Every reporter: Zhang Xiaoyin Every editor: Wen Duo
The domestic cosmetics retail industry is gradually recovering.
According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to July this year, the total retail sales of consumer goods nationwide decreased by 9.9% year-on-year, but the retail value of cosmetics products gradually recovered, with a cumulative year-on-year increase of 1%. In the previous quarter, the retail value of domestic cosmetics products once fell by more than 13%.
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From the sharp decline to the gradual recovery, many beauty brands are trying to adapt to the special consumption environment: the head international brands have increased their promotion on the e-commerce platform, and the live broadcast room has become a "heavy place" for the marketing of major brands.
However, for the new Xiaomei makeup brand, the low-price strategy is obviously unsustainable. From the current fiery live broadcast industry, there are "sales myths" and "tragic rollover". Behind the rapid increase in sales, there are also hidden concerns about high return rate. How can beauty brands play the live broadcast card well?
Under the epidemic situation, one of the measures taken by many beauty brands to boost sales is to exchange price for quantity. Even for international brands with stable pricing, "promotion" has become something that has to be done now.
Jian Weiqing, president of Taomei Beauty Business Association, described this year’s beauty industry as "the Warring States Period". "The market competition is too fierce. We made an analysis during the’ 618′ period and found that the promotion efforts of mainstream brands this year can be said to be’ unprecedented’, especially the cross-border big brands. The shipment prices have plummeted this year, and many brands have dropped by 20% to 30% compared with previous years."
Zhongtai Securities related research report pointed out that during the "618" period this year, platform and brand discounts increased. On the platform side, the discount and duration of Tmall’s "6.1 Activity" were expanded and extended respectively. In terms of brands, the pre-sale prices of major items of international brands with stable pricing in "618" are close to last year’s "Double Eleven". According to the data of the research report, from the data of the "6.1 Activity", the sales of Tmall beauty products broke through 100 million yuan in one minute and 500 million yuan in 22 minutes that night. One hour after the opening, the sales of L ‘Oreal, Estee Lauder, Lancome and OLAY exceeded 100 million yuan. Two hours later, the sales of 61 beauty brands such as Estee Lauder, SKII and HR exceeded the whole day of last year.
Under the epidemic situation, the online transaction volume of international brands has increased significantly. In this regard, Tu Xian, the head of Taobao’s global purchase brand and supply chain, has the same feeling: "Under the epidemic, the growth rate of global purchase is very fast, reaching 30% to 40%, of which the fastest growth rate is the bonded mode, while the direct mail mode shows a downward trend. Because of the restrictions on leaving the country this year, our buyers can no longer run overseas, so our overseas direct mail business has dropped by about 13% compared with last year."
The figure further indicates: "From the perspective of the entire Haitao market, the growth rate of Haitao people is very fast this year. We predict that the number of people who pay attention to Haitao goods will reach 235 million this year. In the entire Taobao ecosystem, nearly one-third of the 800 million monthly users focus on overseas brands."
The figure also mentioned that affected by the epidemic, Taobao Haitao beauty market has undergone three changes: first, the consumption classification brought by segmentation, local care such as head and eyes have become the habitual demand after the epidemic, and the sales of nose paste, eyelash growth liquid, mask, hair dye cream and eye essence have increased significantly; Second, the beauty users are younger, and the generation after 00 and generation Z are the fastest growing groups of beauty consumption, with a per capita expenditure of 1713 yuan/year, far exceeding the traditional quality population after 80; Third, product ingredients exceed brand awareness and other factors, which has become the first choice for consumers to consider new products. More than 50% Haitao users will pay attention to the main functional ingredients of products when purchasing cosmetics.
With Li Jiaqi and other head anchors creating sales "myths", many company executives also walked into the live broadcast room to bring goods. Under the superimposed epidemic, physical sales suffered setbacks, and "live broadcast" became the key word of online sales of major brands, especially in the online beauty industry, where the original sales relied heavily.
