Japanese beauty brand SK-II has partnered with The Shilla Duty-Free to bring Future X Smart Store to Changi airport. According to SK-II, the smart store merges the latest digital technology with in-store experience to deliver “a convenient and pressure-free shopping experience”.
“Travellers from all over the world now have the chance to experience the brand’s unique physical retail concept, merging the latest digital technologies with in-store elements to provide travelers with a convenient and pressure-free way to shop for skincare,” the brand said in a statement.
The store consists of physical features such as the Discovery Bar, smart product scan and ‘Skincare GPS’ that help time-conscious travelers locate, learn about and buy SK-II products in the shortest time possible.
At the Discovery Bar, consumers will learn more about SK-II’s range of skincare products at the touch of a button.
The smart product scan tool uses advanced image-recognition technology to help customers locate products quickly. By scanning the SK-II product images they download to their mobile devices, travelers will be directed to the location of their desired product.
The Skincare GPS facility lights up the location of the product on the store shelf to make it quicker and easier for shoppers to find items.
The smart store is a part of SK-II’s foray into retail innovation “and the start of a global transformation to connect with a new generation of consumers who are yearning for more meaningful experiences with the brands”, the company said.
SK-II has launched Future X Smart Stores in Tokyo, Shanghai, and Singapore.
An SK-II smart store has opened in Shanghai, an enhanced version of the global beauty brand’s technology-packed showcase which opened in Tokyo in May.
The SK-II Future X Smart Store features facial recognition, computer vision, and AI technology augmented by the brand’s proprietary skin science and diagnostics. The store employs an algorithm that supports self-service shopping to provide consumers with a personalised and immersive experience.
The experience begins with a large-scale digital wall that reads visitor’s facial expressions as well as head, eye and mouth movements. Each expression correlates to a different colour scheme, while eye blinks trigger energy lines to pass across the screen.
Visitors can also explore the “Miracle Water” Lab, which offers an immersive experience of how SK-II Facial Treatment Essence works on the skin. They can also use a proprietary skin scan that performs its analysis while customers sit in a booth. An interactive skincare wall will then display a comprehensive analysis of each user’s skin condition, together with a set of tailored recommendations based on the results.
Using a special bracelet designed in cooperation with e-commerce channel One Jingdong, consumers can purchase the products they need by just waving their wrists on a scanner, without the need for a mobile application on-site.
The Shanghai store will also see the debut of the Facial Treatment Essence Smart Bottle, a new packaging feature that interacts with a companion app to enhance consumers’ skincare regimen at home.
CEO Sandeep Seth said the role of retail in driving how consumers experience products in today’s post-digital world is vastly different than when the company started, especially in the rapidly evolving Chinese beauty market.
“In shifting our focus to bring innovation to consumers around the shopping experience versus product technology, SK-II is leading the way to create a new model for how we build and evolve our relationship with our consumers in China and globally.”
An experiential concept store opened by beauty brand SK-II in Tokyo incorporates face authentication technology and AI.
The Future X Smart Store by SK-II will trade in the trendy Harajuku district until June 28. (Scroll down for a video of the store from BuzzFeed).
According to SK-II, customers can look into and touch digital screens which recognise them and help recommend beauty treatments based on their specific skin tones and types.
“We aim to offer comprehensive skincare experiences that connect customers and SK-II in a bi-directional manner at the time of customer’s choosing,” said an SK-II executive in a Japanese press release.
SK-II believes the technology and AI can create “a unique dialogue” between store and customer.
At the pop-up’s entrance, customers are welcomed by digital art that changes according to the facial expressions and body movements of the customer.
They can then move into a cubicle where they sit before a mirror which analyses their skin condition in an instant. But unlike ordinary skin analysis machines, the machine does not touch the skin directly – it simple scans the skin and uses AI to calculate treatments.
On the store’s second floor, a Smart Beauty Wall with a digital touch screen automatically recognises the customer from the earlier scanning process below. It displays the results of the skin analysis and provides skin care advice.
And a Smart Beauty Counter in the centre of the floor reacts to the customer, automatically displaying suggested products according to the analysis result. Customers can then try as many products as they wish while watching product information on screen.
Tmall will this year work with top beauty brands such as Estee Lauder and Lancome to help them surpass RMB 1 billion (US$157.9 million) in annual sales on the platform.
The increased focus on the beauty sector will also see Tmall deliver an updated suite of New Retail solutions so that all merchants can better serve Chinese consumers, the Alibaba Group-owned B2C shopping site says.
