Japan Online Skincare Market: What Shoppers Favour
By Jessie Wang
2 min read
Japan's online skincare market is growing quickly, and its consumers are demanding, putting quality and natural ingredients first. That gives international brands seeking a foothold there both an opportunity and a challenge, as the successful entry of Chinese brands such as Perfect Diary has shown.
According to Moojing Oversea data, beauty and skincare sales on a leading Japanese marketplace exceeded USD 3.17 billion from May 2023 to April 2024, growing nearly 60% year on year. Skincare alone reached USD 1.1 billion in sales, an increase of 57%, which accounted for over 30% of the marketplace's beauty and skincare sales.
Research indicates that Japanese skincare consumers are relatively young, highly educated and affluent, and that they demand high quality and show strong brand loyalty, with high repurchase rates.
In terms of skincare preferences, products made for "normal skin," "all skin types" and "dry skin" are the most popular.
Japanese consumers prioritise natural ingredients, and fragrance-free products account for nearly 50% of skincare sales.
Chinese beauty and skincare brands have been expanding into Japan in recent years, and their growth there has been significant. According to the Japan Cosmetic Imports Association, imports of Chinese cosmetics increased by almost 44% in 2022 to USD 70 million, third among source countries. Brands such as Perfect Diary, Florasis, Into You and Colorkey have entered the Japanese market successfully.
Japanese consumers are loyal to the brands they adopt and repurchase often once converted, but they take time to adopt a new brand. For Chinese beauty brands entering Japan, establishing a foothold and building a core customer base takes sustained time and effort to resonate with local consumers.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Beauty and skincare sales on a leading Japanese marketplace exceeded USD 3.17 billion from May 2023 to April 2024, growing nearly 60% year on year. Skincare alone reached USD 1.1 billion with a 57% increase, putting it at over 30% of the wider beauty and skincare total. Two things follow. Growth this fast is not a mature-category rate, so competitive positions inside it are still moving and a well-executed entry can still change them. Skincare's proportion of the whole is also large enough that a brand can treat it as a market in its own right rather than as one line inside a beauty portfolio.
Research characterises Japanese skincare buyers as relatively young, highly educated and affluent, demanding on quality, and strongly loyal once converted, with high repurchase rates. That combination cuts both ways for a new entrant. Acquisition is slow and expensive, because quality expectations are high and switching is not casual. Retention is unusually good once a brand earns the first repeat purchase. The planning consequence is that this market rewards patience and a long payback window, and penalises a launch built on discount-led first purchase behind a product that does not survive comparison.
Formulations positioned for "normal skin", "all skin types" and "dry skin" are the most popular, so volume sits in broad-suitability positioning rather than in narrow problem-solving claims. Natural ingredients are a stated priority, and fragrance-free products account for close to 50% of sales, high enough that fragrance is better treated as a default-off decision than as a product variant. For a brand adapting a range built for another market, those three signals usually mean reformulating or re-selecting the entry SKUs rather than simply retranslating the listing copy.
Growing from a small base and doing it credibly. The Japan Cosmetic Imports Association recorded imports of Chinese cosmetics rising almost 44% in 2022 to USD 70 million, third among source countries. Several Chinese colour cosmetics and skincare brands have made the move successfully, which establishes that the route is open, but the same consumer traits that make Japanese buyers loyal also make them slow to adopt. Building a foothold and a core customer base takes sustained time and effort to resonate locally, and brands treating Japan as a quick extension of a domestic launch tend to budget for neither.
