CHA LING from LVMH Closes Independent Offline Stores in China
- Chaileedo Press
- Dec 9, 2022
- 2 min read
CHA LING officially said that the store closure is due to operational planning adjustments. It is worth mentioning that the same group's high-end beauty KENZO will also close its official flagship store on Tmall recently. This may indicate that LVMH is shrinking its beauty business in China.
Today there is news that LVMH's Oriental skincare brand CHA LING has closed all offline independent stores in China. CHAILEEDO found that the current sales channels of CHA LING are only China Sephora online and offline, as well as Cha Ling Tmall flagship store according to CHA LING official account. There are no offline independent store sales channels.
It is reported that Tea Spirit is an Oriental skincare brand founded by the LVMH Group, with Pu-erh tea as the main tone of the brand. In 2016, CHa LING opened its first offline store in Paris Le Tent Marche department store. It soon came to China. The three stores of CHA LING in mainland China were opened at HKR, IFC in Shanghai and The Mixc in Hangzhou. It can be seen that CHA LING's location is one of the most luxurious shopping centers in the city.
In Hong Kong, CHA LING also opened offline stores in Harbour City, Pacific Place, Hysan Place and K11 Musea. However, it started to go downhill after the world's first store in Le Tent Marche went out of business. Today CHA LING is no longer on the list of stores in several shopping malls in Hong Kong and three stores in Shanghai and Hangzhou were recently closed.
CHA LING said that the store closure is due to operational adjustments. In China, CHA LING’s products will be sold in Sephora as an exclusive brand. Its online official mall on the Chinese social platform WeChat "CHA LING WeMall" also closed in this change.
It is reported that the products of CHA LING use Pu-erh tea as its ingredients. After 6 years of research and development, CHA LING officially debuted in 2016 in Le Pommache, which is positioned as high-end, including 3 major categories fragrance, skincare and body care. As for the closure of CHALING in China, some commentators from one of Chinese We media said that for most Chinese consumers, Chinese culture or herbal medicine is not the main reason driving to make a purchase decision.
It is worth noting that recently, LVMH, the parent company of CHALING, had the slowest revenue growth in the third quarter in its beauty and fragrance division, recording only 10% to 1.959 billion euros (about $2 billion). And the Asian market of LVMH covering China grew sales by 2%, with the sales share slipping to 32%.
Some time ago, the same group's high-end beauty KENZO announced that its official flagship store on Tmall will be closed on December 30, 2022. The announcement said that after the closure, KENZO will continue to serve consumers in the Sephora channel in China. This may indicate that LVMH is shrinking its beauty business in China.
However, LVMH is still confident about the future. Chief Financial Officer of LVMH Jean-Jacques Guiony has said that the luxury industry is not immune to recessions and shocks. But from experience, brands that are strong enough tend to emerge from adversity and even become stronger.
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