Masks off, lipstick on, gross sales up, division retailers argue

A shopper tries on makeup at a section retail store in central Seoul on Sunday, a day in advance of the government’s planned lifting of a required mask mandate. [YONHAP]

  
With the mask mandate finally ended — on Monday, just after 840 times — the natural beauty enterprise is hopeful that cosmetics gross sales will growth.    
 
Now, indications show the less the limits, the far more makeup is being worn.  
 
At Lotte Department Shop, gross sales of coloration cosmetic merchandise amplified 25 percent from Jan. 2 to 20 when compared to the very same period previous 12 months.
 
Revenues from Jan. 23 to 26, suitable after the Lunar New Year vacation, surged additional than 40 per cent on calendar year. In the course of this interval, product sales of lipstick rose 50 per cent, lip gloss and tint 80 % and blush, contour shades and highlighter 70 p.c.
 
“Color beauty merchandise for lips and cheeks are exploding in attractiveness,” a spokesperson of Lotte Division Retail outlet mentioned.
 
At Shinsegae Division Retailer and Hyundai Department Retail store, cosmetics gross sales improved by 20 to 24 per cent from early- to mid-January compared to the exact period of time past year. Likewise, the improve was obvious in color beauty items.
 
Revenue at road stores, or massive cosmetics merchants catering to holidaymakers and other more transient clientele, on line shopping channels and tv-dependent residence buying are also booming.
 
At Olive Youthful, colour cosmetic items sale jumped 55 per cent calendar year-on-year from May possibly to December final calendar year, when Korea steadily lifted its out of doors mask mandate.
 
“As the indoor mask mandate has been completely lifted, shoppers can freely take a look at all color beauty merchandise inside the merchants, like lipsticks,” a spokesperson for Olive Young stated Monday.
 
At Lotte On’s On and the Attractiveness, an on the internet shop for high quality beauty goods, cosmetic product profits jumped 50 percent when the Jan. 2-to-15 is when compared to the exact same period a year previously. Throughout the Lunar New Calendar year holiday seasons, Lotte Homeshopping orders of natural beauty-similar products and solutions hit about 4 billion gained ($3.25 million). Of that, orders for cosmetic merchandise enhanced by 20 percent compared to Chuseok, or the drop harvest festival, which is Korea’s major holiday break alongside with Lunar New Calendar year.
 
Section stores and beauty vendors are scrambling to host promotional strategies to capitalize on the most recent govt pointers on indoor masking rule forward of Valentine’s Working day.
 
Lotte Section Shop is planning “Blooming Natural beauty Week” scheduled for Feb. 3 to 12, wherever 37 cosmetics manufacturers, such as Amore Pacific, Shiseido, Mac and Bobby Brown, are collaborating.
 
Shisegae Department Retailer will hold “Shinsegae Cosmetics Fair” from Feb. 10 to Feb. 19, in which some 70 cosmetics makes, including Estee Lauder, Sulhwasoo and Yves Saint Laurent, will participate and organize occasions like discount discount codes giveaways.
 
Not everyone is pleased about the lifting of the mask mandate. Some observed mask-carrying as a snug protect from revealing their faces — even producing the buzzword “magikkun” — a portmanteau that brings together the English term “mask” and “sagikkun,” the Korean term for fraud.
 
And some skeptics question irrespective of whether a cosmetics boom will end result.  
 
“As the mask mandate was lifted in phases due to the fact Could last calendar year, it is believed that the public demand restoration has now passed,” Park Eun-kyeong, an analyst at Samsung Securities, stated. “There will be a restrict to recovering the effectiveness of the cosmetics sector as men and women expend very long plenty of hrs with no masks even now.”
 
“It is hard for the domestic cosmetics field to recuperate rapidly only with the neighborhood desire,” a cosmetics brand executive in the same way pointed out. “Rather it will revive only when the journey business normalizes and international holidaymakers return, or overseas demand, this sort of as from China, recovers.”
 
Euromonitor initiatives Korea’s beauty and private treatment market to reach 16.74 trillion won in 2023, a increase of around 2.8 percent from very last calendar year. This is however less than last year’s 3.3 % advancement.

BY YOO JI-YOEN, Seo JI-EUN [search engine [email protected][