In the context of the overall recovery of the beauty industry, domestic brands blew the "charge number" in this year’s "618" promotion and took out extraordinary promotion efforts and resources.
The reason is not only that this "618" is the first real promotion activity in the post-epidemic era, but also that its results will be reflected in the semi-annual reports of major brand companies, which will directly test the business quality and have directive significance for the next market trend.
The industry bottomed out, and domestic beauty products were "ok" again.
"I feel that this year’s 618 merchants have given a discount on the reserve price, so I have re-stocked a lot of skin care products and tried new make-up products." After 95, interviewee Chen Yun told the interface fashion.
Judging from the comprehensive public information, although the cosmetics industry has not returned to the high-speed growth trend of previous years, it has taken the step of upward recovery.
According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to May, the total retail sales of cosmetics was 161.9 billion yuan, up 9.7% year-on-year, exceeding the growth rate of total social retail sales by 0.4 percentage points. Among them, the retail sales of cosmetics in May was 33 billion yuan, up 11.7% year-on-year.
On the one hand, this data performance is due to the low base in the same period last year, on the other hand, it benefits from the stimulus of tourism economy such as the May 1 holiday, and the 618 promotion of major e-commerce platforms began to build momentum and promote sales in the middle and late May.
According to the data from the special e-commerce Vipshop, the overall sales of beauty products increased by 11.5% year-on-year during the climax of the mid-sale festival in 618. Among them, beauty and skin care, cosmetics and perfumes, personal care and other categories all achieved double-digit growth; In terms of brands, the sales of international big brands and domestic brands increased by 11.4 and 11.1% respectively.
The cosmetics market has begun to step out of the "cold winter" gradually, and the change in the ranking of sub-categories also shows the new trend of the development of local cosmetics enterprises.
From the perfect diary of domestic beauty brands and the sudden emergence of Hua Xizi two years ago, many people in the beauty industry have seen the hope of the birth of the next L ‘Oreal in China.
The recurrence of the sudden COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 has lengthened the cycle of this vision, and many beauty brands have experienced a dark moment in 2022. However, judging from the ranking of beauty brands in this year’s 618, domestic cosmetics have a tendency to make a comeback.
Tmall official WeChat WeChat official account "Tmall Big Beauty" release list shows that on the first day of pre-sale payment from May 31 to June 1, in the top ten list of beauty industry turnover, Polaiya and Winona occupied the fourth and ninth place respectively. Among the top 20, there are rising stars such as Ke Fumei and amiro.
In the latest "618 Beauty Record List" released by Vipshop, domestic brands performed brilliantly, occupying 6 seats in the list, while Polaiya occupied the third place in the record list with a year-on-year increase in sales of more than 60%, and Winona, Marumi and Nature Hall ranked high.
The recognition of domestic brands by local consumers is closely related to the rising trend of the whole country in recent years. The prosperity of the country is the foundation, and the national self-confidence of local consumers is also rising.
Han Xiaoli, a post-90s interviewee, said that many domestic brands have done as well as international brands in terms of makeup quality and packaging design, and she is still trying and observing skin care products.
Since L ‘Oré al and other international beauty groups successively entered China around 2000, the beauty market in China has experienced more than 20 years of development. This is a short time compared with the development course of European and American cosmetic companies for hundreds of years, but the beauty market in China is crossing the time difference at a flying speed.
As a country with a large population, China’s beauty market has the opportunity of great national effect. No matter from the upstream supply chain to the terminal retail, the domestic cosmetics industry has large-scale development and innovation. One example is the rapid deployment of online e-commerce channels by major brands in China.
Moreover, with the improvement of local consumers’ awareness of beauty cosmetics, they are disenchanted with the aura of international brands and are increasingly pursuing differentiated and refined care. Minority brands and featured products still have the opportunity to fight for a world, which also provides rich soil for the growth of domestic brands.
The big single product strategy continues to be popular. How does "red-hot" become "Changhong"?
In the beauty industry, a brand often needs to rely on a single explosive product to achieve a breakthrough from 0 to 1, such as special care cream for Winona and anti-aging eye cream for Marubi.
The big single product strategy is the successful path verified by domestic beauty brands.
Take Polaiya as an example. As early as 2020, Polaiya put forward the "big single product strategy" in the financial report, and said that it was necessary to "create a star single product with brand mind and representativeness, thereby increasing the customer unit price and repurchase rate and enhancing brand stickiness". The ruby essence and double-antibody essence mentioned in it have become the most outstanding items of Polaiya at present.
Especially after the epidemic, many mass consumers turn to more rational consumption, and will comprehensively compare product information and evaluation from various channels. For brands, in the "618" with bundled promotion and fierce competition, marketing is of course important, but what is more important is product strength in order to win consumers’ attention and make them place an order for purchase.
According to the list of "one move fresh" single products released by Vipshop, in the sales performance of 618 functional single products, the top five products are Polaiya Ruby Day Cream, Winona Shuhu Xiumin Moisturizing Mask, Huanhuan Plant-by-Book Water Cleansing Oil, Huaxizi Xiaoyan Umbrella Sunscreen and HBN Early C Late A Anti-aging Water Emulsion Set, all of which are from domestic brands.
