Seventeen years ago, Sephora launched in China. It has since been committed to its vision of "True Retail," prioritizing consumers, optimizing omnichannel strategies, and expanding product portfolios to guarantee 100% consumer satisfaction. Sephora has consistently introduced new brands to their Chinese consumers in the past few years, such as Chaling, Wei, Herborist TaiChi, Inoherb Tang, Maogeping·LIGHT, Yumee, and Color Studio By Marie Dalgar. This has contributed to the retailer expanding knowledge of the Chinese beauty market, and its brand portfolio, worldwide. In order to continue its commitment to Chinese customers, Sephora has announced three new beauty initiatives.

Summer 2022 Global Beauty Trends

The Sephora 2022 Summer Collection includes over 59 international and local brands, presenting over 360 new product launches and exclusive releases across cosmetics, skincare, haircare, and fragrance. The latest releases have all been precisely selected to reflect the seven global beauty trends of summer 2022: Unlimited Shades of Lips, Brows of Attitude, Sustainable YES List, Lightray Shield, Floral Breeze, Delicate Haircare, and C-Beauty Bloom.

Among the brands are several niche start-ups making their Sephora debut, including animal rights advocate and cruelty-free brand Hourglass by Dr. Dennis Gross—an interesting addition as it was only last year China removed animal testing as a requirement by law; minimalistic purity beauty and fragrance brand Clean; and scientific haircare brand Living Proof. These companies have all been selected due to their diverse range of products, continuous innovative ideas, and unconventional approaches to beauty that will benefit the consumer.

China Accelebrate Program

The China Accelebrate program aims to push the rest of the world to see the diverse beauty within China. Over the next three years, the retailer will support five local beauty brands to achieve over RMB 100 million in annual revenue, the equivalent of USD 14,000,000. Sephora intends to utilize its loyal customer community and vast experience in prestige beauty incubation to provide traction in international markets.

"As a renowned global leader in beauty retail, Sephora will not only offer these brands commercial support and expansion but also help them develop their international visions," says Ms. Maggie Chan, Managing Director of LVMH – Sephora Greater China.

The Rising Powers

The final initiative works with Tencent Smart Retail to launch The Rising Powers, an incubation and growth camp for offering development support to niche brands. The project aims to discover new high-quality and high-potential brands and provide them with support in the form of market exposure and growth. The program will be offered through a three-month camp, working with Tencent Smart Retail, using both brands' experiences in private domain operations and channel management to their advantage. This will ensure end-to-end executional guidance for the selected brands, including WeChat private domain training, resource matching, sales trials, and business model development.

Sephora is confident that omnichannel retailing is the way to go for their start-ups in China, empowering consumers, and allowing the extraordinary beauty in each customer to be seen.