Uncover the Marketing Strategy of Skintific in Indonesia

Risca Fleureta Hudiyono1, Syafira Ismail1

1UniversitasIndonesia, Depok 16424, Indonesia
[email protected]

Abstract. As a new skin care brand in Indonesia’s beauty market, Skintific has
stolen the attention of many Indonesian consumers. This situation attracts our
interest to find out more about the marketing strategy implemented by Skintific
to analyze them scientifically. We conduct an interview to one of Skintific Brand
Marketing Specialist Staff, distribute a simple questionnaire, solicit secondary
data, and analyze all information based on collected literatures. We found that
Skintific's success in the Indonesian beauty and care market within 1.5 years is
supported by the main digital marketing strategy chosen, namely by leveraging
the popularity of TikTok as social commerce. Skintific does not only work with
beauty influencers, such as Tasya Farasya, but also engages with many affiliates
and Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) to increase consumers intentions to purchase.
In addition, the use of the Live Streaming feature is able to attract buyers because
Live Streamers can directly demonstrate the use of Skintific products in real-
time. The use of TikTok as social commerce plays a role in significantly increas-
ing Skintific's sales only through online sales with an average value of 100 billion
rupiah per month. Through this strategy, Skintific gained some awards in its first
year in Indonesia. Therefore, it can be concluded that Skintific has succeeded in
utilizing social commerce as its digital marketing strategy.

Keywords: Digital Marketing, Social Commerce, Influencers, Affiliates, Key

Opinion Leaders, Live Streamers, Consumers Intentions.

1 Introduction

Cosmetic industry is designed to be one of the prioritized industries as prime movers in

the future economy in National Industry Development Master Plan (RIPIN) 2015 –
2035 arranged by Indonesia’s Ministry of Industry (2). This industry contributes for
about 1.78% to Indonesia’s GDP on second quarter of 2022 (3). However, revenue from
this industry is growing from US$ 5.91bn in 2014 to US$ 7.23bn in 2022 (4). Later,
research conducted by Statista (5) stated that in that revenue will be amount to US$
8.09bn and expected to grow annually by 4.59%. Furthermore, according to Deloitte
(6), Indonesia’s consumers in five big cities, i.e. Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Medan,
and Makassar, allocates 4% of their expenditures in Cosmetics & Beauty Care products
among other 13 product categories. This is why we can say that cosmetic industry is
one of the growing and prospecting industries in Indonesia.

© The Author(s) 2023

D. V. Ferezagia et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference on Vocational Education Applied Science
and Technology (ICVEAST 2023), Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research 783,
https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-132-6_34
382 R. F. Hudiyono and S. Ismail

Statista divides products in cosmetic industry into personal care, skincare, cosmetics,
fragrances, and beauty tech products (5). From their researches, skin care ranked as the
second segment bought by Indonesian people. Specifically, Populix (7) finds that aver-
age spending of majority people on skincare products is up to IDR 250k at least once a
month. On the other hand, JAKPAT (8) discovers that on average, people allocate 10%
for skincare products, greater than makeup products, and buy skincare products 7 times
a year. Even McKinsey (9) observes that 25% of their respondents experienced out of
stock of skincare and makeup products when they want to purchase them. Therefore, it
shows that skincare products grab a relatively big portion on Indonesian’s attention.

To purchase skincare, many channels available could be options, such as traditional

trade (warungs, wet markets, and street hawkers), modern trade (supermarkets, depart-
ment stores, and specialty stores), and e-commerce/online (6). From their researches,
Deloitte finds that, especially due to pandemic, 71% respondents prefer modern trade
to traditional trade (19%) and e-commerce/online (10%). This is a changing in purchase
behavior, where before the pandemic, Deloitte only discovers traditional trade and
modern trade as purchase channels (10).