It is worth noting that under the situation of increasing awareness of domestic beauty consumption, some unique skin care formula concepts such as "early C late A" and "early P late R" have strengthened the synergistic effect of domestic brand product portfolio. For example, Polaiya double-antibody essence and ruby essence, HBN luminous water and double-A essence milk, and the combination of Yuze macromolecule golden shield sunscreen and Yuze essence milk.
In terms of marketing, in addition to catching up with the popular skin care concepts and making consumers know about the efficacy of "big items" and their combinations, domestic brands are still trying to continuously strengthen the traffic exposure of star products in many aspects and strive to make them become Changhong’s classic products.
Winona, for example, combined with the theme of Disney’s centenary, launched a Disney limited gift box including star products such as Shumin Water, Special Care Essence and Special Care Cream during Children’s Day on June 1st. At the same time, a number of online media platforms launched Qiyu Story TVC, which built an "amusement park-style" professional skin care experience pop-up shop around the characteristics of professional skin care brands and Disney’s children’s fun entertainment IP.
The creative measures of local beauty brands in sales mode and marketing mode are pushing the beauty industry to develop in a more professional, creative and diversified direction.
Research and development is to domestic beauty, as the city wall is to Rome.
The strategy of large single products should continue to shine, which is inseparable from the support of research and development.
In recent years, local listed cosmetics companies such as Polaiya, Shuiyang, Marubi and Betani have all invested in production R&D bases and other heavy assets projects after raising funds. For some brands that get goods from foundries and start with online marketing, in-depth cooperation with foundries has also become a path for overtaking in corners.
A cosmetics researcher told Interface Fashion that when the epidemic situation in the past three years led to poor transportation and logistics, the problem of "sticking the neck" of the main raw materials relying on overseas markets became more prominent. Typical basic raw materials such as surfactants were monopolized by a few foreign manufacturers, and the domestic quantity efficiency was not high, which brought many brands chain problems such as delayed listing of new products and increased development costs.
But this does not mean that domestic beauty will always fall behind. On the contrary, the industry has ushered in a new R&D window. Take ergothionine, a popular ingredient in skin care products market, for example. After domestic manufacturers use biosynthesis technology to increase the output of ergothionine, its cost and price have directly dropped by more than one time.
The technical realizability and broad application market prospect of these functional active ingredients undoubtedly bring new opportunities to local brands. Peptide compounds such as oriental plant components, peptides and oligopeptides are all hot research directions in the domestic cosmetic market at present.
However, at present, there are not many domestic beauty products featuring oriental plant ingredients that can rank in the forefront of the sales list, and their sound volume has not been fully opened. It can be said that at present, domestic brands have not yet run out of the real oriental plant big single product, which can be compared with the situation that the mushroom water from Yuemu once exploded.
This is also the space for the development of oriental plant components. Under the propaganda advantage of oriental plants with natural cultural and emotional attributes, how domestic brands can strengthen their efficacy credibility will become a breakthrough, which is embodied in studying the extraction and formula performance of their active ingredients, and scientifically verifying their mechanism and safety.
In addition to oriental plant ingredients, domestic beauty products are also trying to explore opportunities in many sub-sectors and open up a new blue ocean of growth for themselves, such as sun protection.
Chinese brand Baiqueling told interface fashion that their research found that Asian skin and western skin have different skin characteristics caused by ultraviolet and blue light and near infrared radiation. Based on thousands of skin samples and data comparison, Baiqueling developed and marketed a sun protection sunscreen lotion, which is designed to effectively resist light damage for oriental women.
The breakthrough of sunscreen category proves that domestic beauty cosmetics have perfect research and development capabilities, but their greater ambition lies in improving competitiveness and brand power and entering high-end fields.
It is a shortcut to buy more mature brands in the market. For example, Perfect Diary’s parent company, Yixian E-commerce, acquired international brands such as Galenic France Colanli, EVE LOM and DR.WU, many of which were priced at 1,000 yuan. The skin care sector composed of these newly added brands has become an indispensable revenue pillar of Yixian e-commerce.
Many local beauty companies are also trying to cut into the high-end market from anti-aging products, such as Bettini’s new brand "AOXMED". The in-station data of Vipshop also shows that the sales volume of functional products with anti-aging and firming effect has the best growth, with an increase of nearly 30% during the "618" period. This is because the strong efficacy of high-end anti-aging products often contributes to a high repurchase rate and a stronger user stickiness.
However, it should be noted that the cultivation cycle of high-end brands and products is very long, and a lot of market education is needed to obtain loyal consumers.
After three years of market downturn, this "618" is more like a new starting point for domestic beauty brands. From R&D to marketing, domestic beauty cosmetics still have a long way to go to become China’s L ‘Oreal, Shiseido or Amore Pacific, but there is no doubt that they are still making progress.
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