Zoff says sales of beauty-angled frames rose 165% in July, backed by a Shiseido training tie-up
Zoff operator Intermestic says unit sales of frames it markets on beauty grounds jumped 165% year on year in July, as staff trained under a Shiseido-supervised course push a wider case for eyewear that flatters the face, not just corrects it.
Intermestic, which operates the Zoff eyewear chain, said unit sales of frames it markets on beauty grounds rose 165% year on year in July across its domestic stores and official online store, in a release headlined on the growing market for glasses and lenses used for beauty and cosmetic purposes.
The company said Zoff staff who act as in-store and online "influencers" have completed a personalised-diagnosis training course supervised by Shiseido's Beauty Creation Centre, covering facial-type theory and impression analysis, which it is using to strengthen how those staff propose eyewear from a beauty angle. Zoff did not disclose how many stores or staff are covered by the programme.
Within its "Kantan Bi-Shitaku Megane" line — glasses aimed at complementing the wearer's complexion — a "soft pink" skin-tone-correcting lens option accounted for 64% of the line's lens sales between 19 June and 31 August, the company said.
The move reads as Zoff building People and Product around a beauty pitch, rather than a discount, at a moment when department-store cosmetics counters and drugstores are the more obvious rivals for a shopper's beauty spend. Training frontline optical staff to diagnose face shape and skin tone the way a cosmetics counter would, and building a lens around a beauty benefit rather than acuity, is a bid for territory eyewear chains have not traditionally contested inside Japan's shopping centres. Whether it holds depends on whether Zoff can keep that staff skill consistent across its network — the release itself stops short of saying how widely the training has spread.