Further, other research at least 60% Indonesia consumers choose online channels rather
than offline stores (7). Consumers then can utilize e-commerce platform and social me-
dia when they want to buy from online channels. We can find some popular worldwide
e-commerce website selling their own products such as Nike (11) or local e-commerce
website like Merche, CallandaHijab, and AdorableProjects (12). Then, we also often
hear Amazon and eBay as global famous marketplace, as well as Shopee, Tokopedia,
and Lazada in Indonesia (13). However, Indonesia consumers can also shop from spe-
cific marketplace for cosmetic and beauty products, such as Sociolla, Sephora, and Al-
thea (14).

Recently, not only to look for the latest information/news or keep in touch with friends,
social media also can be used to do buying and selling transactions (7,15,16). Popular
social media platforms nowadays to shop are TikTok Shop, WhatsApp, Facebook Shop,
Instagram Shop, Pinterest, and many more (15,17). Furthermore, beauty product ranked
as the second product category purchased by Indonesian consumers (15). By using so-
cial commerce, consumers can interact with Live Streamer and do shopping through
the same application (17).

One skincare brands that successfully utilize social commerce to increase its revenue
in Indonesia is Skintific. This Canada brand has just entered Indonesia on August 2021
and quickly jump into one of the most wanted skincare brands in Indonesia. Since join-
ing Indonesia’s cosmetic and beauty market in late 2021, Skintific applies some mar-
keting strategies, one of which is optimal usage of social media, especially TikTok.
Skintific then wins Indonesian consumers’ heart one of which through its 5x Ceramide
Barrier Repair Moisture Gel product and gains large amount of revenue from TikTok
Shop.
 Uncover the Marketing Strategy of Skintific in Indonesia 383

To support sales from TikTok, Skintific then work in partnership with some Beauty
Influencers, Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), many Affiliates and Live-Streamers. Skin-
tific also implements some efforts to support its strategies, such as advertising on dif-
ferent media, participating on beauty events, giving promos on special events, boosting
videos from influencer and affiliates, and providing rewards for Affiliates.

These efforts then support Skintific sales to increase fantastically. It is recorded that
Skintific gains more than IDR 100 billion per month in the first semester of 2023. Skin-
tific also ranked as top 3 store with highest revenues in TikTok for skincare category.
In addition, Therefore, this brand gets many awards in 2022, such as “Best Moisturizer”
from Female Daily, Sociolla, Beautyhaul, and TikTok Live Awards 2022, “Best Eye
Treatment” from Sociolla Awards, “Best New Comer Brand 2022” by Sociolla and
TikTok Live Awards 2022 (1).

However, we can find many popular articles explaining marketing strategy of Skintific
in Indonesia. Unfortunately, there are still few scientific articles explaining how Skin-
tific markets its products and why its strategies are successful. Therefore, we are inter-
ested in searching for scientific reasons behind Skintific success story. The remainder
of this paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we discuss the related litera-
ture. The research methodology and results and discussions are reported in Sections 3
and 4, respectively. Finally, conclusions and suggestions are provided.

2 Literature Review

This section reviews some literatures related to social commerce. This includes general
explanation about social commerce, collaboration occurs in social commerce related to
business, and resume of previous researches regarding social commerce.

2.1 Social Commerce

Usage of social commerce has been growing rapidly. Social commerce is an alternative
way for consumers to purchase goods or services while enjoy social media features.
Social commerce gives consumers experience to interact more with sellers and shop-
ping experience through the same application (17). Besides, by using social commerce,
users could enhance their individual’s social life through social networking. Especially
for university student (16-24 years of age), social media is a free and easy way to so-
cialize (18).

We can find several social media connected to consumers’ shopping experience. Pop-
ular global social commerce used recently are TikTok and Instagram (15,17). Mean-
while, in Indonesia itself, we can see some growing social commerce platform, such as
Evermos, Kitabeli, and Dusdusan (15,19).

By using social commerce, both consumers and business can take many benefits. Con-
sumers can enjoy socializing in social commerce while experiencing buy product from
384 R. F. Hudiyono and S. Ismail

the same apps. Consumers can also get information from other consumers that will help
them evaluate the product and decide whether to purchase the product (20). Besides,
electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) sharing and trust as a mediator variable on social
commerce can enhance causal effect on purchase intention (21).

