora Greater China, which kicked off the omni-channel transformation.
Transformation from "Up" to "Down".
In addition to 324 offline stores in 90 cities, Sephora has formed a network-wide e-commerce matrix of 9 platforms, including official website, official APP, WeChat applet, Tik Tok store, Tmall flagship store, Tmall international overseas flagship store, JD.COM flagship store, JD.COM’s home and Meituan take-out, which has become a benchmark for retail enterprises in the high-end beauty industry to achieve omni-channel.
Due to the surge in consumer demand for digitalization, Sephora has also opened up private channels, breaking the channel boundaries with many tools such as corporate WeChat, small program live broadcast and WeChat community.
In 2020, Sephora specially launched the Smart BA(Beauty Advisor) project, empowering 3,000 "Beauty Consultants" through corporate WeChat numbers, introducing consumers into the private domain of brands, and providing one-to-one remote personalized service and online expansion business with their professionalism and aesthetic vision.
At the beginning of this year, in order to continuously improve the omni-channel experience of consumers,Sephora formally established a brand-new digital intelligence innovation department to further accelerate the development of omni-channel digital intelligence business..
This conference is a work that perfectly combines modern digital technology and cutting-edge aesthetics under this vision.
Sephora broke the geographical restrictions with the innovative form of AR digital intelligence, and realized the linkage among the four places in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Chengdu, opening the era of "the whole universe of beauty".
During the press conference, consumers can unlock autumn and winter beauty inspiration, trend beauty information, Sephora environmental protection measures and more brand stories at close range through in-store AR interaction, and enjoy the first-hand beauty information while being immersed in the "playing beauty" experience in the digital age.
Consumers scan the code to unlock autumn and winter beauty inspiration, trend beauty information, Sephora environmental protection measures and more brand stories.
In daily stores, in order to create a beautiful wonderland with multiple experiences for consumers, Sephora is also adding more intelligent technology and equipment.
At present, Sephora has provided innovative digital and intelligent beauty equipment such as Fragrance Studio Beauty Station 2.0, Foundation Finder background color testing system and Virtual Artist virtual system in several offline flagship stores, so as to meet the individual needs of consumers with diversified services.
The first digital art flagship store opened last year-In the Taikooli store in Sanlitun, Beijing, a VR "cloud" shop was also launched.. Even if consumers can’t get to the store, they can visit the store remotely through Sephora’s official applet and APP.
In this year’s first store-in-store created by Sephora and the high-end national tide brand WEI Blue Beauty in Haikou Vientiane City Store, consumers can also experience "black technology" such as digital somatosensory interaction and intelligent skin measurement.
Knowing the long-term impact of digital intelligence transformation on the industry value chain, Sephora is accelerating its exploration.
"We will break the routine and break through the innovation and engrave it in our own brand genes. This year, Sephora not only optimized the brand organization, but also strengthened cross-departmental cooperation to accelerate the transformation of digital intelligence. " Ms Chen Bing said.
Show the beauty of the national tide and help local brands to enter the international stage.
As the second largest cosmetics market in the world, China is Sephora’s largest market in Asia.
In Sephora’s blueprint for Asian development, China market plays an unquestionable vanguard and benchmark role-representing not only huge consumption power, but also the source of innovation trends.
Over the years, based on the data mining of tens of millions of domestic members and insight into high-end beauty preferences, Sephora has been continuously providing "full-link" product services and experience upgrades.
Ms. Chen Bing summarized and shared.Brand characteristics favored by consumers in China market: personalization, high functionality and sustainability..
In this new product release, Sephora brought Dr Dennis Gross, a scientific skin care brand focusing on efficient and safe formula, PAT McGRATH LABS, the eponymous brand of international makeup masters, and CLEAN Cline, a brand of minimalist pure cosmetics and fragrance.
In addition, Sephora also understands the growing demand of domestic consumers for head care, especially introducing more related brands and global new products that conform to the latest hair care trends, such as PHS Hairscience, a hair care brand dedicated to providing scientific hair care solutions.
Sephora’s other insight into China’s beauty consumers is the "high-end national trend". Sephora found that,High-end international beauty cosmetics have great room for expansion, and now it has become one of the key trends in the beauty industry..
Ms. Chen Bing mentioned that with more and more consumers in China showing strong recognition of cultural self-confidence and brand quality, high-end national fashion beauty cosmetics have risen in recent years.
According to the data of Sephora’s membership promotion in June, 2022, the sales of high-end international brands increased by 33%, showing great development potential.
To this end, on the one hand, Sephora continues to accelerate the "introduction" of good products with a breakthrough vision, and selects internationally renowned big brands and cutting-edge niche brands for China consumers on a global scale;
On the other hand, it also incubates high-end national fashion beauty brands according to local conditions, helping more high-end national fashion brands to "go global" and enter the global consumer field of vision.
In June this year,Sephora launched the "Made in China" China brand lighting plan, aiming to support five local brands to become high-end beauty representatives with sales exceeding 100 million in three years.Empowering high-end national beauty cosmetics to step into a broader international stage and let the world see the beauty of China.
