It is not easy for a French company to approach and penetrate the Japanese cosmetics market. At a workshop dedicated to Japan on March 20, 2018, Business France experts described its structure before evoking the organization of distribution channels and providing the keys for a good market approach.
Second part of our article, Passport for Japan (1/3): the Japanese cosmetics market
A saturated market, intense competition, powerful local players well-established on all segments… the Japanese market is all the more difficult to get familiar with and enter, since the structure of its cosmetics distribution network is very specific, as Mikako Shiina, Development Director Cosmetics at the Tokyo-based Business France office, described.
Distribution
Japan has two main categories of distribution channels for cosmetic products: the general and exclusive channels.
Weight of the different channels
**• General channel
It is the most important network in terms of market shares. It accounts for 40.5% of cosmetics sales and is specialized in products intended for mass distribution, which go through independent wholesalers.
Dominated by drugstores, which represent 60.8% of its total, it also comprises supermarkets and Variety shops, and it is the channel through which most French products are distributed.
• Exclusive channel
Department stores, single-brand stores, franchises… this channel, which represents 16.5% of cosmetics sales, is the one major Japanese manufacturers favour: they prefer to distribute their products without using wholesalers as intermediaries, but by relying on the strength of beauty advisors recommendations.
• Other channels
The 43% remaining sales are …
