Chinese customer looking at Oera products in Shilla I Park duty-free (Courtesy of Oera)
South Korean clothing manufacturer and retailer Handsome Corp., a Hyundai Department Store Co. unit, is enjoying growing popularity among Chinese visitors to South Korea with its premium cosmetics brand Oera.
Sales of Oera to Chinese visitors at Korean duty-free shops for the first half of this year soared 2.3 times from a year-earlier period, Hansome said on Sunday. The cosmetics brand’s overall sales at domestic duty-free stores increased 55% on-year during the same period.
Handsome, which imports globally renowned brands including Lanvin, Bally, Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein and manufactures Korean brands such as Time and System, acquired beauty products maker Cleangen Cosmeceuticals in 2020 for business diversification.
In the following year, it launched Oera as a luxury skincare brand which uses natural ingredients from Switzerland.
But the skincare brand’s operator Hansome Life& Corp. lapsed into a capital erosion last year, with 5.4 billion won ($3.9 million) in operating loss and 4.8 billion won in revenue due to high costs of product manufacturing.
The cosmetics brand started rebounding with increased sales in duty-free shops early this year. In May, sales to Chinese travelers in Korean duty-free stores surged more than eight times on-year.
The great increase came as a Chinese social media influencer in May introduced Oera’s premium product line Signature Prestige as skincare items beloved by Korean high-end consumers. Oera went viral among Chinese consumers in their 20s and 30s.
“Our skincare products with high-performing ingredients, such as pearl, attracted Chinese consumers with great purchasing power. In late May, a Chinese customer at one of our duty-free shops tested our brand and bought products worth 10 million won there,” said an official from Handsome.
Handsome is considering development of a new product line targeting Chinese customers, through reflection of their needs and cosmetics consumption trends.
The company will launch Oera in a physical store at Hyundai Duty Free Dongdaemun and on website of the Shilla Duty Free by the end of this month.
By Hyung-Joo Oh
ohj@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.
