Today (8 month 19 day), Proya Co., Ltd. officially announced that its main brand Proya has reached a comprehensive partnership with the American professional beauty retailer Ulta Beauty, planning to enter 11 core stores of Ulta Beauty in the United States and the online platform Ulta.com in 400 month of this year, with the first batch of core products from the Ruby and Source Power series.
This is Proya's first large-scale entry into the mainstream offline retail channel in the United States. YAN BEAUTY REVIEW learned from Proya that the first batch of products entering Ulta Beauty includes a total of 16 SKUs from the Ruby and Source Power series, which will be displayed in the "Global Premium Skincare Zone" of Ulta stores. Proya also told YAN BEAUTY REVIEW that this is an "invited entry," meaning that its brand power, product strength, and R&D capabilities have been highly recognized by global mainstream beauty retail channels.
Against the backdrop of slowing domestic market growth and Chinese beauty brands collectively going overseas, is Proya's move into Ulta Beauty a strategic test or a long-term campaign? Can Chinese beauty's overseas expansion take a different path from Korean beauty? This article attempts to analyze the significance, logic, and suspense behind this cooperation.
What does Proya's entry into 400 core stores of Ulta Beauty mean for a Chinese skincare brand that has never appeared on a large scale in the offline retail channel in the United States?
● Channel scale
Ulta Beauty is the largest professional beauty retailer in the United States. Since opening its first store in 1990, Ulta has grown to more than 1500 stores in the United States, and as of 2026 month 6 day, 30, the total number of stores in the United States has reached 1539. Together with Sephora, it forms the duopoly of professional beauty retail in the United States.
▍Ulta Beauty offline store
Proya's first batch of 400 core stores accounts for about one quarter of Ulta's total stores, and the announcement clearly states that core stores are selected, meaning these stores are representative in terms of foot traffic, location, and sales of high-end skincare categories.
Ulta has approximately 4460 to 4700 active members, covering nearly one-third of female consumers in the United States. More importantly, these members contribute more than 95% of Ulta's total sales, making them a highly loyal and high-frequency repurchase consumer group. It can be said that Proya has directly accessed a stock market with built-in trust endorsement.
Entering 400 core stores and covering nearly 4700 highly sticky members, the essence of this deal is that Proya has exchanged a channel cooperation for the most valuable half of an entry ticket to the American beauty retail market.
● From product export to brand export
Proya clearly stated in its official announcement that this cooperation marks a new stage of its globalization development, moving from "product export" to "brand export."
The logic of product export is, "I have good products, sell them through cross-border e-commerce." The core goal is to sell goods, the user relationship is a one-time transaction, and the operational focus is on traffic placement and price advantage.
The logic of brand export is, "I want to establish brand awareness and user trust in the target market." The core goal is to build awareness, the user relationship pursues long-term repurchase and brand loyalty, and the operational focus needs to shift to localized teams, localized marketing, and continuous consumer education.
Proya has previously reached American consumers through online channels such as Amazon, which was a trial in the product export stage, verifying whether anyone would buy. Entering Ulta offline stores means it has switched to the logic of brand export, testing whether it is worth users buying continuously. From online to offline, from selling goods to building a brand, the channel has changed, the user relationship has changed, and the operational focus has also changed.
● Competitive landscape
Florasis first entered Ulta's online platform in 2025 month 10, becoming the first Chinese beauty brand to enter this channel. However, Florasis is a makeup brand and is currently only online. Flower Knows also entered Ulta online as a makeup brand at the end of 2025, with the first batch of over 60 SKUs.
Proya is the first Chinese brand to enter Ulta's core offline stores on a large scale as a skincare main brand. In the high-end skincare zone of Ulta, Proya's competitors are not Chinese peers, but international brands such as Estée Lauder, Lancôme, and Kiehl's. This means it will compete directly in the hinterland where international brands have been deeply cultivated for many years.
The analysis from three dimensions points to the same conclusion: Proya's entry into Ulta Beauty this time is a precise and decisive strategic move.
So why did Proya choose this time to bet on the United States? Why are the first products the Ruby and Source Power series? Behind these decisions lies Proya's complete overseas strategic logic.
Proya's layout for overseas markets was already clear in the "Double Ten Strategy": the goal is to rank among the top ten in the global cosmetics industry within ten years.
Proya's chairman Hou Juncheng once said bluntly: "Relying solely on our own brands cannot complete the 'Double Ten Strategy.' We need to use the power of capital for mergers and acquisitions, including acquiring foreign brands, and leveraging the talent and channel advantages of foreign brands to achieve the overseas expansion of the Proya brand." This statement reveals the core logic of Proya's overseas expansion: organic growth plus external mergers and acquisitions, driven by two wheels.
2026 is the year when this strategy is intensively realized.
In terms of market path, Proya has previously clarified a gradual overseas expansion approach of "first Southeast Asia, then Japan and South Korea, then Europe and America." In 2026 month 4, Proya reached a cooperation with Guardian in Malaysia, entering more than 200 local stores, further expanding offline coverage in Southeast Asia.