Tmall plans to partner closely with about 10 beauty brands in particular, also including SK-II and Olay, to help them break that sales threshold. New Retail initiatives include a new “try-before-you-buy” feature, where users pay a 10 per cent deposit to test a product with the promise of a simpler and faster refund process.
“Our partnership with brands will cover every corner from online to offline,” Tmall president Jet Jing said. “We will be consistently involved in daily operations ranging from product innovation, brand building, channel management, supply chain to customer operations.”
Tmall Supermarket would also expand its one-hour delivery service to more customers, as faster service is also a part of New Retail, Jing said. However, the biggest changes won’t come until the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, which is typically when Alibaba rolls out its New Retail initiatives.
The initiatives were announced during the Tmall Beauty Awards in Shanghai, where more than 1000 beauty professionals, from both international and home-grown brands, gathered for the annual event. This year, Estee Lauder, SK-II, Giorgio Armani Beauty and Givenchy each took away a “Super Brands Award,” for their outstanding performance in brand influence, marketing creativity and consumer engagement. Newcomer Givenchy on March 1 broke the single-day sales record, selling more than 58,000 lipsticks and generating over RMB 16 million – all in the first 12 hours of the day.
Since launching in 2015, the awards largely have spotlighted New Retail-driven innovations. Featured technology at this year’s awards included the “Cloud Shelf” and the latest iteration of the augmented reality-powered “Magic Mirror,” which allows users to virtually try on new hairstyles, lipstick, eyeshadow and blush. Tmall said it would partner with with French cosmetics company L’Oreal to install Magic Mirrors in 50 of the beauty giant’s physical stores in China.
Tmall hosts more than 3000 beauty brands on its platform, according to a report released by Tmall and Chinese research firm CBNData last year. Some of the newest entrants include LVMH-owned Givenchy, L’Oreal’s Giorgio Armani Beauty and Estee Lauder’s Darphin.
“After two years of very successful acceleration in China, we felt this is the right timing to join Tmall to push artistry and premium-ness of the brand,” said Andrea Yann, GM of the China market at Giorgio Armani Beauty. “Our plan is really to understand from [Alibaba’s] database what are the main beauty concerns of Chinese women to solve their beauty issues, be very personalised still being [seen as] very artistry and premium.”
Andrea Yann, GM of the China market at Giorgio Armani Beauty, speaks on stage.
Younger more focused on beauty
According to a report released by Tmall and market research consultancy Kantar, what they want is a more elaborate skincare regimen. Thirty-five per cent of respondents said they have added more steps to their beauty routines, and therefore are spending more on skincare products and cosmetics. Tmall attributed 53 per cent of the sales of beauty products on Tmall to consumers making more purchases per person.
Beauty consumers in China – the world’s largest and fastest-growing beauty market at $22 billion – are also becoming younger than ever, the report noted. In 2017, users born after 1990 made up over 40 per cent of shoppers on Tmall Global, the site’s cross-border e-commerce channel, overtaking those born in the 1980s as the main consumption force on Tmall Global, the site’s cross-border e-commerce channel.
Consumers born after 1990 like to try new products from new brands and less familiar origin countries, the report said.
Embracing the new
“In China, there’s more willingness to try new products at a faster rate than what you would see in different markets,” said Danielle Bailey, head of Asia Pacific research at digital agency L2.
“It’s not that [Chinese beauty consumers] are less loyal, but their desire to explore is much higher,” she said. “This makes it more challenging for brands to sell to the market, but also creates new opportunities.”
Tmall’s latest report also showed momentum for homegrown brands, particularly for skincare, where they accounted for 56 per cent of sales last year – up from 54 per cent in 2016. However, foreign brands still dominate the cosmetics category with 56 per cent of total makeup sales.
Chinese brands are trying to boost their profiles by launching new prestige product lines or creating new products within an existing line, said Bailey. “It will be interesting to see if local brands can successfully transition to that space. It’s still a bit unclear because Western brands tend to be associated with better quality,” she added.
From a product development standpoint, the pace of innovation in Asia has forced brands in the West to shrink development timelines to stay relevant, said Bailey. Where Western companies may take two years to release a product,” he said, “in Korea, some brands are launching new product every three months.”
Time-to-market is indeed very important for beauty brands, said Ye Guohui, GM of Tmall’s new retail division.
“Conducting market research alone can be very time-consuming, taking up to over a year,” he said. “But brands in China can leverage Alibaba’s data capacities to really shorten that timeline, and accelerate product development.”
