Picture source @Visual China
text | The forefront of entrepreneurship, author | Hu Fangjie, editor | Danzong
"Basically, all cosmetics brands that can go overseas have already gone out. It can be predicted that from this year to next year, skin care and personal products will be The trend of skin care and fragrance brands going global." Guo Xiruo, founder and CEO of Mold Breaking Moko, a brand management company focusing on overseas cosmetics, told "Interface News·Entrepreneurship Frontier".
Moko's brand overseas business mainly focuses on Japan. It is the service provider for domestic cosmetics brands Huaxizi, Huazhizhi, and Colachi to go overseas to Japan. "At least 20 brands have approached me and said they will go overseas this year, and all the major domestic skin care brands that you can name are among them." Guo Xiruo said.
In December 2023, "Chinese beauty products are selling well in South Korea" became a hot search topic, and Chinese beauty brands went overseas, attracting more public attention. According to customs statistics, the total export value of China's beauty cosmetics and toiletries from January to September 2023 was 34.861 billion yuan, a cumulative year-on-year increase of 26.6%.
However, a reporter from "Interface News·Entrepreneurship Frontline" interviewed several people who live in South Korea and often travel to South Korea. Their feeling is that they have never seen or rarely seen Chinese cosmetics sold in South Korea. Their perception of Chinese cosmetics Also lower.
"South Korea itself is a big country in cosmetics. Local people have high trust in the country's cosmetics. It is very difficult for foreign brands to open the market in South Korea." One interviewee said.
Export data is certainly growing, but it is undeniable that Chinese beauty brands still have a long way to go if they want to gain more recognition and recognition in overseas markets.
So, what experiences and lessons have been accumulated in this wave of beauty brands going overseas? Where will China’s cosmetics overseas go next?
Behind the surge in export scale
Judging from customs data, the total value of China's beauty exports in the first nine months of 2023 increased by nearly 30% year-on-year. However, specifically, in countries such as Thailand, South Korea, and Japan, this increase is more obvious.
According to China Business News, in the first 11 months of 2023, China’s total exports of beauty products to South Korea (according to statistics on exports of beauty products or cosmetics and skin care products, the same below) increased from 258 million yuan in the same period in 2022 to 935 million yuan. During the same period, total exports to Thailand increased from 47.637 million yuan to 1.043 billion yuan.
According to statistics from the Japan Imported Cosmetics Association, in the first half of 2023, Japan's imports of cosmetics products from China increased by about 45% year-on-year to about 6.1 billion yen (about 300 million yuan).
In fact, the substantial growth in beauty exports is no accident. More and more Chinese beauty brands have put overseas arrangements on their agenda. The spark of beauty exports is expected to start a prairie fire.
“The export of domestic beauty products overseas is essentially inseparable from the pressure of growth. In the context of excessive involution of the domestic cosmetics market and the overall slowdown in industry growth, for most brands, going overseas is no longer a matter of choice, but a necessity. Answer the question." Qian Yiru, senior analyst at equalocean, told "Interface News·Entrepreneurship Frontier".
According to the observation of "Interface News·Entrepreneurship Frontier", the development of domestic e-commerce platforms and social platforms, as well as the overseas release of domestic film and television dramas, have become important contributors to the increase in the international influence of Chinese cosmetics.
"There was an accidental opportunity. In 2019, several Japanese beauty experts paid attention to Chinese makeup through Xiaohongshu, and then started making Chinese makeup imitations, which quickly attracted a lot of attention." Guo Xiruo express.
At that time, the traffic of "Chinese makeup" videos shared by Japanese beauty bloggers surged, and fashion magazines followed suit and gradually brought "Chinese makeup" into the public eye. 's "pursuit of whitening, prominent lipstick, mature beauty, and high-end makeup" has become the characteristics of Chinese makeup in the eyes of some Japanese consumers.
According to Guo Xiruo, in Japan, the so-called natural nude makeup has been popular in the past 20 years, but this trend is gradually unable to satisfy people in the age group from high school to 27 or 28 years old. Everyone prefers to be rebellious. , fresh and unique makeup, which coincides with the visually impactful makeup popular in China.
The popularity of "Chinese makeup" also provides an opportunity for Chinese cosmetics to be exported to Japan.
