Guangzhou-based startup Yatsen, which owns cosmetic brand Perfect Diary, said on Thursday that it has set up a new retail headquarters in Shanghai to open more brick-and-mortar stores across China, 36Kr reported.
Feng Qiyao, president of Yatsen’s new retail business, told 36Kr that his company has opened more than 30 stores in China, with Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Nanjing each with one branch. Yatsen has been aggressively expanding its brick-and-mortar footprint. In September, when the company gained unicorn status, 36Kr reported that it only had 13 physical locations.
Feng said the company plans to open 600 stores in more than 100 Chinese cities in three years, with one-third of them located in eastern provinces.
He added that 80 of these stores will be located in smaller cities and up and running by the end of 2020, specifically serving women living in townships. In 2019, the number of Yatsen stores located in towns of this scale was three.
The company expects offline stores to account for 65% of Perfect Diary’s new customers.
Yatsen’s offline expansion comes as Perfect Diary gained the crown in China’s online retail market for cosmetics, beating out major international brands such as Procter & Gamble and L’Oreal.
This year, the brand has been the top-seller for cosmetics on Tmall during all of the B2C e-commerce platform’s promotional events, including June 18, November 11, and December 12, according to 36Kr’s report.
Sales of Perfect Diary’s products, including lipsticks and facial masks, exceeded RMB 100 million (USD 14 million) on June 18.
36Kr is KrASIA’s parent company.