February 2015 CBM 5

logo to their product, ensuring that it stands out onthe shelves of drugstores and other retail chains.

Getting PhysicalIn 2007, the company behind @cosme, iStyle,decided on the next obvious step: opening bricks-and-mortar stores. The first @cosme opened inTokyo’s Shinjuku neighbourhood and today thereare five outlets in central Tokyo and one in Osaka.

The @cosme outlets are shop-in-shop areas inpopular and fashion-oriented shopping malls. Threeof the Tokyo stores are situated in branches of theLumine department store chain whilst the other twoare based in Marui department stores. Thesedepartment stores are located in the busiest areas ofTokyo and are usually attached to Tokyo’s majortrain stations, practically guaranteeing a very highrate of walk-in customers and foot traffic.

@cosme stores are colourful, attractive and veryinteractive with a vast range of brands. The line-upis directly determined by whichever products arepopular on cosme.com that week – how often aproduct was liked, tweeted about or purchasedonline – and the brand selection in @cosme’s retailstores changes at least once a month, depending onwhich products or brands are the online bestseller.The current top-selling products are always clearlymarked on the shelves, with signs giving moreinformation about the online stats of this product.

Sampling is one of the most important aspects ofthe @cosme retail store strategy. Each store featuresgenerous testing areas and makes it easy forcustomers to immediately share their opinion withinternet-enabled computers enabling visitors to loginto their @cosme account and post pictures or areview of the product they have just tried out.

@cosme’s retail concept is very successful in itsdomestic market. Whether the company’s retailapproach would work in a European setting or notis debatable. However, as far as the Japanese beautymarket is concerned, @cosme’s retail concept isright on target. With its overwhelming onlinepresence the company is a heavyweight influence inthe Japanese beauty market.

Japanese beauty chain @cosme started out as abeauty product review website back in 1999. Onwww.cosme.net Japanese beauty consumers couldpost reviews, opinions and pictures of beautyproducts. Cosme.net was popular almost from thebeginning, with a large and constantly growing usercommunity that filled the website with content.

Then, in 2001 @cosme launched online storewww.cosme.com, which sold the brands andproducts that cosme.net users talked about,including skin care, hair care and colour cosmetics.The website retails both mass market and premiumlabels and the extensive brand range includes localJapanese labels, brands from Korea, Taiwan andother Asian countries and international brands.

Cosme.com very quickly became the biggestbeauty online retailer in Japan and today the storesells over 1100 different brands. @cosme’s usercommunity is one of the biggest social communitiesin the whole of Japan and the website is veryinfluential in determining the purchasing patterns ofJapanese teenagers and young adults. This particulardemographic is very much immersed in the onlineand social media world, much more so than theirEuropean counterparts.

@cosme regularly publishes rankings of its mostpopular products on the website. Products aredivided into categories and sub-categories. @cosmebeauty community users can award up to sevenpoints to a product. The rankings are based onactual sales, the number of award points a producthas received and on @cosme’s user reviews. For anybeauty product, a top ranking on @cosme is one ofthe best endorsements possible. Many beautybrands will attach a special sticker seal featuring ahighly recognisable crown design and the @cosme

BRICKS AND CLICKSJapanese beauty retailer @cosme merges onlineand offline structures into a coherent andsuccessful concept, reports Annemarie Kruse

@cosme: Fact file

Founded 1999, review website; 2001, online store;2007, bricks-and-mortar store

Address B2F Lumine 2, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0022, Japan

Website www.cosme.com

@cosme offers aseamless online/offlinebeauty retail experiencethat is not yet seen inthe Western world

@cosme: Top skin care brandsCleansers1 FANCL Mild Cleansing Oil2 Ignis Hot Cleanse3 Bioré Skin Care Facial Foam Moisture

Serum1 Cosme Decorte Whitelogist MX2 Pola Signs Shot3 Guerlain Blanc de Perle Advanced WhiteP.E.A.R.L Drop

Moisturisers1 Dr. Ci: Labo Aqua-Collagen-Gel Enrich-Lift EX2 Chanel Le Blanc The Original Cream TXC3 Za Concentrate C CreamBased on the first half of 2014

@COSME

@COSME RETAIL PROFILECopyright © 2015 HPCi Media. This publication may not be distributed without prior permission.