Growing sales in the Chinese market from $400,000 to $16.7 million in just two years, Access Corporate Group leads McPherson’s Dr. LeWinn’s to overseas success.

The McPherson’s story began 160 years ago in Sydney and today the Australian company owns a number of iconic brands in the health, wellness and beauty sectors such as A’kin, Swisspers and Manicare. Dr. LeWinn’s is one of the company’s most successful and prominent brands and was established in 1989. It offers a range of advanced anti-ageing skincare products, developed by leading cosmetic surgeon Dr. Laurence LeWinn, that take into consideration varying factors of hormones, lifestyle, and environment to make women look and feel good, whatever their age. Dr. LeWinn’s is the number one cosmeceutical brand in Australian pharmacies.

Three years ago, after an attempt to break into the Chinese market with lukewarm results, Dr. LeWinn’s approached Access Corporate Group for better market understanding. For the brand, this was a big leap of faith: while Dr. LeWinn’s enjoyed huge success in other markets, the brand was grappling with how to better understand and approach the China market. Together they worked through research and development and by harnessing Access’ relationships and local consumer insights, Dr. LeWinn’s started to develop products that would meet and excite the needs of this new market. As a result of this trust in the knowledge and capability of Access, Dr. LeWinn’s was able to accelerate its innovation pipeline and expand its hero product range from just one in 2017 to five in 2020, highlighting the brand’s longstanding reliability.

When the four new Dr. LeWinn’s SKUs were launched in 2020 on the ABM platform, Access’ worldwide community of over 50,000 resellers and Key Opinion Consumers was prepared to tell the strong brand story to their audiences with the tools, experience and training to talk about its proven legacy of delivering great skincare results for over 30 years. Access also engaged top brand ambassadors Jacky Zhou and popular Chinese actress Ying’Er, a strategy that was very successful at attracting attention and increasing demand.

The result is a great partnership built on Access’s deep understanding of consumer needs, and its strong brand management, complemented by inspired product innovation from Dr. LeWinn’s.  It is how Dr. LeWinn’s increased its GMV in the Chinese market from just $400,000 in 2017 to over $16.7 million in 2019. It has also meant that in 2020, Dr. LeWinn’s has been able to adapt well to the changing market dynamics. Its annual brand day, monthly training and product launches have been great successes, and this strong relationship has seen events like the ABM 6.6 Shopping Carnival produce 140% year-on-year growth.

The future is looking very bright, with every year strengthening the relationship between Dr. LeWinn’s, Access, and the skilled Access resellers/KOCs. The partnership is set to flourish even further in the future for both Access and Dr. LeWinn’s, and the market can look forward to even greater product innovation in the future.

“Dr. LeWinn’s and Access started out as a business venture for us to achieve success,” says Laurie McAllister, CEO of McPherson’s. “It started as a journey for us into the world’s biggest market. It is now a true relationship of trust.”