Musinsa Beauty is carving out a role as the go-to pre-launch hub for new beauty drops. Between last year and February, Musinsa Beauty averaged over 1,000 new items each month, and Musinsa told reporters on the 29th that about 100 of those were exclusive pre-launch releases unveiled first on the platform every month.
From big names like Hera, MAC and Maison Margiela Parfums to indie favorites such as OnGredients, Dimaf and Touch in Sol, brands are turning to Musinsa to debut new releases. MAC, for example, launched an exclusive shade on Musinsa in January that sold out in just three days.
And the pre-launch play is paying off. Beauty-device brand View & D pre-launched an Esther Bunny collaboration in January and shot to No. 1 in daily sales that day; its January–February sales were about four times higher than the same period last year. Emerging brand Anoetic Beauty, which first showcased a new product on Musinsa in February, also climbed to the top spot immediately after release.
Musinsa reports that Musinsa Beauty’s gross merchandise value grew more than 50% year over year last year, and the platform now features nearly 2,000 brands. The company says it applied the content-marketing strengths it honed in fashion—editorial shoots and influencer collaborations—to the beauty category to amplify new-product exposure.
Musinsa is also expanding offline. It plans to open its first permanent beauty shop inside Musinsa Megastore Seongsu in Q2, and will add standalone beauty concept stores in Seongsu and Hongdae—neighborhoods popular with people in their 20s and 30s and with visiting tourists—later this year.
An industry insider said securing first access to new products is a brand’s core survival strategy in the fast-moving beauty market, adding that Musinsa’s distribution capabilities and content know-how should serve as strong competitive advantages in the offline beauty space as well.
