At present, globalization of cosmetics is advanced both in logistics and sales, and products in other countries are readily available in home countries through trips and mail orders. Although, there are difference of culture in each country, not a few consumers raise the high quality as a factor for purchase motivation and cosmetics, which indicates that high-quality cosmetics are desired.
In this document, we rank the countries by the quality of cosmetics manufactured and sold in each country and explain the reasons. We assume that the top 3 country ranking by the high quality cosmetics will be in the order of Japan, the U.S and France as a conclusion This ranking is based on surveys and turnovers which will be described later.
Seeing the overall image of cosmetics competitions based on the comparisons of two countries
Regarding the quality ranking of cosmetics, we believe that there is no official objective data with the result of multilateral comparison of the quality of cosmetics manufactured in each country. The reason is because in order to obtain such data, consumers are required to actually use the cosmetics manufactured in multiple countries continuously and compare them.
As a matter of fact, no multilateral comparisons are found although there are some on the quality comparisons of the cosmetics products between home country and other country or between two specific countries. Also, even the comparison of qualities by the import values and total turnovers is tried from the reason there are not a few consumers good quality can be their purchase motive, we believe it will not lead to acquire the actual quality ranking only from the purchase amount since the unit prices of cosmetic products vary.
Ranking by the image of high cosmetic quality
Therefore, we ranked the countries by the image of high cosmetic quality. We assume the top 3 ranking by the high cosmetic quality will be U.S, France and Japan. This ranking used the survey results on the “Japanese product images in 14 Asian cities” and “Product image in 6 countries in Europe and America”, and additionally used the sales ranking by the cosmetics industry in the world market.
On the first questionnaires, surveys are tallied on the image of the products (including cosmetics) manufactured and sold in five regions (Japan, United States, Europe, Korea, and China) in 14 cities in Asia (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul, Singapore, Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Metro Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, Delhi, and Mumbai).
The results revealed approximately 65% people answered that the Japanese products are of high quality and ranked it the first. American and European products acquired positive answer from 44.1% and 42.4% people as high quality and being ranked the second and the third respectively. The results of this questionnaires show that Asian consumers have better images on the Japanese products in general including cosmetics than products in Europe, America, China and Korea.
Therefore, when comparing the quality of Japanese cosmetics and western cosmetics, it is highly likely that there are many consumers who think Japanese products are of better quality. Also, although there is no big difference, it is indicated that there are many consumers who think that American products are of better quality than European products.
On the latter questionnaires, surveys are tallied on the image of the products (including cosmetics) manufactured and sold in nine regions (Japan, U.S, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Sweden) answered by 6500 consumers in six countries in Europe (UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands).
As the results, Japan is ranked the second in the nine countries with 154 people who answered that Japanese products have high quality images. The first ranked is Germany with 279 people, France is ranked the third with 109 people, followed by America with 89 people. This results show that the European consumers have better quality images on Japanese products in general including cosmetics than other countries of the West except Germany. The results also indicate that there are more consumers who think French products are of better quality than American products.
Also, in the cosmetic industry sales ranking of the world market as of 2016, French company was the first with $27.6 billion turnovers, and followed by British and Dutch company with $22.3 billion turnovers. From the third to the six, American companies ranked in a row with the total of $47.1 billion turnovers, and a Japanese company ranked the seventh with 6.3 billion turnovers.
In terms of just quality, Japan will be the first ranked
From the results on two surveys on quality above mentioned, if there is a ranking of best cosmetic qualities, we assume it is clear that the first ranked will be Japan. In fact, inbound visitors raise high quality as the element they expect to the Japanese cosmetics. As for the second and the third rank, the results from the two surveys are different, and there is no direct evaluations made on the quality, however, to assume that the sales ranking is indicating the ratio of products widely infiltrating around the world, we can say that the U.S. can be regarded as the second and France the third.
As a conclusion, Japan, the U.S. and France are suggested as the countries with the high-quality-cosmetic images. In manufacturing cosmetics, in order to appeal the high quality, Japan is the most appropriate country.
【Reference】
- https://www.hakuhodo.co.jp/uploads/2012/02/20120210GlobalHABIT.pdf
- https://www.sbbit.jp/article/cont1/33468
- http://ir.c.chuo-u.ac.jp/repository/search/binary/p/5496/s/3344/
- http://studenttheses.cbs.dk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10417/6170/Marleen_ter_Heide.pdf?sequence=1
- https://www.virtusinterpress.org/IMG/pdf/rgc7i4c2art8.pdf
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