Miranda Kerr has launched her KORA Organics skincare line into the lucrative Chinese market with an online store on Alibaba’s Tmall Global site.
Pregnant with her second child, Miranda launched the store from her home in California with a 45-minute live-stream broadcast to more than 223,000 Chinese consumers.
Announcing the store’s launch, Miranda said China had the potential to become Kora’s biggest market over the next five years.
“We have some very innovative new products that I’m sure will be of great interest to customers in China who are increasingly seeking healthier lifestyles, and cleaner, greener, cruelty-free products.
Kerr launched Kora into China via Tmall as “Chinese consumers are some of the most advanced in the world when it comes to online shopping, especially for skincare and beauty”.
“Our approach is to have very selective, high quality distribution channels for our products across the globe,” she said. “Tmall is a well-established and trusted place for customers to purchase premium international brands via cross border e-commerce.”
According to Alibaba’s news agency Alizala, more than 14,500 international brands from 63 countries and regions currently sell on Tmall (the largest business-to-consumer retail platform in Asia) with the majority using the platform as their first foray into China.
Kerr added that selling through Tmall also allowed Kora to stay true to its cruelty-free standards by bypassing China’s animal-testing demands (which require all cosmetics registered for sale in the country to undergo animal testing).
“We are hoping to expand distribution into stores in China at a later point, when product registration will not require our products to be tested on animals,” she said.
Miranda concluded that the live-stream was “a huge success” for the brand.
“We felt the Tmall live-cross was a unique opportunity to connect directly with consumers in China, so that they can see and hear me personally speak about my holistic approach to nurturing mind, body and skin, and talk in detail about our range of certified organic skincare products, our key ingredients and the amazing results our products are achieving.”
Miranda began developing Kora Organics, which features ingredients with “natural healing and protective powers” such as Noni Extract, Rosehip Oil, Sea Buckthorn Oil and Green Tea, in 2006.
Launched in David Jones stores three years later, the brand has since expanded its distribution network to over 200 retailers across Australia and 300 Sephora stores in the US as well as koraorganics.com, Sephora.com and net-a-porter.com.
The brand plans to expand its reach to over 2500 retailers in 25 countries by the end of this year.