On the other side, business can take advantages by getting huge number of potential
customers on social media, enhancing brand awareness through social media, reaching
target audience easily, giving frictionless buying experience, and generating social
proof of the brand (22). In addition, companies or business can preserve consumers
loyalty and increase sales from social commerce by elaborating closer relationships
with consumers and preserving high quality relational brand communication (23).

2.2 Collaboration in Social Commerce for Business

Company can collaborate with several parties to support their marketing activities, es-
pecially in social commerce. Through brand ambassador programs, companies are al-
lowed to engage with employees, customers, or even influencers and celebrity to be-
come brand ambassador. Other than ambassador program, companies can also work in
partnership with influencers, Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), affiliates (micro-influenc-
ers), and live-streamers. The following is the explanation of each activity and role.

Company can implement ambassador programs with people who want to work and be
engaged with company to promote its products. Company can select different types of
partners to work with depends on its target. Customers is the best choice to be brand
ambassador when company want to magnify positive reviews. When company aims to
highlight expert analysis, company can employ its employees. However, if company
tries to develop master storytellers, it can collaborate with celebrity or influencers (24).
This engagement between brand and celebrity or influencers to be associated with its
products and brands is also known as celebrity endorsement (25).

Celebrity is a famous or well-known person, especially in the entertainment business.

Company can assign a celebrity as its brand ambassador if the celebrity is expected to
have a power to transfer enticing, enabling, and enriching benefits to the brand. Celeb-
rities can offer enticing benefits through their good appearances and personalities. Ce-
lebrities can also provide enabling benefits due to their expertise, skills, or active life-
style. Meanwhile, enriching benefits can be reflected through personal beliefs and
hopes and symbolized by status and relationships. Furthermore, company can highlight
inspirational stories from the celebrity endorsed that has significant enriching benefits
to strengthen the enriching benefits of the endorsed product (26). By hiring celebrity as
brand ambassador, company is making an enormous investment; unfortunately, it is
hard to specify the return of that investment (27).

Company has an alternative option in collaborating with influencers other than being
brand ambassador. According to McKinsey (27), influencers are people having ability
to influence many people, especially in social media, to purchase product or service
 Uncover the Marketing Strategy of Skintific in Indonesia 385

they recommend. Influencers can work in partnership with company by giving recom-
mendations about products of a brand. In this partnership, influencers have the power
to engage more with their followers by telling their experience on using the products of
a brand. This can lead to increase their followers’ expected value of brand recom-
mended by influencers. Then, influencers can drive their followers to purchase the rec-
ommended products (28). However, there is a possibility that influencers decide to stop
the collaboration in the future. This condition can make the business model become
unsustainable in the future (29). Therefore, company needs to choose to collaborate
with the right influencers (30).

Besides celebrity and influencers, company can cooperate with Key Opinion Leaders
(KOLs). A KOL is a person that has the expertise in the area regarding the product or
service he/she recommends (17). company can collaborate with KOLs to give reviews
and opinions on company’s products, including stagnant products, to help recover prod-
uct sales (31). Doctors and dentists can be the KOLs of cosmetic and beauty products
because of their expertise in health. Company can make contract with KOLS in the
form of a revenue-sharing contract based on volume, a two-part tariff contract, or a
flexible commission consignment contract (32).

Furthermore, company can develop affiliate programs, a lower-risk alternative in inte-

grating micro-influencers or affiliates into its brand strategies. Company may choose
this program because affiliates might produce more relatable content and give more
access to their followers than macro influencers (27). Besides, micro-influencers have
more chance to communicate and interact deeply and warmly with their followers; thus,
affiliates would show higher-quality engagement to their followers (30).

Partnership between company and affiliates occurs in the form of commission-based

partnership (33). Affiliates are required to post photos and/or videos containing prod-
ucts of the brand in their social media accounts. Affiliates can also insert link to pur-
chase the products to be followed by their followers. Then, followers can buy the prod-
ucts from the clicked link. Thus, affiliates will earn affiliate commission (27).

