(Yicai) Jan. 4 -- US makeup brand Benefit Cosmetics announced that it will soon close its stores on China’s three largest e-commerce platforms.

Benefit’s stores on Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall, JD.Com, and Douyin will shut down on Jan. 28, the company recently announced. Afterward, Chinese customers can purchase Benefit products at Sephora’s offline and online shops. Benefit products are still available on Tmall and JD.Com but not on Douyin.

Benefit entered the Chinese Mainland market in 2007 by opening its first offline store in Shanghai. From the following year, it started selling its products at Sephora’s outlets in the country. Benefit had 275 stores in 81 Chinese cities as of the end of 2020 but shut them all down in 2021 to focus on online sales.

Benefit is adjusting its business scale and development focus in the Chinese mainland, Yicai learned from the customer service of Benefit’s Tmall store.

The withdrawal of Benefit from Chinese e-commerce platforms is mainly related to business objectives, said Zhang Yi, chief executive officer and chief analyst of iiMedia Research, The Time Weekly reported today. The company’s product style is lively and youthful, but prices failed to adapt to the consumption concepts of young Chinese consumers, Zhang added.

Against the backdrop of recent changes in China’s cosmetic market, many foreign makeup brands have gradually retreated from the Chinese market or narrowed their business scope.

Maybelline gradually closed all its offline stores in the Chinese market in 2022. The makeup brand under L’Oréal sells its products only at Watsons now. Mecca Cosmetica shut down its Tmall flagship store last November, only four years after the Australian beauty brand entered the Chinese market.

However, 75 percent of the top 20 cosmetics brands by sales during Tmall’s Double 11 Shopping Festival were overseas premium brands last year. Most rising Chinese makeup brands have replaced low- and mid-end foreign brands.

Editor: Futura Costaglione