Sasa survived 40 years in Hong Kong and never cracked the mainland

莎莎国际 was founded in Hong Kong in 1978 and became the city's most recognisable cosmetics retailer, a destination for mainland tourists who flocked to its stores for discounted international brands. At its peak, Sasa operated dozens of stores across Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China, and Southeast Asia, riding the wave of Chinese outbound tourism and mainland consumers' appetite for imported beauty products.

By 2025, Sasa had closed all its mainland China stores and exited the market entirely. The retreat followed years of struggle in a market where the same factors that drove its Hong Kong success — discounted international brands, a broad selection of Asian and Western cosmetics, and tourist foot traffic — no longer worked.

The exit reflected how thoroughly China's beauty retail landscape had transformed. Domestic brands like Perfect Diary and Florasis owned the social-commerce channels where young Chinese women discovered new products. Cross-border ecommerce platforms like Tmall Global and Douyin imported beauty products directly to consumers at competitive prices. Sasa's model — a physical store selling imported cosmetics at a discount — had been rendered obsolete by the very trends it had once profited from.