Beauty has no limits, Perfect Diary joins hands with Shopee to dominate multiple markets in Southeast Asia

June 7, 2021, China - In recent years, with the development of economic globalization, more and more Chinese beauty brands have begun to go abroad and regard Southeast Asia as the first step to enter overseas markets. In May this year, Perfect Diary, a well-known domestic beauty brand, announced the latest data: on the leading cross-border e-commerce platform Shopee, Perfect Diary successfully won the first place in sales in many markets in Southeast Asia, showing a strong potential for going overseas. The overseas path jointly created by the two parties has become a model for many Chinese brands to go overseas.

Perfect Diary wins the sales crown in multiple markets on Shopee and breaks the record of Shopee Vietnam Beauty Super Brand Day

Beauty giants explore new ways to go overseas, Shopee helps Perfect Diary expand its cross-border business

In 2020, despite the pandemic, Chinese cosmetics brands have remained popular, not only achieving rapid growth, but also showing their potential for development in overseas markets. According to data from the General Administration of Customs, the global cosmetics industry grew by 23% in 2020. In the first three quarters, China's cosmetics exports reached US$3.139 billion, up 13.2% year-on-year from 2019 ^1. As a strong new force in Chinese cosmetics, Perfect Diary is the undisputed leader in the industry's overseas expansion.

Among the many markets around the world, Perfect Diary chose Southeast Asia, which has broad development opportunities and geographical advantages, as the first stop for its overseas expansion plan. According to a report by Mintel.com, an independent market research organization, it is expected that by 2025, the size of the Southeast Asian beauty and cosmetics market will reach RMB 304.8 billion2 ^. Faced with the huge potential of the Southeast Asian market, how to maximize the original brand power and integrate it into the local market, establish connections with local consumer groups, deliver value, and cultivate brand consumers with loyalty and recognition? Perfect Diary handed in its own overseas answer sheet.

"As a leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, Shopee has a broad user base, solid supporting infrastructure and a very high brand reputation in the local area. It can quickly help Perfect Diary adapt to local customs, meet local consumers face to face and establish a good first brand impression." Maria, head of Perfect Diary's overseas markets, said.

In 2020, after comprehensive and detailed preliminary research and multiple rounds of communication with the platform, Perfect Diary chose to carry out close cross-border cooperation with Shopee, starting from the Southeast Asian market and laying out a global overseas strategy. After a year, Perfect Diary has grown into a popular beauty brand in the Southeast Asian market with the help of the Shopee platform, and has planted grass among Southeast Asian consumers. As of the end of May 2021, it has won the title of Vietnam's beauty sales champion, Singapore and Malaysia's market makeup sales champion, and the Philippines market's loose powder category sales top 1 title.

From "sowing" to "blooming", the localization strategy runs through the entire overseas chain

From the market perspective, about 50% of Southeast Asia's 600 million people are under 30 years old, with a young structure and a love of new things. The infrastructure, consumer preferences, and cultural customs of each market are quite different from those in China. In order to help Perfect Diary achieve the full-link "localization" transformation of its brand going overseas, the Shopee team, based on its own years of insights into brand going overseas, worked with Perfect Diary to develop a one-stop overseas strategy from "customized seeding", "professional watering" to "omni-channel flowering", to establish brand reputation in the local area and root Perfect Diary's brand concept of "beauty without limits" in the hearts of Southeast Asian consumers.

1. Customized seeding: Exclusive products meet regional consumer demand

As a brand that attaches great importance to user data, Perfect Diary's primary goal in Southeast Asia is to reach overseas consumers in multiple dimensions and channels to strengthen the accumulation of user data and achieve customized product delivery. With the help of in-site social tools such as Shopee Chat and questionnaires, Perfect Diary not only established direct contact with local consumers, but also gained a clearer understanding of consumers' first-hand feedback on existing products.

"Users in each Southeast Asian market have different preferences for lip gloss colors. They prefer natural brown for eyebrow pencils, rarely use the whitest shade for loose powder, and pay more attention to strong oil control effects. This is related to the local users' eyebrow-eye ratio, skin color, and climate. Conversations on Shopee chats contain accurate local consumer insights, and questionnaire feedback is the key to helping product improvement and iteration, which are important assets for us to establish a foothold in the local market in the early stages." Maria, head of Perfect Diary's overseas markets, said.

