‘Exceeding expectations’: How Chloe’s LazMall debut influenced Coty’s Hugo BOSS launch

14-Dec-2022 - Last updated on 20-Dec-2022 at 08:16 GMT

Coty is utilising consumer insights from Chloe’s LazMall launch to fine-tune Hugo BOSS’s debut on Lazada. [Hugo BOSS]

Related tags Coty Fragrance Perfume e-commerce

Beauty major Coty is utilising consumer insights from Chloe’s LazMall launch to fine-tune Hugo BOSS’s debut on the South East Asian e-commerce platform.

The launch of the Hugo BOSS Fragrances official LazMall flagship store marks Coty’s move to expand its digital footprint in SEA as part of its three-year strategy.

Earlier this year, Coty unveiled its first official digital flagship store for Chloé Fragrances with the SEA e-commerce platform.

“The launch of the Chloé Fragrances Official LazMall Flagship Store has been a great success, exceeding our expectations in terms of sales performance, yet also insight gathering,” said Kristina Strunz, managing director, Coty SEA.

“One very interesting insight gleaned is that we are attracting a high share of male customers, who are buying Chloé as a gift and utilising our gift-wrapping service,” she elaborated.

It also discovered that many consumers who came to the Chloé flagship were mostly new to the brand and bought discovery sets to try the fragrances before buying a full-size bottle.

So, for the BOSS launch, Coty developed and pre-launched a ‘Try & Buy’ kit, which consists of four vials of its different scents. The company also utilised the livestream channel to promote it.

“With this set consumers could try the scents while watching the livestream to learn more about the ingredients and the fragrance composition. The kit was sold out in two days and our livestreams had the highest conversion to purchase rate ever for Coty in SEA,” said Strunz.

Strunz previously told CosmeticsDesign-Asia that Coty saw e-commerce as a “strategic growth pillar” for its business in SEA.

“We still have a lot of fragrance brands in our portfolio that do not have an optimal e-commerce expression today. In addition, as part of our three-year strategy we believe we have a lot of room to grow geographically and reach even more consumers across SEA,” said Strunz.

Kristina Strunz, managing director, Coty SEA.

Keeping up with the evolution

The multinational fragrance powerhouse is expanding in SEA at a very interesting time for the fragrance category. With the heightened interest in fragrances, consumers are more willing to explore the category – and make those discoveries online.

At the same time, appetite for niche fragrances is rising and Coty has responded with its own innovations such as Chloé Atelier des Fleurs’ niche scents as well as BOSS The Collection.

The latter is set to make its way to more retailers soon as the company has observed strong demand from consumers.

“It’s great to see that consumers have a growing appetite for niche fragrances. We do not feel the pressure. In fact, it allows us to be more innovative to push the boundaries of the category and reach new consumers who are not traditional fragrance buyers,” said Strunz.

Another trend that Coty is riding on is the re-emerging trend of the unisex fragrance – a category the company helped to make mainstream with the iconic CK One in 1994.

Strunz revealed that it has seen some of its classic masculine fragrances, like Burberry Hero, become popular with women.

“Although Burberry Hero is a classic masculine fragrance, we see a high traction of women loving this scent in the region. For our niche fragrance lines, we see that more and more men and women chose fragrances only by the scent and less by the brand and product expression conveyed.”