In China, the age of makeup turned out to be younger.
The "White Paper on the Purchasing Habits and Demands of Chinese Beauty Consumers" shows that young female consumers aged 15-24 spend an average of 1,713 yuan on beauty products, and the number of purchases is about 7 types, which have exceeded other age groups. Group of women.
Image source:"White Paper on insights into Chinese Beauty Consumers' Buying Habits and Demands"
Under the new economic trend of beauty, beauty has become a carrier of young people's personality and self-identification, which has promoted the cosmetics industry to enter a new stage of development, and China's beauty integrated store model has also ushered in a new round of wind:
On January 4, 2020, WOW COLOUR's world's first store opened in Guangzhou, with sales of over 210,000 yuan and 15,000 shop visits on that day; on January 5, its parent company received strategic financing of 1 billion yuan from Saiman Fund.
HARMONY Huamei, which started from a Taobao store, moved offline in 2017 and quickly expanded to Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong. The A round of financing was completed at the end of 2019, and Hillhouse Capital led the investment.
THE COLORIST, born in 2019, has now settled in more than 20 cities and opened more than 200 stores; the KK Group behind it completed a 1 billion E round of financing in August, led by CMC Capital.
While emerging beauty integrated stores are rapidly deploying offline, some established beauty integrated stores are in trouble:
Watson's financial report shows that the total income of the Chinese market in the first half of 2020 is 8.805 billion Hong Kong dollars, a 30% decrease and a 62% decrease from the same period last year;
Hong Kong beauty retail group SaSa, as of March 2020, its turnover fell by 29.9% to HK$5717.3 million.
"I can't afford Sephora. Watsons and Mannings have too few brands. THE COLOURS can not only buy the makeup I want, but they can also take pictures and post on Weibo( A Chinese social platform similar to Facebook). I think it's suitable for college students like me. "
Wang Xiao, a college student who just finished visiting THE COLOURS, said to me.
Compared with traditional beauty integrated stores, how does the new generation of integrated beauty stores gain consumers' favour?
Wang Xiao's "photograph and punch card" may give us some answers.
01 Create beauty value space, create beauty value economy
Compared with Sephora's traditional simple black and Watson's unchanging turquoise green, from the end of 2019, a series of local Chinese beauty integrated stores have made their debut with creative decorations such as metallic style, silver powder series, and trendy cool fan.
WOW COLOR draws inspiration from the girl’s blush and creates a "brand glowing wall" with the gradual dying of red and pink ripples. THE COLORIST mainly uses warm colours such as pink, yellow, and orange. The dimension of matching puts lipstick, makeup egg, eye shadow and other large areas according to the wall.
These pink walls, orange decorations, and silver packaging make the products sold highly emotional, realize the unity of "people's hearts-colours-commodities", and convey the idea of "high-value" beauty makeup to consumers.
And HAYMAY Huamei pursues a post-modern industrial style, with "black, white, and grey" as the main colour, breaking the rigid link of "beauty-pink-female", so that men will not be embarrassed when they enter beauty shops and bring consumers The coverage of groups is further broadened, creating possibilities for potential buyers from different groups.
Compared with marketing in words and languages, the key to "colour marketing" lies in "de-verbalization", especially in the beauty industry linked to "face value", the "non-verbal" communication method is more direct and effective.
In addition to creating good looks, the major beauty integrated stores are also very careful in terms of product arrangement and layout.
WOW COLOUR has set up a TOP20 popular area and a hot product area in its store, mainly based on big data to update the monthly popular items. This arrangement is matched with the low unit price so that many young consumers have the courage to try new products.
On HARMONY Huamei’s shelves, beauty products are arranged not by brand but by category. The high-priced products of the top brands are divided into low-price samples, and the high-priced products are pulled down from the "sacred altar" to make consumers feel that they are big names. At your fingertips.
The high-value physical store caters to the aesthetic needs of young consumers, and the aesthetic "leaps" brought about by consumption upgrades-as the functionality of the products gradually converges, the visual impact brought by the appearance design can be more triggered Consumer explosion point.
02 Because of the "premium" in appearance,'
Unlike Sephora and Juchen, these emerging beauty integrated stores are targeting the young "post-95" groups.
And Generation Z, who has been in contact with various online social platforms almost since the beginning of their sensibility, has its consumption tendency and consumption behaviour closely connected with the Internet.
When buying products, Gen Z likes to look for product reviews and experiences on social platforms or other networks to obtain enough product information and product features.
In other words, the assessments and pictures on social networks are their first impression of a certain brand. And the formula of "good looks = love at first sight" is fulfilled here.