Despite all roles mentioned above, many people want to be live streamers recently. Live
streaming is popular now due to its ability to increase consumer trust which leads con-
sumer to purchase. Through live streaming, consumers are provided with sufficient de-
tail of the products or services as well as creative and entertaining presentations in real
time (34–36). Consumers can also ask or request directly to live streamer and live
streamer will answer all questions spontaneously about the products or services being
live streamed (35). Besides, a live streamer can also take in interesting places to attract
consumers more (34). Thus, real-time interactivity provided through live streaming can
help consumers in making decisions effectively (35,36).

However, streamers’ popularity is not the main aspect in increasing consumers’ pur-
chase intention (37,38). Consumers are concerned more on streamers’ product-
knowledge, appearance, honesty, and warmth, as well as their sense of humor (36–39).
386 R. F. Hudiyono and S. Ismail

Besides, previous research has revealed that male streamers can achieve better perfor-
mance when selling experience products, one of which is skincare and cosmetic prod-
ucts. Streamers’ also have to provide real-time trials when streaming experienced prod-
ucts to make consumers decide to purchase product spontaneously (39).

Still, company has two options in conducting live streaming, either collaborate with
independent live streamers or do live streaming by itself. Company needs to learn about
how the Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) as the proxy of platform sales and fan
growth considering this decision (40). Live streamers (either independent or the com-
pany itself) need to run multiple live-stream shows a week in a perfect time to help
increase the GMV. Besides, the quality of streamers’ fans can also affect GMV; the
higher quality of live-streaming show fans, the higher GMV (29,40).

2.3 Other Previous Researches regarding Consumers’ Purchase Intention in

Social Commerce

Consumers like promotions. Sales promotions in terms of price advantages like dis-
counts, coupons, and other promotions are able to enhance online purchases (36,41).
Influencers could time-bound and promoter code-specific discounts, offer giveaways
to their most loyal followers, and other ways to increase product sales (31).

Furthermore, Al-Adwan and Yaseen (42) discovered some signals affecting consum-
ers’ trust to seller in social commerce based. These signals include return policy mild-
ness, information quality provided by the seller, seller reputation and popularity, and
number of positive comments about the seller. The looser the return policy, the higher
the quality of the information provided by the seller, the higher the seller's reputation
and popularity, and the more positive comments about the seller will increase consum-
ers’ trust to the seller. Therefore, consumers will have higher intention to purchase from
the seller.

When company need to choose which celebrities or influencers to collaborate with,

company should not consider only on number of their followers. Company needs to
study their followers’ loyalty and their propensity to purchase endorsed-products. It is
because even micro-influencers may act as critical promoters due to their ability to
conduct deeper interaction to their followers (31). Besides, company should also eval-
uate feedback from influencers’ followers to learn about followers’ perception on ex-
pected value and their intentions to purchase influencers’ recommended brands (28).

Specified on TikTok, Zhang et al. (43) studied consumer purchase intention in social
media. They found that consumers enjoy to shop through social media regardless of
time and to get involved in the live-stream show. Consumers then can get deeper un-
derstanding of the product while enjoying the warm and unique show design. This good
experience enhances consumer purchase intention of the products promoted.
 Uncover the Marketing Strategy of Skintific in Indonesia 387

Further, Statista (44) surveyed reasons behind consumers purchases from live-shopping
show on social commerce in Indonesia. As of October 2022, Statista found that attrac-
tive discount placed as the first reasons for buying from live-shopping show, including
in TikTok. The attractive discount, followed by free shipping, could make consumers
get cheaper prices compared to buy on other e-commerce platforms. In other words,
shopping for many products, through Tiktok Shop is more economical and profitable.

Moreover, Statista (44) discovered about the items sold at live-streaming show and the
host of the show. The interesting items sold, the popularity of items for sale, and the
lenience to buy items sold drive consumers to buy from live-shopping. In addition,
consumers are also willing to buy from live-shopping show because the host/celeb-
rity/influencer is well-known.

