New | E-tailer JD.com joins with Sephora in push into China’s booming beauty products market

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Sephora will extend its reach in the fast-growing China online beauty market through JD.com's network. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 3:01pm, 13 May 2015

JD.com, the largest online direct sales company in China, has teamed up with global beauty products retailer Sephora to launch the biggest cosmetics store on JD.com’s popular e-commerce platform.

The alliance between JD.com and Paris-based Sephora, owned by luxury goods giant LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, is expected to intensify competition in China’s fast-growing online retail market for beauty products.

Data from Frost & Sullivan showed that online sales of beauty products in China are forecast to grow 33.2 per cent on average annually to reach 94.6 billion yuan (US$15.6 billion) by 2018, up from 22.6 billion yuan in 2013.

“This new JD.com partnership will be an immediate rival to the existing major online business-to-consumer platforms for beauty products on the mainland,” said Ricky Lai, a research analyst at Guotai Junan International.

The top domestic competitors are Jumei.com, the mainland’s largest online beauty products retailer, and Alibaba Group’s Tmall.com, which has about 19 high-end beauty and skin care retail brands on its platform.

On the JD.com marketplace, Sephora will offer more than 1,200 products from 70 top brands, including Christian Dior, Guerlain, Givenchy and Kenzo.

"Sephora is dedicated to providing the best, most trusted beauty solutions for our customers, while making shopping more efficient, intelligent and fun," Anne Veronique Bruel, president of Sephora Asia, said on Wednesday.