The ‘Beauty Fiesta,’ prepared ambitiously by Coupang, opened at the Seoul Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) Art Hall on the 10th, expecting 20,000 visitors over four days. The space, equivalent to two-thirds of a soccer field, was filled with various cosmetics brand booths.
The event was divided into ‘Prestige Zone,’ featuring luxury brands like Estee Lauder, Sulwhasoo, and Lancome, and ‘Innovation Zone,’ focusing on high-growth small and medium indie brands, with 13 and 51 brands respectively. The entrance ticket prices were 30,000 won for the Innovation Zone and 50,000 won for a combined ticket to visit both zones.
The Indie brands in the Innovation Zone actively attracted visitors with various events like hair and makeup shows, scalp diagnoses, and personalized skincare consultations. There were long queues in front of some booths as mostly young women in their 20s and 30s visited the event.
Coupang’s decision to organize such a large-scale offline beauty event is seen as a commitment to nurturing beauty as a future growth driver since the launch of its Beauty Curation brand in November 2022. The performance of Beauty Curation in the past two years has been decent, with accumulated transactions reaching approximately 500 billion won by the first half of this year.
Unlike CJ OliveYoung or Musinsa, which target the younger demographic, Beauty Curation has a higher purchasing power from customers in their 30s and 40s, accounting for 70-80% of the total customer base. Even though Beauty Curation has fewer brands at around 1,000 compared to CJ OliveYoung (2,400) and Musinsa (1,700), it emphasizes having unique and differentiated brands.
Coupang expects around 20,000 customers to visit the Beauty Fiesta, which will run until the 13th, and an online event named ‘Beauty Curation Fiesta’ will be held until the 21st. The Chief Commerce Officer of Coupang, Choi Jaehoon, expressed plans to grow Beauty Curation as a trusted beauty platform for customers who believe in the brand’s innovative offerings.