Shiseido says its plans to go back to its roots by targeting Japan
Newly appointed company chairman and president, Shinzo Maeda, last week revealed that he wants to make significant changes to the company’s growth strategy, without changing its long-term goal of being a global player, representing Asia, with its origins in Japan.
Shinzo said that the company will focus its efforts on its three areas of principle of focus, which it has defined as being the Japan market, the China market and its Bare Escentuals business in the US.
Significant emphasis on Japan prestige market
In Japan, the goal will be to ‘significantly strengthen' its prestige market, an ambition that is also being targeted globally. The company says that this is one of its core strengths, and in the Japan market, it foresees policies being implemented by the current government as being beneficial to this segment.
To reach the goal the company says it will focus on its Shiseido and Benefique brands by enhancing beauty consultant activities and by also promoting customer loyalty through value-added counseling.
It also wants to promote the Elixir and Maquillage brands in the mid-price range and the Fullmake Washable Base in the lower-price category in Japan, after the company says it now sees signs of the retail market in the country recovering.
Targeting growing spending power of seniors
Likewise, the company says that the senior age group is also expected to be increasingly important, given a sizeable demographic shift and population growth in recent years, which is being combined with a recovery in consumer interesting and spending by this age group that is translating into a higher-end purchases.
“We will do this by positioning new products for targeted lines described before, developing a symbolic new line in the marketing system,” the company said of its ambitions to target seniors in its official financial statement.
Last week the company revealed that full year-on-year sales fell by 0.7 per cent to Yen 677.7bn ($6.9bn), a figure that was positively impacted by foreign currency exchange by 0.1 per cent.
In Japan sales fell by 1.8 per cent to Yen 373.3bn, which represented 55.1 per cent of the group sales. Although the domestic sales figures were stronger in the second half of the year, the company said this was counteracted by general weakness in the first half of the year.