Perfect Diary and Sanrio co-branded series are now available on Shopee

Through targeted product iterations, Perfect Diary combined IPs favored by local consumers and launched a cute and playful Sanrio co-branded series. It also added color numbers that are more suitable for Southeast Asian people to products such as loose powder and lip gloss based on the skin color of local consumers, and won wide acclaim from consumers with localized exclusive products.

2. Professional irrigation: local infrastructure strengthens overseas user recognition

After completing the "seeding plan" on the product side , high-quality and convenient shopping experience has become the "core nutrient" to consolidate the user group: in terms of logistics, Shopee uses SLS's own cross-border logistics system to optimize and adjust transportation specifically for Perfect Diary, and uses a first-mile visual logistics information tracking system, combined with full-process logistics cargo insurance services, to create a customized logistics chain; in terms of payment, Shopee provides a secure payment system and convenient payment methods, building a leading online payment chain in the region, greatly enhancing Southeast Asian consumers' willingness to purchase products on the platform.

"The logistics and payment systems that Shopee has built in Southeast Asia are very complete, which allows consumers to have an excellent shopping experience when shopping on the platform, thereby effectively increasing the order conversion of brands on the site. Shopee's professional advantages also allow us to focus on our own expertise - upgrading products and building brands. Let professionals do professional things, this is also the way of cooperation we have always adhered to." Vincent, co-founder of Perfect Diary's parent company Yatsen E-Commerce, said.

3. Omnichannel development: Marketing matrix conveys the concept of "beauty without limits"

With sufficient preparation, Perfect Diary achieved twice the result with half the effort when carrying out marketing promotions across all channels:

In 2020, with the help of Shopee marketing solutions and the support of on-site and off-site marketing tools, Perfect Diary successfully leveraged huge traffic dividends, not only achieving efficient conversions, but also implanting the brand concept of "beauty without limits" into people's hearts.

“Shopee’s in-site marketing tools can bring us abundant traffic and stable orders, and the tools themselves have been updated and upgraded at a high frequency. For example, the latest flash sale tool can give us a clear insight into the consumption behavior of event participants, which is more conducive to the brand to carry out targeted review and optimization.” Maria added.

In terms of off-site marketing, Perfect Diary has carried out in-depth cooperation with Shopee marketing solutions, including Shopee x Facebook advertising, Shopee x Google advertising, affiliate marketing and KOL promotion, cooperating in a marketing matrix with a highly concentrated potential customer base to enhance brand advertising effectiveness and convey brand concepts.

So far, with the support of Shopee, Perfect Diary has opened cross-border official stores in four markets: Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Through unremitting efforts and based on insights into Southeast Asian consumers, Perfect Diary has successfully integrated localization features into the entire overseas chain. With the help of exclusive exposure resources on platforms such as Shopee Mall and Shopee Super Brand Day, it has taken the lead in building brand influence overseas in the Southeast Asian market and has also received recognition and recommendations from many local mainstream media.

Talking about Perfect Diary's plans in the Southeast Asian market, Maria said: "We are always eager to bring easy-to-use and cost-effective beauty products to the younger generation of makeup users, and provide them with an accessible and beyond-expectation beauty experience to help them realize their self-worth. We believe that the 'beauty without limits' philosophy upheld by the Perfect Diary brand has no geographical restrictions. In the future, through in-depth collaboration with Shopee, we hope to become the creator and leader of the new future of beauty in Southeast Asia, so that everyone can freely choose beauty, easily achieve beauty, and discover the infinite possibilities of life."

Zhou Junjie, Chief Commercial Officer of Shopee, said: "We are very pleased to work with Perfect Diary to open up a path for emerging domestic brands to go global. With the help of Shopee's powerful local insights and analysis, Perfect Diary has achieved many great results in Southeast Asia. As a leading e-commerce platform, Shopee is always thinking about how to help more brands and sellers expand their e-commerce business in new markets and achieve rapid growth. In the future, we also hope to open up more paths with Perfect Diary to help brands and sellers who are eager to enter the international stage and realize every possibility of going global .

1Data source: General Administration of Customs data

2Data source: Mintel research report

Shopee

Southeast Asia