There are 11 high-end national brands participating in this project, including exclusive brands such as CHA LING Tea Spirit, WEI Azure Beauty, MAOGEPING·LIGHT Mao Geping Guangyun, Herborist TaiChi herborist Taiji, INOHERB TANG Appropriate Herbal Tang, YUMEE Yumi and COLOR STUDIO BY MARIE DALGAR Marie Daijia Color Studio.
At the same time, Sephora also plans to gradually expand the number of participating brands.
Sephora will continue to incubate and support the development of high-end national fashion beauty cosmetics.
In view of the above-mentioned top brands of high-end Guochao beauty cosmetics, Sephora has accelerated brand growth, achieved sales breakthrough and demonstrated the strength of high-end Guochao beauty cosmetics with its strong global network, loyal user community and rich experience in high-end retail building.
Sephora will rely on its global resources and influence to provide 360-degree omni-channel support for cooperative brands. Sephora not only shares consumers’ insights with brands, provides opportunities to contact with media and industry celebrities, and gives channels to reach consumers directly and convey brand concepts and product highlights, but also joins hands with brands and stores to provide exclusive beauty experience, and actively helps brands to explore more online business opportunities, and strive to explore the future development path with brands.
Taking CHA LING Tea Spirit as an example, this Sino-French luxury skin care brand was born to protect Yunnan tea forest, and it combines new concepts such as environmental protection and literature and art.
In less than three years, Sephora has upgraded its services and expanded its channels, not only launched a lifestyle product line, but also opened a commercial space for the brand and helped it open a brand Tmall flagship store.
In the store,Sephora also joined hands with CHA LING Chaling to launch a brand SPA care service., and carry out CHA LING Tea Ling’s original Zhenming Meiyan Fair in multiple channels to support and encourage brands to develop diversified product layouts.
Through unremitting efforts, as of July this year, the cumulative sales of CHA LING Tea Ling has exceeded 100 million yuan.
Sephora exclusive brand CHA LING chaling
For some local high-end national fashion brands that have exclusively settled in Sephora, the "Made in China" program also empowers them with offline channels to create exclusive experiences.
In June of this year, Sephora joined hands with WEI Azure Beauty, an exclusive high-end national fashion brand, in its Vientiane City store in Haikou, creating the first "shop-in-shop" in China. In a space of nearly 50 square meters, the theme of "Zen in Yuanjing" was combined with cutting-edge AI technology to show the brand’s herbal skin care wisdom, showing the charm of herbs and the brand characteristics of modern technology.
WEI’s Blue Beauty Presents the First Store-in-Store in Sephora Haikou Vientiane City Store.
In order to further support the growth of cutting-edge brands, Sephora cooperated with Tencent Smart Retail this year and launched the "Private New Force-Tencent Smart Retail Brand Booster" program.
As the co-organizer of "Private New Force", Sephora introduced an inter-departmental team to provide 2-3 months of end-to-end and strong support for the selected new brands, such as private domain training, resource traction, actual trial sales, and exploration of innovative business models.
Return to true retail and achieve beauty.forcewonderland
Sephora, as the world’s leading high-end beauty retailer under LVMH LVMH Group, has more and more branded labels, including digital intelligence, omni-channel, high-end national fashion and so on.
It is the blessing of these multiple capabilities that the retail giant has always been able to cope with the rapid changes in retail trends.
Three years ago,At the company level, Ms. Chen Bing proposed OmniTude, that is, the true retail concept of "omni-channel+attitude"From corporate culture, organizational structure to channel innovation, we will return to the essence of retail and consumer demand, and build a beautiful community for China consumers from many aspects such as products, services and channels.
Ms. Chen Bing, General Manager of LVMH- Sephora Greater China
Ms. Chen Bing explained, "The so-called authentic retail,’ this’ is’ essence’; True is the’ true self’ that we hope to bring to every consumer through our products and services. Sephora hopes to build the most convenient bridge between brands and consumers with strong and accurate omni-channel contacts. "
Controlling art by Tao, whether it is the transformation of digital intelligence or the launch of the "Make it in China" plan, are actually Sephora’s strategies and measures under the concept of "authentic retail".
Ms. Chen Bing revealed that in the future, consumers in China will enjoy more Sephora’s quality products, services and beauty experience.
In terms of product selection, Sephora will continue to select internationally renowned big brands and cutting-edge niche brands on a global scale, and support high-end national brands to further expand the number of brands participating in the "Made in China" China brand lighting plan.
On the basis of existing stores, Sephora will continue to strategically lay out physical stores and enter more areas in Greater China, and plans to launch the first digital intelligent "future store" with technology as the core in China next year to provide consumers with interesting and personalized beauty experience.
"We look forward to providing China consumers with more unique products, trends and pleasant shopping experiences." Ms. Chen Bing emphasized that "in the future, Sephora will always focus on the concept of" authentic retail "and omni-channel thinking, always adhere to the’ consumer’ as the center, pay attention to what consumers need and think, and make sure that we are where consumers are."