More importantly, the online social demand brought by social media provides the possibility for offline scene consumption. Social demand makes people not only care about what they buy and where they have been, but also how to "show" their consumption:
"How to take creative beautiful photos in THE COLOUR"
"Unlock the new posture of WOW COLOR to take pictures"
"A beauty shop that can't finish shopping in three hours"
"This beauty shop doesn't grab money, but it's so cute!"
"......"
On the "LittleRed Book" APP( A social sharing platform for beauty and wear in China）, the discussion on the "check-in and take pictures" of the emerging beauty integrated store even overwhelmed the popularity of its products.
On "station B"(The most popular social networking site among Young Chinese), there are videos about WOW COLOUR's new product unpacking and shop exploring, and the average playback volume is about 40,000.
the picture comes from "Station B"
This kind of "show" allows consumers to buy not only the use-value of the product itself but also the symbolic value it symbolizes-this symbolic value further demonstrates their strength and beauty.
The identities of the post-95 group who are keen on taking pictures and punching cards and the main group of beauty consumption have achieved a high degree of overlap. The high-value physical stores provide consumers with "show" capital, which naturally allows consumers to pay willingly.
03 The appearance of offline stores, the starting point of online traffic
On September 16, 2020, WOW COLOUR CEO Chen Chunyan shared at the brand upgrade conference: “The former wavers who left the market sadly did not find this meaning for offline, but the emerging brand found it. This is also the root of the different destinies of the two sides. Where."
For beauty collection stores represented by WOW COLOUR, offline is not just the physicalization of online stores, it occupies a pivotal position in the entire brand's retail system and promotion.
Offline physical stores are not only an opportunity for brands to reach consumers up close, but are also directly related to the activity of online traffic pools such as Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and WeChat.
On the basis of high-value stores, emerging local beauty integrated stores use WeChat, Xiaohongshu, Weibo and other channels to deploy, combined with social media communication, to maximize the potential of the store’s "high-value" use.
THE COLORIST launched the official version of THE COLORIST store blockbuster photo guide" on various social platforms, and there were prizes to collect the check-in desk of THE COLORIST store. #THE COLORIST girl# has read 46.343 million topics.
Social media posts
HARMONY Huamei initiated the #找话梅少年（Looking for prune youth）# event to encourage Gen Z to share creative fashion pictures and invite them to take photos in Huamei’s offline physical store. There are currently 167,000 discussions on this topic.
Photo credit: the hashtag # Lookedplum Boy
HARMAY further combines the form of "punch-in" with celebrity effect, presenting a brand-new "discovery shop" advertisement.beginning in April 2020, HARMAY and "Made Now" have cooperated to launch a series of artiste's shop-visiting videos, with a cumulative view of 20,000+; in September, R1SE He Luoluo and Liu Ye will be invited to shop in Chengdu, with nearly 800,000 views. Reposted 2656 times and liked 24,000.
Picture from Weibo
A particularly beautiful and re-experienced offline scene is the basis for the enthusiasm for online participation, and active online participation can in turn attract traffic to offline physical stores.
According to incomplete statistics, in the video of “Kunyin Gemini × Huamei”, one-third of the netizens in the barrage indicated that they would go to the physical store to check-in and purchase, and nearly half expected that Huamei would be there. Open an offline physical store in your own location.
Picture from Weibo
The particularly beautiful scenes were matched with activities that encouraged taking photos and punching cards, which stimulated a large number of self-exposure and social performance behaviours on social media and quietly realized word-of-mouth communication.
One by one, punch-in photos and vlogs with brand characteristics are transmitted along the free interpersonal network-every person who comes to the store to take photos becomes a free "brand spokesperson" without knowing it.
Offline provides scenes for taking photos and punching cards, online activities participate in offline activities, offline use as a bargaining chip to obtain better quality shops and more gorgeous scenes, and the closed-loop of commercial organic circulation traffic is formed.
04 The future is a stage for online and offline coexistence
During the epidemic, the boom in e-commerce live broadcasts has led a large number of beauty brands to focus on the development of online channels; today, consumers can already buy almost all products on the Internet.
We can't help thinking: "In the post-epidemic era, is there still a need to survive offline physical stores?"
But as explained in the book "Building a Consumer Paradise":
"Compared to a single item of sale, the significance of the existence of supermarket counters lies in viewing, touching and experiencing a variety of products. This move makes shopping a kind of leisure."
While WOW COLOUR, HARMAY and other emerging beauty integration stores vigorously promote photo clocks, it is interesting that not long ago, a blogger on Xiaohongshu still complained about Sephora’s “no photos” rule in a shared video.
Compared with the past chain brands, today's beauty collection stores are carrying more and more functions independent of the consumption link.
For consumers, they want to come here not purely to buy their favourite products but to experience the fantastic marketing scene, comfortable buying experience, diverse community activities and so on.
In the future, offline will not die out but will coexist with online with more unique and precise positioning.
