AMOREPACIFIC Group and Alibaba Group inked a global strategic cooperation agreement on September 11 to further deepen their partnership and provide high-quality products to Chinese customers. AMOREPACIFIC China president Charles Kao and Alibaba Group general manager of Tmall’s Fast-moving Consumer Goods Division Mike Hu both attended the signing ceremony in Hangzhou.
The company also set up a work place named A2 Hangzhou Camp, about 2.4 kilometers from the Alibaba Group Corporate Campus in Hangzhou.
Amorepacific story began when founder Suh Sungwhan’s mother Yun Dokjeong manually sold camellia oil, making one bottle at a time with devotion and a sincere heart in Gaeseong, now a part of North Korea.
In 1948, the company launched Korea’s first-ever brand product, Melody Cream. In 1951, it launched Korea’s first purely plant-based ABC Pomade. It was Amorepacific too that introduced ‘door-to-door sales’ as an alternative method of distribution in 1964, breaking away from the traditional distribution structure in an era of transformation, and launched a dedicated brand named ‘Amore”. It is in the same year that they exported around 20 types of cosmetics of the ‘Oscar’ brand for the first time in the country’s history, opening doors to the global market.
In 1971, Amorepacific held Korea’s first makeup campaign under the name ‘Amore Bright Tone Makeup ’ titled, ‘Oh My Love’. It became a window into viewing the most recent trend, a legacy that continues to live on today.
In 1973, it established Pacific Scholarship and Cultural Foundation and the Pacific Welfare Foundation in 1982. In 1989, it launched its first green tea product Miro. Flagship products, Laneige and Etude House were launched 1994 and 1995 respectively. Meanwhile Innisfree came in 2000. In 2008, its innovative product Iope took the market by storm. In 2013, it declared a ban on unnecessary animal testing for cosmetics to respect all forms of life, pursuing harmony among nature, people and company.
Amorepacific is a global company with over 20 cosmetics, personal care and health care brands. Among these are the immensely popular global brands Sulwhasoo, LANEIGE , Mamonde, ETUDE HOUSE, and innisfree.
It entered the Chinese market in 1992 and since then it has been thriving through efforts in diversified product strategy and innovative products. So far, all the 10 beauty brands of AMOREPACIFIC China have been already operating a Tmall flagship store. It maintains close ties with Alibaba which began in 2012 when LANEIGE became one of the first premium beauty brands to be launched on Tmall platform.
In the conference last Saturday, it was emphasized that the focal point of the collaboration includes new product incubation, new retail marketing, consumer insight management and overseas market expansion. It intends to maximize the advantages of Alibaba’s resources and experience in digital transformation and Amorepacific’s leading strength in the cosmetics industry. Amorepacific intends to integrate digitalization into its full life cycle management in new product research and development, consumer insight and marketing.
AMOREPACIFIC and Alibaba will jointly set up an internal information cloud system, which provides strong support for internal digitalization and information management. Some other overseas brands will debut their products via Tmall as it attempts to enter the Chinese market.
The two companies will also combine its online and offline resources to benefit consumers through setting up smart retail stores with the aim to strengthen the relationship between brand and consumer.
Indeed China’s beauty and cosmetics market is developing rapidly. It becomes understandable why there is increased interest in online marketing and product innovation. Hence, the two companies vow to continue to work jointly to further innovate and provide better products and experiences to consumers.
