‘It’s on everyone’s radar’: Shakeup Cosmetics launches in Australia with leading beauty retailers

Launched in 2019, Shakeup Cosmetics was founded by Beijing-born brothers Shane Carnell-Xu and Jake Xu. Since its launch, the brand has expanded from make-up and into skin care.

At the end of May, Shakeup made its debut in Australia with Australian department store Myers and is set to launch on beauty e-tailers Lookfantastic and Adore Beauty.

Speaking to CosmeticsDesign-Asia​, Xu said the company was still learning about the men’s beauty market in Australia, but believed it had tremendous potential.

“Just like everywhere else in the world, it’s growing. All the retailers are looking at this space as a growing space. It is in every trend report, it’s on everyone's radar. I think the general consensus is that is still not massive yet, but we want to be there when he does become massive.​

“When it comes to cosmetics and skin care, there's very little room now for incremental growth. And I think men's is an easy win as you can add more to your existing revenue without competing or cannibalising your existing offering.”​

At the time of writing, the brand had only been launched for two weeks at Myers. During this time, its performance had been very positive.

“The sales rate has been really good. The early figures are showing really positive numbers based on Myers’ sales rate measurement, and they're pretty happy with our with our sales rate in the first two weeks,” ​said Xu.

Australia will be a key market for the company moving forward as it works to expand its international presence.

“We have to develop more international markets without overstretching ourselves. We want to go into a selected number of markets and go deep, rather than just spreading ourselves widely everywhere. We wanted to develop certain key markets very thoroughly.​

Xu highlighted that Australia alone held plenty of opportunities for the brand. “We’re talking about Priceline, Woolworths, Chemist Warehouse – there all those kinds of places when the timing is right. There’s still loads of opportunities, and we’ve only just scratched the surface.”​

Aside from Australia, Shakeup Cosmetics is also available in South Africa, as well as China – its biggest market. The company also has its eye on the wider Asian region, where Xu is confident it can find success.

“Because of our success in China, we just feel Asia is a no-brainer for us. Your Tmall figures and how your brand is doing in China is a benchmark, and we’re doing well in China.”​

It is particularly interested in South East Asia, Xu said: “SEA as a region is very interesting to us, because Sephora SEA would be an amazing place to be. That’s just one retailer, we’re talking about Lazada and other online retailers that can copy the success we’ve had on Tmall global.”​

While Shakeup has plenty of good news to share, like its fellow brands it is facing a multitude of challenges. “With the global logistics issues, it’s just a nightmare in terms of getting the raw material, supply chain and things going up in prices – it’s even hard getting wooden crates,”​ said Xu.

Last year, for its second full financial year, the brand achieved £1.6m (U$1.96m) in revenue, a growth of 300% year-on-year. With new markets and new products on the pipeline, the brand is set for growth.

Xu told us that the firm has ambitious three-to-five-year targets moving forward but declined to share details.

“Our strategy now, while we do have targets, is to just focus on what we’re doing today. I think we’ve learnt that you just can’t control anything anymore. Who knew after COVID there was going to be a massive war in Europe, who knew there was going to be monkeypox? We’ve learnt not to worry about what’s happening around the corner and just focus on what we’re doing now and do a really good job at that.”​