Beauty brands flock to open stores in Shanghai
The stand-alone shikumen building in the downtown Xintiandi area hosts Le Labo's first Chinese mainland store.
Multinational beauty brands and retailers are investing in a wide range of services to integrate shopping space with lifestyle destinations in Shanghai.
In the first four months of this year, a total of 375 retailers and leisure brands unveiled their first presence in Shanghai, according to the city's commerce commission.
An addition of 104 debut stores opened in May and the first half of June, according to preliminary review by DataQuest China, a commercial and retail property consultancy.
The strong momentum indicates that Shanghai has maintained its attraction for top fashion and beauty brands and stands as a flagship fashion consumption city.
The new fragrance and skincare store also hosts a café on the second floor.
One of the most eye-catching recent new openings is Estée Lauder Companies' upmarket fragrance brand Le Labo, which located its first brick-and-mortar store on the Chinese mainland in a stand-alone shikumen (stone-gate) building in Xintiandi.
The new fragrance store also came with a Le Labo bakery and café which opened to the public in early June.
Continuing Le Labo's vintage-inspired retail aesthetic, the store preserves the building's original wooden ceiling and embellished window panels with a distinctive decorative style.
The second floor, which is designed as the perfumer's workplace, showcases essential oils with ingredient labels and perfumery tools.
Le Labo Xintiandi is also the brand's second location in the world to house a café.
Seventeen of the brand's 19 signature scents, body, hair care and skin care products, as well as the brand's bestselling candles, are available at the new space.
Maybelline New York's Shanghai city palette draws inspiration from the city's vibrancy and the modern city skyline.
Shanghai continued to show resilience in terms of retail recovery, and major retailers have been speeding up transformation to respond to the latest market trends by combining consumption and leisure with commercial facilities, according to property service provider and researcher CBRE.
Brands' cross-over tie-ups would also give rise to more possibilities and help expand their customer base, as well as offer an overall boost for the resilience of retail market, it added.
Banking on strong consumption recovery and social activities, beauty brands and personal-care offerings continued their strong momentum.
A number of new offerings have reflected young shoppers' preference for alternative styles and beauty trends.
One of the new limited series eyeshadow palettes by Maybelline New York was named after Shanghai, along with three other domestic cities – Xi'an, Changsha and Chongqing – to reflect each city's distinctive vibrancy and bold street fashion styles.
Combining lemon and blue hues, the city palette of Shanghai fuses the colors of the modern city skyline, showcasing its bold personality and diverse perspectives.
According to Euromonitor International, China is already the largest market for skin care and the second-largest for color cosmetics, with a combined market size of US$49 billion in 2022.
Sephora's newly renovated store on Nanjing Road draws crowds.
In addition to product offerings, retailers are also enhancing digital capabilities and services to stay close to new trends.
Sephora unveiled its newly-renovated store in the Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street in June, the brand's first "Store of the Future" format in China which includes digital touchpoints and trendy beauty offerings, as well as tailored services.
The Shanghai store hopes to set a new benchmark in prestige beauty retail in China, becoming the second of its kind after the opening of a similar format in Singapore late last year.
Shoppers can learn about product ingredients and read online customer reviews by scanning the RFID tags on each product through a digital panel, making it easier to browse the product shelves.
Along with an advanced skin analysis device and makeup-trend advice offerings, members can also book 15-minute skincare consultations to discover the most efficacious products for different customers, or even use the beauty play service to bring virtual artist looks to life.
In addition to over 230 new products from over 36 global beauty brands, premium C-beauty brands such as Cha Ling, Maogeping Light, and Wei Beauty also feature new assortments as the beauty retailer deepens its collaboration with the local community.