According to the relevant person in charge of Juyi Group (Juduo, Yeast Color Company), the brand power and product power of Chinese beauty brands have been significantly improved in recent years, with improvements in color, packaging design, product formula, etc. Innovation has also made Chinese beauty products more and more attractive.
"In an industry environment of involution, Chinese cosmetics brands are generally more exaggerated or personalized in packaging design. This also allows brands to have their own very unique labels and quickly attract attention when entering new markets." Guo Xiruo explain.
For example, Huaxizi , which focuses on Chinese style and national trend elements, and Hua Zhizhi, whose founder was a veteran cosplay player, have captured more overseas consumers with their distinctive features.
At present, cosmetics brands such as Huazhizhi, Perfect Diary, Huaxizi, and Juduo have already gone overseas and continue to expand their overseas layout.
(Picture / Cosmetics Observation)
However, it can be clearly seen that China’s beauty exports are currently dominated by color cosmetics brands.
According to the relevant person in charge of Juyi Group, cosmetics trends are changing rapidly, and new trends will attract consumers to try new products, which will become an opportunity for cosmetics brands to expand overseas markets. Skin care trends usually change more slowly, and the threshold for consumer acceptance is higher.
Next, domestic skin care brands are eager to go overseas, but going overseas is obviously not an easy task.
Different markets, different challenges
“When beauty brands go global, the problems they face are actually common. There are at least three problems that I think are fatal. The first is a human problem, and the second is cognitive. The third problem is product inventory and logistics management." Guo Xiruo said.
The first question involves the organizational structure. "Whether the person in charge of overseas markets has the ability to handle overseas business determines half of the success or failure of overseas business." Frequent personnel changes are not conducive to the advancement of overseas business, but this has become a problem for many domestic products and the United States. A common problem among makeup brands.
"As soon as the strategy is set, a new person in charge is appointed, and then you have to do it all over again. In this way, it is actually difficult to accumulate very good experience. At least in the Japanese market, frequent personnel changes will make your partners trust you. The feeling is greatly reduced. Moreover, many Chinese people do not say hello to their partners when they leave, which is even worse," Guo Xiruo said.
Regarding the issue of recognition, some brands are among the top three or five in the industry in China. They feel that they are doing very well and their business models are relatively mature, so they want to directly copy their business models overseas, hoping to be successful in a new era. The market has quickly grown into a fat man, or you may want to break the rules of the local market and make innovations, but it is not that simple.
"Chinese beauty brands generally value and like traffic. However, the traffic strategy may have opportunities in the Southeast Asian market, but it will not work in mature beauty markets such as Japan and South Korea." Guo Xiruo said.
The purchasing path of Japanese consumers is often to learn about a product through KOL, first go to Google or Yahoo to search for the brand, and understand the basic information. If there is no problem, then go to an offline store to experience it. After the experience, you may Just buy it offline, or place an order on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon.
"Instead of saying that I saw a popular live broadcast room recommending a product that looks good, is on discount, and the price is very low, and then I buy it directly. This does not work in Japan." Guo Xiruo said.
In Japan, beauty brands cannot achieve counterattack through a single breakthrough in the traffic of a certain platform. This is related to the distribution and nature of sales channels.
It is understood that there are three main sales channels for beauty products in Japan. One is third-party platforms (including Amazon Japan, Rakuten, qoo10, etc.), the other is large and small offline stores, and the third is brand official websites or independent websites ( Refers to a self-built website that does not rely on a third-party platform).
Guo Xiruo said that for a brand going overseas in Japan, the first stage is to enter the third-party platform. This step is the fastest and easiest. If you continue to develop, it depends on whether you choose to build offline stores or build a brand official website.
"If you choose to go offline, it would be very impressive to have 20,000 to 30,000 stores. But so far, no Chinese beauty brand can achieve this size; another option is to build an official brand website or independently There are many Japanese brands that are doing well on the website, and the sales of the brand's official website can reach 40 billion yen (about 2 billion yuan)." Guo Xiruo said.
He further said that in the Japanese market, it is completely acceptable for a company to become a dominant player on independent sites and dominate offline, but he has not seen any brand become dominant on third-party e-commerce platforms. "First of all, Japan does not have Tmall and JD.com, and platform traffic is very scattered. It is impossible to say that a brand does well on Amazon, that is a successful brand."
