The Shilla Duty Free (Shilla) is to expand its ‘tipping’ mobile review service to foreign customers and rebrand it as Global Shilla Tipping.

According to Shilla, the aim of the rebrand is to take the lead in promoting K-beauty brands and trends to foreign consumers planning to visit South Korean duty free shops. This will be achieved through expanding its multi-language services, beginning with Chinese, Japanese and English.

Shilla Tipping is a service targeting millennials who have a tendency to trust user-generated reviews posted on social media rather than advertisements seen during the purchase process. Global Shilla Tipping’s Chinese-language service automatically translates over 150,000 reviews already stored in Shilla Tipping’s existing system, including new reviews posted in real time by users.

It then provides the reviews to Chinese consumers. Global Shilla Tipping enables Chinese consumers to quickly learn about the latest South Korean beauty brands through reviews written by South Korean consumers.

Shilla plans to help K-beauty brands increase their brand awareness and enter overseas markets through its Global Shilla Tipping concept. The consumer reviews provided by Global Shilla Tipping in Chinese are expected to help brands looking to enter the Chinese market.

BRAND RECOGNITION

According to the retailer, multiple product reviews from purchasers will benefit new brands seeking recognition from Chinese consumers with limited access to overseas content.

Launched in September 2018, Shilla Tipping offers reviews comprising photos and videos and eliminates the need to run multiple applications to gather information when shopping on mobile devices.

Reviews including photos and videos can be left by any Shilla Online Duty Free member. Each member receives a cash reward when sales are generated through a review. This can be up to 3% of the sales.

Currently, around 80,000 people are using the Tipping Service on average each day, with a daily maximum of around 120,000 to date. More than 150,000 customer reviews of about 40,000 products have been left on the Shilla Tipping platform. Of those reviews, more than 40,000 have led to purchases from other customers. More than 30 members have generated over KRW100m ($85.6m) in sales through reviews they have created. One member recorded around KRW230m in sales.

As part of the concept, Shilla Tipping holds a ‘brand week’ event featuring a specific brand. This has helped raise awareness and revenue for all participating brands. Brand weeks have not only featured leading global brands such as The Estée Lauder Companies, L’Oréal Group and LG Household & Health Care, but medium-sized Korean brands such as Milk Touch, CNP and I’m from. All ‘brand week’ participants experienced an average sales increase of at least two digits during the event.

Shilla is planning to hold ‘brand week events for Global Shilla Tipping to consistently introduce lesser known Korean labels and other global brands to its foreign customers.

A Shilla official said: “Foreign customers who use The Shilla Duty Free mobile app are either scheduled to visit South Korea or highly interested in South Korean cosmetics. We will strive to promote K-beauty across the world through Global Shilla Tipping.”