Domestic makeup, can’t be a ＂big name＂？

Text/Yan Mengying

An eyebrow pencil from 79 yuan sent Li Jiaqi to the forefront.

On the evening of September 10th, when Li Jiaqi introduced the eyebrow pencil of Hua Xizi, a domestic beauty brand, in a live event, he refuted the message that netizens were "getting more and more expensive" and asked consumers to "find their own reasons. After so many years, the salary has not risen. Have you worked hard?"

A word stirred up a thousand waves. Li Jiaqi later sent a long apology in the middle of the night, but obviously this failed to calm the anger of netizens. Li Jiaqi’s Weibo account lost 600,000 yuan overnight.

Back to the controversial products, some netizens think that it is really not expensive to send a 79 yuan eyebrow pencil with two replacement clothes. However, some netizens spit out that the price-performance ratio of domestic cosmetics is getting lower and lower, and the weight of grams is more expensive than gold, so they are "unattainable".

From the highlight in 2019 to the downturn in 2023, the domestic make-up industry has encountered two days of ice and fire in just five years. Is the domestic makeup really too expensive to sell, or is it that consumers no longer take out their wallets easily?

More expensive than international brands?

It is an indisputable fact that domestic cosmetics are rising in price.

As early as February of this year, Li Jiaqi once "vaccinated" netizens in the live broadcast room: "Domestic products are also going to raise prices. Now every brand comes to the meeting and says,’ We are going to raise prices’."

Searching on social platforms with "domestic products" and "make-up" as keywords can be found that since last year, all kinds of voices of voicing price increases have been heard. Some products have doubled in price in just one or two years; Some products have the same price, but less capacity; There are also some domestic products whose prices now match or even exceed those of international brands.

Of course, not only domestic make-up, but also foreign make-up brands are increasing in price. Since February this year, international beauty brands such as Estee Lauder, Dior, Lancome and Guerlain have all raised the prices of all or some products, ranging from 10 yuan to 400 yuan.

However, careful consumers find that although the overall price of some domestic cosmetic products is lower than that of international brands, their capacity is smaller. After careful calculation, Grameen is more expensive than those "big brands".

Take the eyebrow pencil as an example, the eyebrow pencil with the highest sales volume in Uemura’s Tmall flagship store. At present, the price of the 3.4g capacity model is 230 yuan, equivalent to 67.6 yuan/g; The price of YSL’s 1.3g eyebrow pencil is 270 yuan, that is, 207.7 yuan/g. The domestic brand Hualuoliya 0.05g eyebrow pencil is sold in 18 yuan, namely 360 yuan/g; Hua Xizi’s 0.08g Shouwu Eyebrow Pencil is sold in 69 yuan, which is equivalent to 431.25 yuan /g with a replacement of the same capacity.

The same situation also occurs in cosmetics such as lipstick, eyeliner gel pen and loose powder.

Of course, not all domestic make-up brands are unaffordable. According to the definition in Insight Report on Digital Trend of High-end Cosmetics Market in China in 2022, the reference price segment of high-end cosmetics starts from 200 yuan at least.

Search for "make-up" in Taobao, and search for 200 yuan as the highest price and the lowest price respectively. The number of products is 340,000 and 30,000 respectively, that is to say, the prices of most make-up products are below 200 yuan.

Among them, the reference data provided by Taobao platform shows that 60% of consumers choose cosmetics with a price of 11-189 yuan, 9% choose cosmetics with a price of 189-649 yuan, and 30% choose cosmetics with an ultra-low price of 0-11 yuan.

From 2018 to 2019, when domestic cosmetics "made their fortune", both publicity strategies and consumers’ cognition regarded domestic brands as substitutes for international brands, and pursued to spend less money to buy products of the same quality or slightly inferior.

However, after several years, it is still difficult to evaluate whether several domestic beauty brands in deus ex are "good quality", but "cheap" is no longer true. It is difficult to persuade former consumers to "progress" together.

After the dark hour

Consumer caution and dissatisfaction are directly reflected in some figures.

In 2022, domestic makeup encountered a dark moment. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the total retail sales of cosmetics in 2022 was 393.6 billion yuan, down 4.5% year-on-year, which was the first negative growth since 2017. According to the incomplete statistics of Yimei, the service platform of beauty and fashion consumer goods industry, since 2021, there are about 14 cutting-edge makeup brands that have declared bankruptcy/clearance/production suspension.

Although the scale of the beauty market increased in the first half of 2023, the growth rate was only 3.5%, and it failed to save the cutting-edge enterprises struggling in the past year. In the last month, two domestic make-up brands, Kale Shuo and Fuqi, announced their closure.

In the past five or six years, it can be found that most domestic cosmetics have adopted a "short, flat and fast" style: countless joint names, fancy packaging, fast-growing SKUs, deep binding with well-known anchors, and a large number of KOL marketing.

Obviously, this combination boxing has made many domestic cosmetics quickly break into the cognitive field of domestic consumers, and quickly captured a group of young people who have a good impression on domestic products with the concepts and designs such as "Oriental Aesthetics".

Although consumers can pay for exquisite packaging and concepts, it is not sustainable. Judging from the results, the quality of some domestic make-up products may be far less than that of marketing rhetoric.

Judging from this year’s sales data, some consumers choose to return to the embrace of international brands. According to the TOP brand list of 618 Tik Tok beauty category, international brands have made amazing growth, including the key to skin, YSL/ Saint Laurent and MAC/ Charm, which increased by 86.5%, 30.818% and 92.68% respectively.

From the inside of the industry, after several years of competition, new and old players with insufficient strength are gradually kicked out, and the industry enters a reshuffle period; The international big names with deeper accumulation have also begun to "wake up" and have started live broadcast and marketing. In the same battlefield, whoever has profound internal skills will be able to win the highlands.

Of course, some domestic make-up also realize the importance of cultivating internal strength. Several brands of head make-up have also spent a lot of money on R&D. From the marketing war to the R&D war, domestic make-up began to adhere to the "long-term doctrine" and went to the second half. On the other hand, if the international market is laid out in the future, competitive products will inevitably appear. Small profits but quick turnover is fine, but brand value is equally important.

Some domestic brands are on the way to high-end, but at least at the present stage, consumers have not been able to experience or accept the "new story" told by domestic cosmetics.

If domestic make-up wants to go on for a longer time, it may take a longer time to explain it to the once enthusiastic consumers.

(Proofreading: Yan Jingning)