Recently, Shiseido’s high-end skincare brand BAUM announced that due to strategic adjustments, it will cease product sales in the Chinese market.
CHAILEEDO discovered that BAUM’s WeChat official account indicates that the BAUM mini-program has been suspended since April 1, 2024. Additionally, according to a BAUM Tmall flagship store customer service representative, “The BAUM Tmall official flagship store will no longer accept new orders starting July 10, 2024. Orders placed before this date will be shipped as usual. We will handle all after-sales requests appropriately until August 10, 2024.”
Regarding offline channels, it has been reported that a staff member at the Réel Mall in Jing’an Temple, Shanghai, stated: “The BAUM counter was removed at the end of June.”
BAUM is a new high-end skincare brand launched by Shiseido in 2020, advocating for sustainable development and harmony, and promoting symbiosis with trees. The brand entered the Chinese market in 2021 and opened its first independent counter in China in Shanghai in September 2022.
Currently, the brand still has 16 SKUs available in its Tmall official flagship store, with product prices ranging from 240 to 890 yuan. The best-selling product is the Baum hand cream, with over 1,000 units sold.
According to Shiseido’s first-quarter financial report, Shiseido’s net sales amounted to 249.453 billion yen ($1.55 billion), a year-on-year increase of 3.9%. Among them, the net sales in the Chinese market were 55.475 billion yen ($343.8 million) in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%. Shiseido stated that while CPB and NARS achieved stable growth in the Chinese market, consumer willingness to purchase Japanese products declined due to the nuclear wastewater discharge incident, causing Shiseido to experience negative growth again. However, thanks to Shiseido Group’s promotion on various e-commerce platforms, it achieved steady growth during the International Women’s Day e-commerce event.