3 Methodology

In this study, we conduct descriptive research by exploring Skintific’s marketing strat-

egies in Indonesia then analyze them scientifically. We interviewed one staff in Brand
Marketing Specialist of Skintific Indonesia to get comprehensive information about
Skintific marketing strategies. We also distribute a simple questionnaire to figure out
how our respondents know about Skintific. Moreover, we analyze all information based
on collected literatures.

4 Results and Discussions

This section contains results on our research and discuss them according to previous
research. This includes explanation of Skintific marketing strategy, revenur from Tik-
Tok, questionnaire analysis, and analysis of Skintific marketing strategy.

4.1 Skintific’s Marketing Strategy

Based on our interview, Skintific plays social media optimally as its main marketing
strategy. Skintific uses TikTok as main social media, followed by Instagram, in order
to increase consumer awareness along with its products selling. Through Skintific’s
official accounts on TikTok, this brand often performs live-streaming shows while pro-
moting limited promos. Consumers then can purchase the product through yellow cart
immediately. Besides, it’s accounts also provide informative video about its products
frequently in maximum 3 minutes duration.

Besides TikTok, Skintific uses Instagram as another information sharing in social me-
dia. Regularly, Skintific posts photos and videos about Skintific products and their
strengths, product use advices, skin health information, users’ reviews, along with Ads
features to boost sales. Uploaded videos on Instagram usually shorter than in TikTok
due to the different policy.
388 R. F. Hudiyono and S. Ismail

To support social media usage on marketing its products, Skintific, especially in Brand
Marketing work unit, implements some efforts, both internally and externally (see Fig.
1). This work unit advertise in several advertising media, including digital outdoor ad-
vertising on strategic places, and work in partnership with other parties. These other
parties could be beauty influencer, Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), affiliates, and live
streamer.

For example, Skintific has partnered with Tasya Farasya, Abel Cantika, and Nanda
Arsyinta (see Fig. 2) as Beauty Influencers for Skintific products. Many consumers
interested to purchase Skintific products after watching their posted contents. Other
celebrities and influencers who have tried and given positive reviews on Skintific prod-
ucts are Nagita Slavina, Suhay Salim, Molita Lin, and Vinna Gracia. Moreover, dr.
Mario Johan had become a KOLs for Skintific since he is a doctor as well as an active
health influencer (see Fig. 3).

Collaboration with
influencers, KOLs,
affiliates, and live streamers

Advertising on strategic
External Efforts
places

Participating in beauty
events
Skintific Marketing Action
Giving big promos and
giveaway on special events

Boosting videos from

Internal Efforts influencers, KOLs, and
affiliates

For affiliates: building

community group,
providing monthly rewards

Fig. 1. Skintific Marketing Actions

Source: (45)
 Uncover the Marketing Strategy of Skintific in Indonesia 389

Fig. 2. Collaboration video between Skintific and Beauty Influencers

Source: Skintific TikTok Account @skintific_id

Fig. 3. Collaboration video between Skintific and KOLs

Source: dr. Mario Johan TikTok Account @dr.mariojohan

Furthermore, Skintific also open invitations for collaborations with many Affiliates and
Live Streamers, especially in TikTok. In affiliate programs, Skintific through TikTok
Affiliate Specialist will search for TikTok accounts that are potential to collaborate with
as an affiliate, along with database from agencies or company’s database. After being
approved for collaboration at least for a month, Skintific will send some products to
these Affiliates. Affiliates then have to create some video contents containing product
reviews. He/she then needs to posted the videos on their TikTok accounts, along with
the link to Yellow Cart on TikTok. Fig. 4 is an example of affiliate’s video containing
390 R. F. Hudiyono and S. Ismail

cushion product. However, it is informed that not all affiliates can comply with all re-
quirements on the collaborations, such as produce less videos than negotiated earlier,
produce low quality videos, and so on.

For Live Streamers, they have to make product reviews through Live Streaming feature
on their TikTok accounts. Live Streamers are given flexibility regarding the time (both
when and how long) to present live-streaming show. In their shows, Live Streamers
also have to provide the link to direct purchase on TikTok. Thus, consumers can also
make product purchases directly while watching the show.

