W Concept Expands New Brands Significantly This Year... Establishing Itself as a Gateway for Designer Brands

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] W Concept is embarking on discovering ‘rookie brands’ that will capture the hearts of its customers. As fashion trends and customer preferences rapidly change every year, the company plans to analyze the popularity factors and characteristics of new brands that captivate customers and expand the number of brands joining the platform this year.

W Concept, a subsidiary of SSG.com, announced on the 23rd that an analysis of sales data from 2021, the year it was incorporated, showed that sales from about 1,200 newly joined brands accounted for 10% of total sales. Accordingly, W Concept has set a policy to nurture new brands by analyzing the popularity factors not only in the beauty and men’s fashion categories, which showed the greatest growth among new brands, but also in the consistently strong contemporary, casual, and lifewear categories.

First, W Concept’s beauty category saw sales increase by 153% year-on-year, with sales from newly joined brands accounting for 60% of total beauty sales. These brands gained balanced popularity across premium cosmetics items and beauty electronic products. It is analyzed that many linked purchases occurred because all fall under the common domain of ‘enhancement’.

Next, in the men’s fashion category, the top 10 newly joined brands accounted for 60% of total sales. New brands that introduced highly active products such as on-mile wear, recovery shoes, and fleece seasonally gained great popularity. In the contemporary category, ‘Matang Kim’ and ‘Renina’ ranked among the top sellers, while in casual, ‘Kodak Apparel,’ ‘Diadora,’ and ‘Polaroid Style’?license brands that import and produce trademarks of famous foreign brands domestically?were popular.

W Concept plans to actively nurture so-called ‘rookie brands’ across the board while strengthening specialized categories such as beauty and fashion, which showed high growth last year. The company intends to actively onboard new brands and plans to more than double the number of beauty brands joining compared to this year.

Shin Hee-jung, head of W Concept’s apparel unit, said, “As value consumption has become important recently, customers who seek brands that align with their values are increasing across fashion, beauty, and lifestyle sectors. We will continue to discover new brands and fulfill our role as a platform by providing various support so that both customers and brands can be satisfied.”