July 19, 2005
Moderate-priced South Korean cosmetics brands have flooded into Taiwan over the last half year.
South Korea's The Face Shop has expanded rapidly following the opening of its first store in Taiwan at the end of 2004. It already runs thirty shops and intends to raise this figure to forty by September, after which it intends to slow its expansion and focus on setting up in department stores and major shopping districts.
Watsons-Taiwan, Taiwan's largest retailer of healthcare and cosmetics products, is the Taiwanese representative of the South Korean cosmetics brand Missha. Since opening its first Missha outlet at the end of January, Watsons has introduced fifteen stores in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. The retailer aims to be operating thirty Missha shops by the end of the year. While its Missha stores are presently being run as independent shops, Watsons does not rule out setting up in-store Missha shops in its Watsons outlets or opening Missha franchises. There are currently over three hundred Watsons stores in Taiwan and 295 Missha shops in South Korea.
There are already over fifty shops in Taiwan selling moderate-priced South Korean cosmetics. These shops have first set their sights on Taiwan's girls and young women aged between fifteen and thirty years old by setting up in commercial areas where young people and students like to hang out and shop. For instance, five different brands have opened shops in close proximity to each other on the same street in Taipei's bustling Shihlin Night Market.
It is reported that at least six other cosmetics companies from South Korea have plans to enter Taiwan's cosmetics market by opening franchises in the near future. In addition to the big brands The Face Shop and Missha, other South Korean cosmetics brands, including Dodo Club, Beauty la Palette and Skin Food, a skin care brand that just hit the South Korean market in January, will be available in Taiwan in the near future.
(United Daily News, Taipei Times)
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