▍Proya's product display at Guardian in Malaysia
At the same time, the capital side is also accelerating. In 2025 month 9, Proya invested 4.28 hundred million yuan to strategically acquire a stake in Flower Knows, obtaining 38.45% equity; at the end of the same year, Flower Knows landed on Ulta Beauty's online platform, with the first batch of over 60 SKUs. In 2026 month 5, Proya spent another 3.51 hundred million yuan to acquire 12.55% equity of Flower Knows, increasing its cumulative shareholding to 51%, achieving controlling interest and consolidation.
Three months later, Proya's main brand officially announced its entry into 400 core stores of Ulta Beauty in the United States.
At this point, the Proya system has formed a more complementary layout in the American market: Flower Knows enters the online channel with makeup, reaching consumers with youthful, highly visual products; Proya's main brand enters large-scale offline stores with skincare, entering scenarios that emphasize experience and consumer education. One leans toward makeup, the other toward skincare; one enters online, the other goes deep offline.
From Malaysia's Guardian to the US's Ulta, from exporting its own brands to holding a stake in Florasis, Proya's overseas layout is gradually shifting from single-brand, single-market trials to simultaneous multi-brand, multi-region, multi-channel advancement.
However, Proya has multiple product lines, so why did it specifically choose the Ruby series and the Source Power series to lead the charge?
▍Proya brand Ruby series & Source Power series
The core reason lies in category fit. The keywords of the US skincare market are "efficacy" and "scientific." US consumers' demand for core benefits such as anti-aging and collagen replenishment continues to grow; at the same time, consumer search interest related to skin barrier and microbiome health is growing at a rate of 30% to 50% per year.
The Ruby series focuses on "scientific anti-wrinkle," with core ingredients of peptides and retinol, directly cutting into anti-aging, the largest category in the US skincare market; the Source Power series focuses on "basement membrane repair," equipped with type XVII recombinant collagen, responding to the high-growth demand track of barrier repair. The two series respectively lock onto the two most core demand directions in the US skincare market: anti-aging and repair.
Leading with the two cards of anti-aging and repair, Proya chose the most secure path: not trying to educate the market, but using language that US consumers already understand to respond to their existing needs.
Proya's entry into Ulta is not a story of a Chinese brand unilaterally knocking on the door of US channels. The other side is equally important: Ulta is also actively seeking a new growth narrative.
In the past few years, K-beauty has completed a round of category education in the US beauty market. In the first half of 2025, South Korea's cosmetics exports reached 55 hundred million US dollars, a year-on-year increase of nearly 15%, and South Korea has surpassed France to become the largest source country of cosmetics for the US.
▍Ulta Beauty's K-beauty section page
But as more and more retailers are competing for Korean brands, the differentiation dividend brought by K-beauty is also being diluted. For Ulta, introducing Chinese beauty in advance is, to some extent, seeking the next Asian beauty card for itself after K-beauty.
In other words, Proya's entry into Ulta is a two-way choice: Ulta needs new stories and differentiation, and Proya is currently one of the most suitable Chinese skincare brands to undertake this experiment.
But it is difficult for Chinese beauty to replicate the K-beauty path exactly. The rise of K-beauty in the US first had long-term cultural penetration such as the Korean Wave, Korean dramas, and skin management, then TikTok amplified product experiences, and finally mainstream channels like Ulta and Sephora followed. That is to say, K-beauty was not recognized by US consumers only after entering the shelves, but before entering mainstream shelves, a considerable number of consumers had already completed category awareness.
The starting point of Chinese beauty is different. Chinese beauty currently lacks global cultural output of the same magnitude, and also faces more complex geopolitical and quality perception barriers. US consumers' trust in Chinese skincare brands cannot be naturally established just by one shelf placement. The problem Chinese beauty needs to solve is not just letting consumers know that this brand comes from China, but making them believe that a Chinese skincare brand can also provide stable, effective, and repurchase-worthy efficacy skincare experiences.
This is also the core difference between Proya and Florasis and Huazhixiao, which previously entered Ulta. Florasis and Huazhixiao entered online platforms more as color cosmetics brands, and color cosmetics are naturally more suitable for visual seeding and impulse purchases; but Proya is entering the skincare category, and it is omni-channel online and offline. The decision chain for skincare is longer, and consumers place more importance on safety, efficacy, reputation, and continuous experience. What it wants to compete for is not temporary novelty, but long-term trust.
Therefore, Chinese beauty going overseas has its own path. The approach Proya chose is not culture first, but channel first, directly using product strength and channel cooperation to knock open the door of the mainstream market.
Ulta's proactive invitation to introduce domestic skincare brands is actually a signal: beyond K-beauty, US beauty retail channels are seeking new growth categories and sources of differentiation. Chinese beauty does not necessarily need to become the "next K-Beauty"; it only needs to become the "first Chinese beauty."