Ella Bache links with Diva to put best face forward 

Ryuichi Sato, managing director of Diva Supply, said the firm had late last year won the exclusive rights to distribute Ella Bache products in Thailand. Ella Bache’s priority will be business-to-business (B2B) customers, including spas, beauty salons and medium-sized and large hotels.
Although Ella Bache is new to the Thai market, Diva Supply has been an importer and distributor of beauty products for more than 15 years with a customer base of more than 800 professional spas, salons and five-star hotels, Sato said.
He said his wife Suwanna runs Take Care Beauty Salon & Spa, which has just opened its 12th outlet, at the upscale EmQuartier shopping mall. Eight branches of Take Care – most of them in prime Bangkok locations - have switched from other brands to make exclusive use of Ella Bache products in facial treatment services.
During the first year of local distributorship, Ella Bache aims to secure 30 to 40 premium salons using its products in major cities such as Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen and Udon Thani, as well as in Koh Samui.
Marketing will focus less on matters relating to brand image and pricing and more on showcasing the products’ effectiveness to the brand’s target clientele – women aged between 30 and 50 who will be encouraged to trial the products.
“We want salons and end-users to share their experiences [in using Ella Bache] to the market,” said Sato, who added that social media and blogging would be central to these efforts.
B2B customers are expected to account for 80 per cent of Ella Bache’s sale revenues this year and half of the total in 2018. 
Diva’s marketing manager Pear Pengcharoen said efforts would be stepped up to boost sales through e-commerce channels such as Lazada and its own website from next month. Diva had no plans to offer Ella Bache products at physical stores before next year, Pear said.
Marketing will rely heavily on social media, where customers can follow posts on the experiences with Ella Bache of bloggers and other so-called Internet influencers.
Pear said Ella Bache would start with the facial products segment before expanding to other skincare products. Thailand’s skincare market was estimated to be worth Bt35 billion in 2016. The facial treatment segment accounted for 68 per cent of this; it is said to be growing at 4 per cent a year.
Ella Bache is focused on offering total solutions rather than selling a treatment. Each treatment costs between Bt1,600 and Bt2,500. Its products retail from Bt1,000 to Bt2,500.
“The beauty and skincare markets have seen uninterrupted growth despite economic conditions,” Pear said, adding that Diva expected its overall revenue to grow by 30 per cent this year, up from 20 per cent in 2016.
Within the next three to five years, Ella Bache’s B2B expansion is expected to cover more than 100 spas and beauty salons nationwide.