It all started from the question “How can you promote smaller cosmetic brands overseas online”. Wish Company challenged, back in 2010, a new market field and is currently selling numerous Korean minor cosmetic brands internationally.
Statistics state, (based on 2014) there are over 5,000 cosmetic related industries domestically. Consumers will most likely remember Amore Pacific, LG, Missha, and other major brands. However, there are high quality producers that are hidden beneath the big names.
Although Wish Company is not highly publicized, the company plays a significant role in discovering brands and promoting them both on and offline to consumers all over the world.
From Small Companies to the World Market
Wish Company’s development overseas began in November 2010, with CEO Sung Ho Park and his partner Aram Baek. The name Wish Company originates from this mission. WISH stands for Worldwide Ideas & Solution Hub. With the Korean industry power, and the growing national brand valuing itself as the foundation, the business focused on cosmetics.
Although the company dreamed of launching smaller brands overseas, it was a challenge to find brands that were appropriate to sell internationally. The industrial power and quality of the new born companies were unpredictable. After numerous refusals, Wish Company was able to sign a contract with two companies and was then able to further develop the company’s portfolio.
From then till now, relationships transformed into partner-like business relations. Currently, there are 50 different brands and over 800 different products being sold through Wish Company all over the world.
After 4 years, 800% sales increase
Wish Company’s paralleled implementation of online commerce and offline export aided their success. Focusing on Asian countries, Wish Company exports overseas. In Hong Kong and Singapore, in particular, Wish Company stocks products in over 400 major drugstores such as Watsons, Mannings, Bonjour, and Sasa. Additionally, the brand is recognized further by being sold in department stores in foreign countries.
Wish Company’s cross-border online commerce, Wishtrend, sells over 70 different countries overseas. This acts as the opposite to the recent trend in Korea of purchasing products directly from foreign countries.
This has given the company an opportunity to reach a variety of different customers from a variety of different countries. Unlike the expected analytics, the main customer base lies in North America. The most purchased countries also record America, Canada, Australia, Europe, and the Middle East. Efficient payment and delivery system and English based website, welcomes English speaking countries to purchase and shop online. Recently, by launching Wishtrend Taiwan, the Asian commerce also began to actively progress.
Their annual increases are also notable. 50 months after their launch, the rate of monthly income is increasing rapidly. Last year’s annual income increased by 800% to that of 2012’s, and by 300% to that of 2013’s. Specific details are under discretion but according to Wish Company’s representative, they expect a larger growth this year.
Multi Channel Networking Strategy Resulting in over 1 Million views Monthly
At the heart of these achievements lies the Multi-Channel Network (MCN) strategy built from the beginning. Watching the growth of social networking sites such as Facebook from the start, Wish Company has created and structured SNS along with Sub-sites. By creating high quality contents and sharing them, Wish Company has created a viewer base of 400,000. With constant work and effort, extra expenses on marketing were saved immensely.
By running 10 different pages on Facebook, the company has efficiently advertised the brand. The pages help to introduce 200,000 viewers to the necessary information and commerce. Instagram has also gained 30,000 followers, and other SNS portals such as Twitter and Pinterest have steadily grown to aid and support the company.
The youtube channel Wishtrend TV created in 2013 has over 80,000 subscribers. With 170 videos and 4,200,000 views, the videos introduce and handle products and brands from Wish Company. The self-made contents formulated a strong fan base externally.
Furthermore, Wish Company also has the help of a network of over 1,ooo bloggers/youtubers worldwide, and the website regarding exports has 15,000 foreign buyer subscribers. By sending them newsletters, they are able to obtain news efficiently.
From the beginning, things weren’t easy. Funds weren’t plentiful, and advertising was a struggle. Consistency became a weapon, and the channel acted as one. As the company began to speak to the customers, the views and responses grew exponentially.
People that visit online purchase on the commerce website, and in the countries things go viral, and offline customers question to purchase, creating an ideal cycle.
Wanting to Create a Korea-Based International Brand
“Although domestic cosmetics appear to be popular globally, they only take up 5% of the market. There is still a lot left to develop.”
This comes from Wish Company’s CEO Sung Ho Park. Although Korean cosmetics’ status has improved over the years, there is still a lot left to triumph internationally. From the online shopping perspective, the possibilities are very evident. According to KOTRA’s recent “Main Countries Online Overseas Purchase Market Trend”, in 2014 the difference in sales between Korean buyers and foreign buyers added up to 13,342,000,000,000KRW.
“We do not only have to learn from the IT industry models in Silicon Valley, or the finance in Wall Street. You cannot ignore the effect of having brand values of classic products such as chocolate, cheese, or watches from Switzerland and Italy. We will work to make the value of Korean consumer goods reach that point.”
The CEO dreams of having numerous companies, originating from Korea, globally. With Wish Company’s unique products and brands, we can expect it’s development as a sole player in the market.
