According to reports, on September 30, Melt Season, a Chinese high-end fragrance brand, will open offline counters and immersive pop-up stores in the stores of international travel retail giant DFS in Canton Road and Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, becoming the first Chinese fragrance brand to enter DFS, taking an important step in the brand's globalization strategy.
According to public information, DFS is a luxury travel retailer owned by LVMH, and its duty-free shop network covers 18 major international airports and 14 downtown T Galleria stores around the world.
Commenting on the DFS launch, Melt Season founder Liss Ni said, "Duty-free shops are closely related to travel, making them a key touchpoint for brands to reach cross-border travelers and business travelers. The Asia-Pacific region has always been an important market for duty-free sales, especially for perfume and beauty brands. We are proud to be the first Chinese fragrance brand to enter DFS Hong Kong, leveraging the city's global economic and trade hub to build brand awareness among international consumers." ”
01
Based on oriental incense, create local high-end perfumes
Founded in 2020, the Melt Season brand is based on oriental notes and is positioned as a high-end salon fragrance. On the occasion of the brand's second anniversary, Melt Season put forward a new brand concept "Be water, I flow" and the brand keywords of "Freedom, Softness and Toughness", expressing the brand's desire to "slowly" build and interpret the spiritual core of freedom, flow, intangibility and softness.
Currently, the brand offers a wide range of products, including fragrances, scented candles, incense sticks and flameless fragrances. The product is priced between 420 yuan and 1480 yuan.
With its unique brand positioning and concept, this newly established Chinese perfume brand is favored by capital. Melt Season has closed three rounds of funding. When the brand was first established, it received a seed round of financing led by One Three Capital; In March 2022, the brand once again received an angel round of financing of 10 million yuan; In December last year, it received a strategic investment from New Incubation Ventures (NIV), the early-stage investment and incubation arm of the Estee Lauder Companies, with an investment amount of more than 10 million yuan, which is also the first fragrance brand invested by the Estee Lauder Companies in China.
The investment of Estee Lauder and other institutions not only provided financial support for Melt Season, but also provided a certain guarantee for the brand's subsequent strategic planning and enhanced its competitiveness in the industry.
As for the brand's future planning, Ni Lishi once said in an interview that Melt Season will start its globalization strategy this year and start high-end hotel cooperation business.
Entering the duty-free channel, opening the first counter in non-Chinese mainland China, or an important attempt of Melt Season's globalization strategy.
02
Accelerate the layout, and open half of the brand's new stores in 3 months
In the current market environment, many brands hope to further enhance their brand style and service experience by opening physical stores, and enhance consumer identity and loyalty. For the fragrance category, which is a strong experience category, the activities and services carried out in offline stores can help consumers understand the product well. Therefore, it is important to create an offline scene that allows consumers to immerse themselves in the product itself.
Since opening its first store in China in July 2022, Melt Season has maintained an emphasis on the offline market. In the creation of the store, following the concept of "Minimalist Oriental" and one store and one design, the single-family building is selected for renovation according to the urban style to create a store space that can express itself.
In recent months, Melt Season has been expanding its stores frequently. On July 1, its first store in South China, "Xiang Rong", opened in the MixC in Shenzhen; On July 5, Melt Season opened in Longfu Temple, Beijing, the brand's fourth and fifth official stores. On August 1, Melt Season officially announced its entry into Wuhan and Chengdu SKP. At present, the brand has been stationed in Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chengdu, Hong Kong, China, 7 cities. Within 3 months, Melt Season added 2 official stores and 3 brand counters offline.
According to iiMedia Research, the market size of China's perfume industry will reach 20.7 billion yuan in 2023, with a growth rate of 22.5%. The sales volume of perfume e-commerce channels is strong, and with the increase in the penetration rate of China's online economy, the pace of digital transformation of physical commerce in the perfume category will further accelerate.
In terms of online channels, Melt Season also has a layout. In addition to the brand's own mini-program, Melt Season has more than 10,000 followers on the Xiaohongshu platform and has a corresponding brand store. In August this year, Melt Season opened a flagship store on Tmall to further expand the brand's online sales channels.
In recent years, the global capital market has continued to increase its weight in the perfume and fragrance track, and China has become one of the important markets, and many local fragrance brands have received financing support from leading international cosmetics companies.
In 2022, L'Oréal China's investment company, Meicifang, announced a minority investment in Wenxian, a high-end fragrance brand, which is L'Oréal's first venture capital in China. At the beginning of this year, L'Oréal made another minority investment in another Chinese high-end fragrance, Guanxia. Also at the beginning of this year, Wenxian announced that it had received a new round of financing led by USHOPAL, an international new luxury beauty brand group.
After receiving investment from giants, accelerating channel layout and exploring overseas markets is undoubtedly an opportunity for Chinese fragrance brands, but there is also fierce competition in parallel with the opportunity. On the one hand, China's high-end perfume market is still dominated by international brands, and it is difficult for domestic brands to break through. On the other hand, in the face of more complex and diversified consumer needs of consumers, it is challenging for domestic perfume brands to use their differentiated advantages to tell the story of China's original perfumes.