In the Korean market, Chinese brands also face challenges.
Yu Sheng (pseudonym), a beauty practitioner living in South Korea, told "Interface News·Entrepreneurship Frontier": "South Korea itself is a big country in cosmetics, and it also has many brands of its own. Foreign brands come to South Korea to develop the market. If they are not very famous, I think it will be very difficult.”
As far as Yu Sheng’s personal experience is concerned, he has not seen Chinese beauty brands in Korean duty-free shops, department stores and other places, but only listened to female colleagues talking about them. To "China's popular cosmetic Hua Xizi".
He further said that South Korea itself is a country with relatively traditional thinking. For example, they generally believe that domestic products are better, and local people have a high degree of trust in their own cosmetics.
In addition, overseas consumers’ prejudice against the quality of Chinese products is also an obstacle. Yu Sheng said that many Koreans used to think that Chinese products "look good but are not good to use."
However, this situation is changing.
"After Xiaomi entered South Korea, everyone stopped thinking that way." He said that Xiaomi's products are relatively popular in South Korea, including mobile phones, air purifiers, microwave ovens, electric bicycles, etc. Although they are not products in the beauty industry, they have also driven This has changed people’s impression of Chinese products.
"Chinese products have been greatly improved in terms of design, packaging and quality. I think it is a good change." He said.
is just the beginning
From an objective perspective, whether Chinese beauty brands go to mature markets such as Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States, or to emerging markets such as Vietnam, Indonesia, etc., it means different development directions and strategies. The challenges faced also vary widely.
However, overall, the progress of domestic cosmetics overseas is still in the early stages of development, and it is far from the stage where it can "establish a firm foothold".
"The 'Matthew Effect' in the market is becoming more and more obvious. There is a big gap between domestic brands and traditional big brands such as L'Oreal and Estee Lauder, which cannot be shaken in the short term. In addition, in the same market, domestic brands with similar positioning are very likely to They will face the risk of 'cannibalism'. In the long run, the labels of 'low price' and 'cost-effectiveness' will also hinder the development of Chinese beauty brands towards high-end. There are also challenges of product certification and compliance. It’s a very real problem.” Qian Yirui said.
In Guo Xiruo’s view, if domestic brands choose mature markets such as Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States, while obtaining longer-term brand benefits, a lot of effort saved by taking shortcuts in development will eventually have to be picked up again. .
Currently, domestic skin care brands are also embarking on their overseas journey. Skin care products are further away from fashion trends, and have higher requirements for technology, formula, ingredients and other product capabilities. It is generally believed in the industry that the threshold for skin care brands to go overseas is higher than that for makeup brands.
As a front-line beauty practitioner, Yu Sheng believes that if a skin care brand wants to enter the Korean market, some characteristics of the Korean market are worthy of attention.
"First of all, we should pay attention to the category of facial masks. In South Korea, regardless of boys or girls, almost everyone puts on a facial mask every day. If they have time, they will put on one in the morning and in the evening." Yu Sheng said.
Koreans are accustomed to purchasing cosmetics through offline stores. At oliveyoung, one of the most important beauty collection stores in Korea, “facial masks account for almost 20%."
Secondly, Korean skin care products are often sold in combinations. "European and American products are often sold individually or in sets of two, but Korean brands are often sold in combinations of water, lotion, and essence. Especially for office workers who have just entered society, buying suits is more affordable and is also a way to attract young people to buy.
These are all things that domestic skin care brands can learn from and refer to.
Just, in the long run, where will the characteristics and advantages of Chinese cosmetics in the world end?
Gerald Renner, secretary-general of the European Cosmetics Association, previously said in an interview with "China Cosmetics" magazine that when Japanese brands enter the international beauty market, they pay special attention to quality. Everything about the products is related to high quality, and the angle of Korean brands' efforts is Unexpected innovation.
By comparing Japanese and Korean cosmetics exported to Europe and the United States, Gerald Renner believes that the characteristics and advantages of Chinese cosmetics may be related to Chinese characteristic plant raw materials or traditional Chinese herbal resources. "This is a powerful strength that is unique to China and that no other country in the world has."
There is still a long way to go for Chinese cosmetics to go global. In addition to gaining new sales increases, what value will Chinese cosmetics ultimately contribute to the world?
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