CJ Olive Young targets Japanese sun care products market

Round A'round, South Korea's top beauty chain CJ Olive Young's own cosmetic brand, announced on Thursday that its popular sun care item "Greentea Cica Mild Sun Stick" has entered all store locations of the leading Japanese lifestyle store Plaza.

Plaza is considered one of Japan's top-three variety stores, along with Loft and Tokyu Hands. Given these stores quickly introduce trendy products, entering variety stores is seen as a pre-condition for entering large local drugstores and multi-shops.

The product launched this time is a sunscreen stick that is difficult to find in the Japanese market. Round A'round selected Greentea Cica Mild Sun Stick, which is vegan-certified and has a strong sun protection effect, as the first product to be launched in Plaza, tailored to the preferences of Japanese customers who value functionality.

The stick format sunscreen is easy to use, and despite being a solid form, it contains a large amount of moisturizing essence, providing a moist and smooth application. Round A'round has applied packaging materials specifically made for the Japanese market and created dedicated display stands with detailed product descriptions to introduce the product.

According to Euromonitor in 2021, the size of the Japanese beauty market is three times larger than that of Korea, but the proportion of suncare purchases is only 2%, one-third of Korea's.

"We see a high potential for expanding market share and plan to expand the product lineup to include sunscreen and sun lotion from next year," an Olive Young official said. "As a representative clean beauty brand of Olive Young, we will lead a K-beauty export boom by disseminating the South Korean daily sun care trend to the Japanese market."

In addition, Round A'round's three cleansing products--Green Tea Low pH Moisture Bubble Foam, Greentea Moisture Cleansing Oil, Greentea Low pH Cleansing Foam-- have also been introduced simultaneously in all Plaza and Loft stores. Round A'round plans to introduce various categories of K-beauty products to the Japanese market, starting with sun care products.

Write to Ji-Yoon Yang at yang@hankyung.com