From affiliates and live streamers programs, Skintific can sell many products more
quickly through their links. Consumers have the convenience of buying the promoted
products without having to switch to another applications. For every product sold from
the inserted links, affiliates and live-streamers will get commissions.

As internal efforts, Skintific often gives big promos according to the appropriate events
or situations. These events such as promos during Ramadhan and Eid al-Fitr, Christmas
Day, and other special days, along with twin date promos dan payday promos every
month. In addition, Skintific also organize giveaway programs on selected events, like
in celebrating 500k followers, new product giveaway, and many more (see Fig. 5).
These promos support the increase in overall product sales.

Fig. 4. Collaboration Video Between Skintific and TikTok Affiliate

Source: TikTok Account @ani.happynezz
 Uncover the Marketing Strategy of Skintific in Indonesia 391

Fig. 5. Promo Examples from Skintific

Source: Instagram Skintific Official Account @skintificid

In addition, in TikTok, Brand Marketing unit usually boosts videos uploaded by their
Influencers, KOLs, and Affiliates. Skintific can boost their videos through TikTok Ads
Manager after the influencers have agreed to share video code. These boosted videos
then will enter wider potential consumers’ For You Page (FYP). Therefore, from this
effort, consumers intentions to purchase can be expanded.

Moreover, for Affiliates, Skintific’s Brand Marketing unit also make “Skintific Barrier
Community” on WhatsApp platform. Through this WhatsApp group, Brand Marketing
unit can spread information about promo price and other information. Affiliates can
also share insights and tips with each other or provide support by providing video links
to each other to add likes and comments to the affiliates' videos. Then, as an apprecia-
tion and encouragement, Skintific also provides a monthly rewards program for 5 Win-
ner with Highest Revenue with different prizes (see Fig. 6). These programs are orga-
nized to increase affiliates’ motivations in producing videos and promoting Skintific
product in their Yellow Cart.
392 R. F. Hudiyono and S. Ismail

Besides social media, Skintific tries to enhance its sales by utilizing marketplace plat-
forms and joining beauty events. Skintific utilizes marketplace platforms, such as Sho-
pee and Tokopedia, and become one of Official Store in these marketplaces. Skintific
also often participates in beauty events, such as JakartaXBeauty, YogjakartaXBeauty,
MedanXBeauty, Sociolla Beauty Wonderland, and the like. At these events, Skintific
usually provides many flash sale promos which are in great demand by consumers. Fig.
7 displays Skintific booth at YogyakartaXBeauty 2023 event.

Fig. 6. Monthly Reward Program for Affiliates

Source: (45)

Fig. 7. Skintific Booth on YogyakartaXBeauty 2023

Source: Instagram XBeauty by Female Daily Network @officialfdxbeauty

4.2 Skintific’s Revenue from TikTok

After describing Skintific strategies in enhancing its sales, we then providing sales ef-
fect from those strategies, especially from TikTok.
 Uncover the Marketing Strategy of Skintific in Indonesia 393

In TikTok, Skintific has @skintific_id as Skintific primary official account, supported

by other official accounts such as @skintific_official, @skintific_indonesia, @skin-
tific.indo, @skintific.official.store, @skintific_official_store, and @skintific_offi-
cial_shop. In each official account, Skintific posts some videos and do live streaming.
With continuous promos during live streaming on TikTok, Skintific posted fantastic
monthly sales. In 2023, from January to June, Skintific is able to record at least IDR
100 billion monthly sales only from the TikTok Shop. Special moments such as Ram-
adan and Eid al-Fitr have further boosted Skintific's revenue up to IDR 130 billion per
month (45).

Cited from kalodata.com, a data analysis platform specialized in TikTok, Skintific

ranks in the top 3 store in skincare category that recorded the highest sales through
TikTok. Fig. 8 presents the top 3 store with highest sales in TikTok on May and June
2023, respectively. This brand competes with other three local brands that also go viral
in 2022 and 2023, such as The Originote, Somethinc, and Dabe Beaute. However, Skin-
tific is consistent in gaining highest sales in these months. It shows that Skintific mar-
keting efforts, specifically in TikTok, have attracted consumers attention.