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Image source: vision china
In the past six months, many cosmetics brands have tried to seek new sources of growth. However, under the hot live broadcast, the repeated rollover of brand live broadcasts and the frequent price break of big-name cosmetics have also brought thoughts to enterprises: How long can the price war in the live broadcast room last? How do new and small brands get a slice of the pie from big names?
According to Zhang Mofan, the anchor of Red Man and the founder of Meimo Emore brand, many brands entering the live broadcast room hope to get short-term sales promotion through live broadcast, but ignore the high return rate behind the promotion. "In fact, we pay great attention to the long tail effect and commodity return rate in live broadcast. I think these can represent your brand. The ultimate goal of live broadcast should be to let consumers buy because of the brand, not because they are discounted today. However, during the live broadcast, I found that many brands are particularly anxious, and they will ignore consumer cognition and brand tonality, and only remember the transformation and promotion. Therefore, we will see many brands overturned in the live broadcast, because he did not lay the foundation of the brand itself, and immediately promoted it, relying on impulse consumption of consumers to temporarily increase sales, and finally the return rate was very high. "
In fact, although the low-price strategy of live broadcast can break through the sales bottleneck through the "hawking" of the red anchor on the one hand, on the other hand, many brands are beginning to worry that the low-price promotion used in the live broadcast room will have an impact on their own brand image.
Jian Weiqing, president of the Taomei Beauty Business Association, said: "Since this year, due to changes in brand ecology and the international consumer market, there have been many cases of brand price breaks in the industry, which actually has a great impact on small and medium-sized brands and retailers, because small and medium-sized brands are more dependent on the channels of small and medium-sized retailers. However, as small and medium-sized retailers, they don’t have the traffic of big brands, and the traffic of big brands is in the hands of mainstream platforms, super big anchors and absolute head-on operating companies. Therefore, if big brands go down to seize market share, small and medium-sized brands will be under great pressure. "
With the price reduction of big brands, where is the way out for the new Xiaomei makeup brand?
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Image source: photo network
Jian Weiqing believes that it is not wise to spell the price for the new Xiaomei makeup brand. "Personally, I think it is necessary to stick to the price strategy, which is the lifeline of a brand. New and small brands must pay attention to it. If some big brands dive in price, it is only a short-term strategy. The price of big brands will dive in a short period of time, the brand will be wiped clean, and new clothes will be replaced. You can still go ashore, but if new and small brands follow suit, the C-end will label the brand as low-priced, so it is difficult to go back." Jian Weiqing said.
According to Huang Yong, the founding partner of Baojiehui Innovation Consumer Fund, if domestic beauty brands want to be unicorns, they need to aim at subdivided tracks. "From the past experience, in the field of beauty care, great companies, such as Durex and Weiting, are easy to appear on the subdivided track. Although the category is not big, if the brand becomes the champion on the subdivided track, the market is very big. From the current beauty care industry, I think the product combination of high-priced instruments and consumables such as beauty instruments and essence is the easiest to go abroad. " Huang Yong said.
In addition, Huang Yong said in an interview with national business daily that although beauty brands were affected in retail during the epidemic, from the perspective of the capital market, the popularity of investing in beauty brands remained unabated. "In the past, we saw domestic beauty brands with perfect diaries, flowers and other heads. In fact, this is just the beginning. From the overall trend, China’s beauty industry has been developing at a high speed, and the research and development and production capacity of domestic beauty brands have been improved, and now we can make good products. We predict that in the future, we will have cutting-edge domestic brands in various segments. At the same time, we believe that in the next ten or even twenty years, China’s Procter & Gamble, Unilever and L ‘Oreal will appear. " Huang Yong said.
Cui Jing, vice chairman of Cosme Beauty Group, expressed his optimism about domestic beauty products. He told national business daily that Cosme Beauty has launched a minimum order quantity of 500 as a beauty OEM. "According to our experience, in fact, local beauty companies in China often do better in localization than international brands. We hope to provide support to local beauty companies in China and reduce their trial and error costs by reducing the minimum order volume." Cui Jing said.
national business daily