Shiseido continues its business expansion initiatives in China, with the latest announcement that, starting in March, it will launch the new DQ brand from Shiseido China Co., Ltd. for drugstores dealing with both medicine and cosmetics channels. Sales of Shiseido’s cosmetics products in China are currently conducted mainly in department stores and cosmetic specialty stores; however, Shiseido will further expand points of contact with customers by designating the new drugstore channel as the third sales channel pillar for Shiseido’s China business. In addition to Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou cities, the new brand will be handled in other major cities in coastal and inland areas, in which plans call for introducing approximately 600 stores in the first year and consecutively expanding areas and handling stores.

According to Shiseido, women who purchase cosmetics via the drugstore channel are highly conscious about skin concerns, and turn to this outlet in hopes of finding more “scientific” methods of solving skin problems. Thus, Shiseido’s DQ brand was developed to target women who are concerned about chronic skin troubles as well as those who are unsatisfied with the skin care effects of conventional cosmetic products. Shiseido says the brand realizes healthy skin with less likeliness of causing skin troubles while enabling the user to feel the skin care efficacies. While objectively gaining an understanding of customers’ skin conditions attained through proprietary skin information based on the accumulation of many years of research, tranexamic acid, an active ingredient for rough skin, has also been included to work at the origin of skin troubles to give a feeling of effective penetration. The DQ brand name is derived from the initials of the term Dermal Quotient.

The DQ Control line for daily skin care and the Skin Trouble Care line will be introduced with 25 items.