SEOUL, KOREA - LG Household & Health Care has been employing various marketing tactics, such as Hallyu (or the Korean Wave) star endorsements and VIP member discounts, in order to entice China’s online shoppers.
In the run-up to Solo Day, China’s equivalent of Black Friday (the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the US), LG Household & Health Care has opened its online store on Tmall Global (http://www.tmall.hk/), a business to customer (B2C) direct buying & selling mall under Alibaba (China's biggest online commerce company), with a view to ramping up its direct sales to China’s online shoppers.
On October 15, LG Household & Health Care started to receive preorders for The History of Whoo Gongjinhyang Inyang Basic 2 Piece sets, a promotional event held in the lead-up to Solo Day, which falls on November 11. The History of Whoo Gongjinhyang Inyang Basic 2 Piece set’s overseas B2C mall debut was a resounding success: 5,000 sets were sold out in just 10 days.
Taking into account LG’s best-selling skincare products at duty-free shops in S. Korea and China’s most-searched skincare, beauty products list, LG Household & Health Care will sell approximately 500 items of its six skincare brands -- The History of Whoo, O HUI, SU:M 37, Belief, Sooryehan and BEYOND-- on Tmall Global (http://www.tmall.hk/) so as to attract China’s online shoppers enjoying direct buying from aboard.
Exploiting Solo Day as an opportunity to turn China’s online shoppers enjoying direct buying into LG’s loyal customers, LG Household & Health Care is set to launch differentiated marketing tactics, such as Hallu star endorsements and VIP member discounts on its popular brand products, such as Whoo Bichup Ja Saeng Essence, O HUI Age Recovery 4-piece Set, SU:M 37 Water-full Timeless Water Gel Cream, etc.
The Chinese online direct buying market, which logged 18 million shoppers last year, has grown over 15 fold over the past five years to reach KRW 35 trillion. The number of Chinese online shoppers enjoying direct buying from aboard is projected to hit 36 million in 2018, quintupling the market to KRW 168 trillion.
“We saw sales of The History of Whoo at Chinese department stores surging 116% year-on-year in the first half of this year. Korean skincare products’ popularity has gone through the roof thanks to word of mouth. Banking on such a steep upward trajectory, LG Household & Health Care will mount diverse China-specific marketing activities to take on the Chinese online direct buying market,” said an official from LG Household & Health Care.
November 11 is called Shuang Shiri in China, which means four ones (1111). In 2009, Tmall.com, formerly Taobao Mall, launched a large-scale shopping event for singles, billing November 11 as Solo Day. Since then, November 11 has taken root as China’s version of Black Friday. Solo Day-related transactions on Tmall.com surpassed 35 billion yuan last year and is expected to top 50 billion yuan this year.
By Lee Jae-seung(jasonlee@koreaittimes.com)