The SK-II Boutique Spa has opened at The Gardens mall in Kuala Lumpur – its second location after Singapore.
A Singapore-based Malaysian, Calvin Ng worked for more than 20 years with Procter & Gamble (P&G), the brand owner of SK-II. He then founded Senze Salus, which introduced the SK-II Boutique Spa in 2004. The spa offers facial treatments using only SK-II products.
Its Kuala Lumpur offshoot covers 213sqm and offers 12 soundproof treatment suites as well as a waiting lounge with refreshments, an SK-II beauty bar and a retail section.
Signature treatments include the SK-II Senzational Facial that tackles multiple skin concerns and incorporates a 55-step facial massage technique. The Senze Oxygenated Facial features a stream of pressurised oxygen infused with SK-II Facial Treatment Essence being applied to the face.
The SK-II Boutique Spa takes its name from the Japanese skincare brand.
SK-II opens a pop-up store of 2017 PITERA Essence Change Destiny Limited Edition at the Seocho-gu Central City Famille Station in Seoul for the holiday season.
This pop-up store is designed with a variety of experience spaces and a wide range of enjoyment under the concept of a unique Pop Art design of the bottle of the PITERA Essence Limited Edition.
A giant-sized bottle of PITERA Essence Limited Edition Bottle is displayed in the middle of the pop-up store that attracts attention and it allows anyone to experience a variety of ways to experience the PITERA Essence Limited Edition.
Visitors take a picture in the PhotoZone, which is surrounded by a variety of PITERA Essence Limited Editions.
After taking a photo, they can select one of the three ‘#ChangeDestiny’ phrases on the bottle and the calligrapher will write the phrase on the a polaroid cover.
In addition, SK-II’s beauty measuring system, Magic Ring, can be used to measure skin condition and offer beauty counseling.
Visitors can participate in various activities at the PITERA station, including magic ring measurements, and present coins that are only available at the PITERA station.
With the coin from the pop-up store, SK-II PITERA gift machine gives you the chance to get a variety of products from SK-II’s best products.
The motif of this pop-up store, the PITERA Essence Change Destiny Limited Edition is the symbolic product of SK-II. It features a ‘#ChangeDestiny’ phrase inscribed on the bottle that inspires the subjective life.
Three phrases with meaning of support for the attitude of life changing in a subjective way, “Be the Person You DECIDE To Be”, “CHANGE is in All of Us”, “DESTINY is a Matter of Choice” are designed in pop art form for each of the three products.
Those products will be sold in limited edition at SK-II stores and major online malls in department stores nationwide.
The same pop-up store concept has been mushrooming is the main Asia cities.
Japanese beauty brand SK-II will launch new Magnetic Booster, part of its Radical New Age Power (R.N.A) line, exclusively with The Shilla Duty Free at Changi Airport on 1 July.
The Magnetic Booster will be sold in sets with the R.N.A Power Cream (80g) in the R.N.A Power Magnetic Kit (S$200/US$145) or with the R.N.A Power Essence (50ml) in the R.N.A Power Essence Magnetic Kit (S$187/US$136). Magnetic Booster will be available at all Singapore SK-II counters from September.
Magnetic Booster features Magnetic Micropulse Technology which is claimed to deliver consistent yet gentle pulsations at 7,000 magnetic vibrations per minute with magnetism. According to SK-II, the product is three times better at improving penetration than finger application.
To support the launch, top Chinese celebrity make-up artist Wu Miao will host sessions on 7 July for beauty media, influencers and selected customers at the SK-II PITERA Lounge at The Shilla Duty Free. Miao, who contributes to Marie Claire, SELF and OnlyLady magazines, was named as one of the top ten beauty bloggers by Weibo. SK-II Associate Director Travel Retail Global Shweta Sharma, The Shilla Duty Free Head of Global Merchandise Division Raelene Johnson and Changi Airport Group Senior Vice President Airside Concession Division Teo Chew Hoon will also attend the event.
The SK-II PITERA Lounge, which launched in October 2015, is the brand’s first and only lounge facility in an airport and offers facial and massage services. Miao will share his tips for using the Magnetic Booster along with the R.N.A Power Cream and will provide insight on his inflight and travel skincare regimen by curating his own inflight beauty essentials. Guests will then be invited to experience the new Magnetic Booster and curate their own inflight beauty essentials followed by a shopping tour at The Shilla Duty Free.
