Hwahae Accelerates Japan Market Push, Partnering with Local Distributor Story

Birdview, the operator of Hwahae, Korea's largest beauty platform, is partnering with Story, a local Japanese distribution specialist, to accelerate K-beauty brands' entry into the Japanese market. This is a strategic collaboration combining Hwahae's extensive beauty data with Story's strong local distribution expertise, aiming for the successful establishment of K-beauty brands in the Japanese market. The core of this partnership lies in discovering K-beauty brands with high growth potential, based on Hwahae's 12 million users, 9 million cumulative reviews, and 370,000 product data points. Subsequently, Story will be solely responsible for securing placements in local Japanese offline distribution channels and plans to support brand growth from various angles by providing customized consulting and PR/marketing services. Story is a company specializing in cosmetics manufacturing, sales, import/export, and marketing consulting, and already boasts a track record of successfully placing four Korean brands, including Bamboni, Nardis, and Tiam, in major Japanese variety stores like Loft, Plaza, and Hands, as well as makeup specialty stores like @cosme. Masahiro Watanabe, CEO of Story, emphasized that since approximately 90% of Japanese beauty market sales occur offline, targeting offline channels is essential for expanding brand awareness. He stated that through the collaboration with Hwahae, they will fully support K-beauty brands with strong products to successfully establish themselves in the Japanese market. Kim Kyung-il, CEO of Birdview, emphasized that the partnership with Story will support brand growth across all aspects of local Japanese online and offline distribution, marketing, and public relations, thereby generating significant results. He also conveyed their ambition to expand awareness of the Hwahae service in Japan and actively discover new business opportunities. Meanwhile, Hwahae has already launched a global web version with core features like category rankings and the Hwahae Awards implemented in English, achieving over 100,000 monthly active users in just two months. In the first quarter of this year, a Japanese version will be additionally launched to widely promote K-beauty to Japanese consumers and further strengthen the influence of Hwahae's services. This collaboration is anticipated to become an important bridgehead for the strong growth of K-beauty brands in the Japanese market amidst the global K-beauty craze.