Fig. 9 displays that more than 70% Skintific sales in TikTok is gained from affiliates
and live-streamers, greater than sales from self-accounts and shopping mall. Besides,
we also identify that, in its self-accounts, Skintific earns more than 90% of its sales
from live streaming. This is reinforced by data from the Skintific Brand Marketing team
that several live-streamers could earned billions of rupiah up to IDR 5 billion in a
month. Likewise with affiliates, more than 5 affiliates have also generated income of
up to billions of rupiah in a month.

1st rank 2nd rank 3rd rank 1st rank

The Skintific Dabe Skintific
Originote Beaute

3rd rank 2nd rank

Somethinc The Originote

Fig. 8. Top 3 Store in Skincare Category on May and June 2023

Source: Kalodata.com (has been reprocessed)
394 R. F. Hudiyono and S. Ismail

Skintific's Revenue Proportion Skintific's Revenue Proportion

from TikTok (May 2023) from TikTok (June 2023)
Self- Self-
Shopping Shopping
Accounts Accounts
Mall Mall
27.64% 23.42%
0.08% 0.06%

Affiliates Affiliates
(& Live (& Live
Streamers) Streamers)
72.28% 76.51%

Fig. 9. Skintific’s Revenue Proportion from TikTok (May and June 2023)
Source: Kalodata.com (has been reprocessed)

4.3 Questionnaires Analysis

In order to strengthen our analysis, a simple online questionnaire is distributed ran-

domly. This questionnaire is filled out by 97 respondents domiciled in Jabodetabek. 4%
of our respondents is male, while the rest is female. In terms of age, 44.3% is aged
between 15-20 years old, 45.5% is 21-30 years, and the rest is 31-50 years.

From that questionnaire, it is found that all respondents have heard about Skintific
brand. 82% of them know Skintific from social media, whilst the rest know it from
friends and family. Then, 86.8% respondents agree that they often see Skintific ads
from social media, especially TikTok. In addition, 95.6% of respondents say that they
are interested in buying Skintific products after seeing product review videos made by
influencers on social media. This is in accordance with (23,28,44) that social media
plays an important role in increasing consumers intention on knowing products while
influencers help company in driving product sales.

Moreover, when respondents are given the choice between online stores or offline
stores in buying Skintific products, 86.8% of them say that they prefer online stores.
However, Shopee still dominates as a preferable platform for buying Skintific products
by 59.3% of respondents, while 36.3% of respondents buy the products through Tik-
Tok. Even so, as previously stated, sales through TikTok plays a major role in generat-
ing Skintific sales, for about at least IDR 100 billion per month, both from self-accounts
and from affiliates and influencers (45). This shows that TikTok is a social media com-
merce platform that is widely used by respondents, consistent with research results from
Populix (15).
 Uncover the Marketing Strategy of Skintific in Indonesia 395

Accordingly, that simple questionnaire reveals that social media plays an important role
in increasing brand recognition/brand awareness of respondents for Skintific. Further-
more, the marketing efforts carried out by Skintific through social media, especially
TikTok, are able to increase sales of Skintific products.

4.4 Analysis of Marketing Strategy of Skintific

Next questions are why Skintific chooses TikTok Shop as its main sales channel and
how effective marketing actions of Skintific based on previous researches. To answer
this, we accommodate any publications about TikTok Shop and elaborate some related
previous researches to Skintific marketing actions.

Since 2021, TikTok Shop is developed, widely used, and become desired channel to do
online shopping for Indonesia consumers. According to Statista (44), approximately
56% of respondents chosen that they use TikTok to buy products during the last 12
months, bigger than Instagram Shop and Facebook Shop. 54% of respondents also an-
swered will use TikTok Shop in the future to buy products or services. This is mostly
because sellers (individuals and brands) can use "Live Streaming" feature to demon-
strate and offer their selling products (46), where TikTok is chosen by 69% of respond-
ents as a platform to watch live streaming in Indonesia (44). This could be a good reason
why Skintific chooses TikTok as its main sales channel.