SK-II Associate Director Travel Retail Global Shweta Sharma said: “We are again honoured to be celebrating our ninth year of solid partnership with Changi Airport Group, and our fourth with The Shilla Duty Free with the first-in-the-world launch. We are excited to delight travellers with this exclusive access to our latest skincare innovation and for them to experience the power of the award-winning SK-II R.N.A Power anti-ageing range.”
Japanese eCommerce company Rakuten Inc has launched a beauty-subscription service, Raxy.
Registrations are already being accepted for the service, which offers options for three, six or 12 months.
Each month, subscribers will receive boxes of assorted cosmetics and beauty products. Through partnerships with such brands as Revlon and SK-II, these boxes will contain three to seven items of cosmetics, hair care products, make-up accessories and beauty supplements.
Raxy’s website will offer a variety of content each month, including articles and videos by makeup artists and beauty experts, as well as YouTube users introducing products.
As well as receiving Rakuten Super Points upon subscribing, users can also earn extra points when buying beauty products on Rakuten Ichiba. Also, the first 100 subscribers receive a limited-edition original cosmetics pouch from the official SK-II store on Rakuten Ichiba. Customers signing up for 12 months will also receive a special product.
Phnom Penh Duty Free is located inside the integrated entertainment destination of Naga City at Naga City Walk which connects Naga World to ‘Naga 2’. It offers approximately 4,000sq m of retail space with all the main DF&TR and luxury categories available: cosmetics, perfume, jewellery, sunglasses, watches, fashion, beverages, tobacco, travel goods and confectionery as well as “famous local products”.
The end of September will see the arrival of a slew of further brands: Estée Lauder, Kiehl’s, La Mer, SK-II, Lancôme, MK, Rimowa, and Tumi.
The beauty area in the new store.
State-owned CDFG, which operates a brand company in Cambodia, comments: “We are the top luxury retail store in Phnom Penh providing a high-end shopping destination to tourists and business travellers. Customers can choose from more than 200 brands from around the world.”
On opening, branded boutiques will include Longines, Tissot, Swarovski, Samsonite and Prada, with further boutiques from Armani, Coach and Furla to be unveiled at the end of this year.
SILK ROAD TARGET
The Phnom Penh development is part of an international expansion policy targeting the so-called ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ to which CDFG parent, China Travel Group, is committed.
Cambodia is a key market within the plan: CDFG has already opened its Angkor duty free store in December 2014 (where it competes with DFS), followed a year later by the Shihanoukville duty free store in December 2015. CDFG says it has “the full support at all levels of government in Cambodia”.
CDFG – which claims to be China’s largest retailer of luxury merchandise – says that with its three stores in place it “will write a new chapter in the tourism industry in Cambodia”.
To celebrate today’s soft opening, promotions are in place with a 15% discount on all shopping; a chance to experiencing the VIP shopping service; and a gift on purchases over $100. Scanning the company’s official WeChat account, or clicking ‘like’ on the company’s official Facebook, also qualifies for a surprise gift.
Luxurious retail journey retailer DFS Group is launching a month lengthy celebration of “all issues magnificence” in July.
The annual First Class Magnificence marketing campaign will run in 19 DFS shops in seven nations, unveiling a collection of product exclusives, occasions and tutorials from main skincare and make-up specialists on the planet’s largest magnificence promotional program.
“Impressed by our clients’ jetset way of life, First Class Magnificence is a seamless, multi-brand expertise to help travellers’ magnificence and skincare wants all through each stage of their journey,” stated Ariel Gentzbourger, senior VP, international merchandising – magnificence with DFS Group.
“For over 50 years, DFS has reimagined the traveller’s magnificence purchasing expertise, and we’re assured that with our First Class Magnificence occasion we’re persevering with to shock and delight our loyal magnificence buyers.”
With First Class Magnificence, DFS introduces an unique product program tailor-made to the worldwide traveller’s wishes. Whether or not it’s earlier than, throughout or after takeoff, DFS Magnificence advisors together with business specialists will show how 18 key journey necessities merchandise will go well with clients’ wants wherever their journey takes them. First Class Magnificence additionally brings eight unique merchandise to DFS from main magnificence manufacturers comparable to Givenchy, Guerlain and SK-II.
Featured occasions all through embrace particular gives and rewards for purchases such because the unique First Class Magnificence journey bag, complimentary refreshments and visitor make-up artist periods. The celebratory environment continues with specifically designed visible installations which permit clients to take pictures to share.
All through the month, at First Class Magnificence occasions, clients can take pleasure in DFS’ 100 per cent International Assure, making certain all merchandise is totally genuine and that after-sales service facilities will refund, restore and settle for the return of merchandise worldwide.
