Leveraged on its technical development capabilities and brand marketing expertise, KOSÉ Corporation has developed Spawake skincare product range with an extract of Japanese kelp (Laminaria Japonica) and sea salt, a common ingredient used in marine cosmetics. By protecting one’s skin against UV rays, drying and the harmful effects caused by environment, the products cater to urban women fighting daily environmental stress.
In an exclusive conversation with Wellness India, Nomura San, Director & CEO, Spawake, KOSÉ Corporation India Pvt. Ltd shared its elaborate expansion plans in Indian wellness space and much more.
What kind of opportunities do you see in the Indian market which made you tap the space?
The Skincare segment in the Indian market is flooded with natural ingredients based products. All Spawake products are formulated with Japan original sea-sourced active ingredients and developed under advance Japanese Technology with key ingredients seaweed extracts and sea salts. These ingredients being exotic are found majorly in premium skincare segment. Therefore, we seek to occupy a large share of the total space in premium mass segment in the future.
In which year your brand entered in Indian beauty and wellness market?
April 2015 – In Delhi NCR
What is your marketing strategy to tap Indian beauty and wellness space, already being captured by thousands of brands?
We see a significant untapped growth potential in digital space. Therefore our marketing strategy focuses largely on Digital media to tap Indian youth & beauty segment.
Apart from this, for Delhi NCR, we are rigorously doing our promotions in Newspapers, Magazines, and Metro Branding etc.
What are the price points on which you are selling your products? What are your target consumers?
The product price range between Rs 69 to Rs 399 and we are targeting SEC A2, B1 (Upper most segment of the consumers)
Have you made it to Indian market through Ecommerce or some other route? How easy or complicated it is?
We started our presence on e-commerce platform with Myntra as exclusive online partner. Seeing the strength and opportunity in growing eCommerce, we have recently launched our own e-commerce portal to reach our consumers pan India, with an offering of low delivery cost.
What challenges did you phased or are phasing to create a niche for your brand into Indian Beauty & wellness space? What is your strategy to combat the eminent challenges existing into the space?
Spawake is a skincare cosmetics brand developed independently by KOSÉ to meet the needs of, and growth potential in the Indian cosmetics market, after a rigorous research of 3 years in India. As part of the KOSE family, Spawake can and should leverage the high brand equity of KOSE in the Indian market.
Brand name is still a very important element when Indian consumers are choosing their skincare products. It is probably hard to convince consumers to try the new brand, and also conversion to loyal customers. Though the competition being tough in skincare segment, we will break through, as we strongly believe that “the true quality of the product is ultimately the key”
What about expansion in India? Please elaborate. Any plans to establish presence in brick & mortar (If currently present on eCommerce) or other way round?
Currently, we are having offline presence mainly in Delhi NCR with penetration into approximately 300 stores, and plan to penetrate into approximately 200 stores more in coming few months, along with pan-India presence through online e-commerce. We are looking forward to expand our establishment in other regions of India in near future.