Next, let’s take a look back to Fig. 1 about Skintific marketing actions. In its external
efforts, Skintific arranges collaborations with some beauty influencers, KOLs, affili-
ates, and live-streamers. By collaborating with these parties, Skintific gains many ad-
vantages, such as spread information about products strengths and details, which could
increase consumers intention to buy (28,30,31,35,36).

Other efforts like advertising on strategic places, participating in beauty events, and
giving promos and giveaways will also help Skintific in widening consumers infor-
mation about its products. In accordance with Sohn and Kim (41), Statista (44), and
Yun et al. (36), these efforts will enhance consumers purchase intention of Skintific
products, especially from TikTok live-streaming show.

Unfortunately, due to our limitation, we still could not find scientific researches regard-
ing boosting videos on TikTok and program designed for affiliates. However, boosting
videos effort is supposed to be able to strengthen the brand image and brand trust, ex-
pand consumer retention and loyalty, along with initiate new lead generation and re-
purchase (47). Meanwhile, we believe that any program designed for affiliates, such as
community group and monthly rewards could enhance affiliates’ motivation to produce
higher quality videos. Thus, these two efforts are expected to enhance probability on
expanding consumers recognition and purchase intention of Skintific products.
396 R. F. Hudiyono and S. Ismail

5 Conclusions

In order to compete with other skincare brands, Skintific has to formulate effective
marketing strategies. One main strategy implemented by Skintific is by maximizing the
use of social media as a platform for selling and buying products, or also known as
social commerce. To achieve this, Skintific selects TikTok as its main social commerce,
from providing information about its products until selling them to consumers.

Skintific constructs some actions, both internal and external, to markets its products
and to enhance its sales. Skintific make collaborations with several beauty influencers,
KOLs, affiliates, and live streamers. From this collaborations, Skintific sales is boosted
to great amount, at least IDR 100 billion for each month in 2023, only from TikTok. At
leaset 72% of its sales is generated from affiliates and live-streamers. Skintific is also
ranked as top 3 brands in skincare category with highest selling in TikTok. These
achievements could be achieved also due to advertising strategy on different media and
boost videos of influencers or affiliates. Huge supports from Skintific to its affiliates,
both by providing group for affiliates and monthly rewards, is believed to enhance af-
filiates motivations to produce higher quality videos on advertising Skintific products.
Furthermore, Skintific also often provides promos on special events and participating
in beauty events. Therefore, consumers awareness and intentions to purchase its prod-
ucts can be improved.

Given the literature reviews and the current analysis on marketing strategies of Skintific
in enhancing its revenues, it is imperative for Skintific, especially in Brand Marketing
unit, to select carefully other parties to collaborate with. Especially in acquiring affili-
ates, Skintific may continue to cooperate with current dedicated affiliates on fulfilling
all requirements from Brand Marketing unit consistently each month. Then, for new
affiliates, Skintific could ensure carefully that they will comply all related requirements
to be affiliates. In addition, Skintific should also collaborate with current dedicated live-
streamers and potential live-streamers who have interesting appearance and perfor-
mance when doing live-streaming shows. However, other brands could implement
Skintific strategies on maximizing social commerce to catch up their revenues.

While the current research provides insights regarding marketing strategies of Skintific
in enhancing its revenues, it has some limitations. Questionnaire distributed in this re-
search needs improvement. Conducted analysis is still limited to simple yet descriptive
analysis. Therefore, future research could be developed with several ways. Researchers
could explore more about company’s strategies on boosting its revenues. Then, a more
in-depth questionnaire regarding collaborations in social commerce to consumers in-
tentions to purchase Skintific products could be distributed to broadened respondents.
Analysis could be broadened with either qualitative or quantitative methods. Last, re-
searcher could also make predictions about how competition in social commerce will
occur.
 Uncover the Marketing Strategy of Skintific in Indonesia 397

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