Introduction:HARMAY, a high-end Chinese beauty retail chain, is making another cross-industry move by opening a nearly 700-square-meter, four-story flagship store on Wukang Road in Shanghai. The first floor features a coffee kiosk, while its original flagship store on Anfu Road has been transformed into the national flagship of its handmade lemon tea brand, introlemons. This article delves into the strategy behind HARMAY’s latest expansion, including product offerings and brand development, to uncover the business rationale and market challenges underlying this cross-sector endeavor.
As a leading high-end beauty retailer in China, HARMAY continues to explore diverse brand development opportunities through cross-industry ventures. Recently, the brand grandly launched a new four-story flagship store spanning 700 square meters on Shanghai’s Wukang Road, marking yet another attempt at integrating retail with beverages.
The new flagship store is just a street away from HARMAY’s first outlet, which opened in 2017 on Shanghai’s Anfu Road, reflecting a deliberate branding strategy to maintain strong locational continuity. The new building consists of four floors, with both its exterior and interior spaces featuring abundant use of Shanghai’s signature red brick elements, paired with exposed concrete walls, creating a strong industrial aesthetic that enhances brand recognition and immersive spatial experience.
The highlight of the flagship store is the specially designed open public area on the first floor, where an exclusive “coffee kiosk” is set up at the entrance, operated under the brand name “Marienbad.” This coffee kiosk offers a variety of light beverages, including two featured coffees: black coffee (Long Black) and milk coffee (Latte), each priced at 28 RMB. Other options include chocolate drinks, two types of draft beer—stout and wheat beer—as well as still and sparkling mineral water from the Antipodes brand, all also priced at 28 RMB (the mineral water is 45 RMB per bottle). Hot dogs are also available as snacks.
It’s worth noting that Marienbad currently only has outlets at the Wukang Road HARMAY flagship store and in Xintiandi, with no plans for large-scale expansion yet. However, it’s understood that HARMAY previously evaluated acquiring or investing in a coffee brand, and it does not rule out developing Marienbad into its own chain of coffee shops in the future to further expand its beverage market presence.
In tandem with the launch of the new flagship store, HARMAY’s original first outlet on Anfu Road in Shanghai has ceased operations. Opened in 2017, that approximately 250-square-meter space was the brand’s first offline warehouse-style store and once served as an important showcase. Instead of leaving this prime location vacant, HARMAY, led by co-founder Zhong Taipeng, plans to transform it into the national flagship store of its handmade lemon tea brand, introlemons.
HARMAY established introlemons as early as 2020, launching its first store in Beijing. According to plans, the former Anfu Road store will be upgraded to “introlemons Yuanliang Lemon,” serving as a key flagship image store for the brand in the Chinese market, expected to become a core hub for brand promotion and consumer experience.
Looking back at HARMAY’s brand evolution, it started as a Taobao shop in 2008, entered physical retail in 2017, and has since expanded to eight stores across first- and second-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong. Its main product lines include skincare, cosmetics, and fragrances. The brand also plans to enter emerging consumer markets such as Xi’an and Wuhan, continuing to grow its physical retail footprint.
HARMAY’s simultaneous venture into both the coffee and handmade lemon tea markets reflects a current trend in brand management—cross-industry collaboration. Whether in coffee or lemon tea, HARMAY is not starting from scratch but rather leveraging its existing resources or partner brands to reduce market entry risks and enhance the success rate of cross-sector moves.
However, while cross-industry operations can quickly attract market attention and boost brand visibility, whether they can truly translate into long-term customer loyalty and stable profitability remains to be seen. Especially today, while the “influencer effect” can rapidly drive traffic, brands that fail to establish a clear market positioning and unique value proposition will find it difficult to evolve from short-lived “viral hype” into enduring “long-term successful” brands.
Therefore, as HARMAY expands into new product categories, how effectively it integrates resources, precisely targets consumer segments, and continuously optimizes its product and service experience will be key to determining the success of its cross-industry strategy.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
