On July 26, the beauty brand Maybelline New York ("Maybelline"), a beauty brand affiliated to L'Oreal (LRLCY.US) Group, was revealed to be closing offline stores across the country one after another, leaving only Watsons counters offline.
In response to Jiemian News, Maybelline said, "In order to adapt to the changes in the market and consumer needs, Maybelline New York has gradually carried out a strategic transformation of traditional offline channels since 2020, so as to realize an online and offline experience store that integrates and interacts, so as to bring diversity to consumers. Midea’s shopping experience will continue to create stronger high-quality items in the future.”
From 2018 to 2020, Maybelline has successively withdrawn from major supermarket channels such as Carrefour and Walmart, then abandoned department stores, and now closes single-product stores one after another.
According to L’Oreal Group’s 2021 financial report, although Maybelline’s mass consumer goods sector still ranks second with a revenue growth rate of 4.5%, it is still far behind the 21.3% growth rate of the luxury product sector, which includes brands such as Helena.
Affordable domestic products surpass
Maybelline ranked ninth in Tmall's top ten makeup sales on "Double 11" in 2020, followed by domestic brands Perfect Diary and Huaxizi.
Hard to beat high-end brands
In 2021, Maybelline has fallen out of the top ten makeup sales on "Double 11", with the first and second high-end brands YSL and Estee Lauder respectively.
A
The counter was abandoned?
Maybelline landed in the Chinese market in the 1990s, merged into the L'Oreal Group the following year, and quickly occupied the Chinese makeup market.
At the beginning of 2009, Maybelline had 12,870 sales outlets in 660 cities in China, ranking first among all L'Oreal brands.
These sales outlets not only have special counters, but also a large number of supermarkets and hypermarkets.
According to the report of the US WRI research company, in 2011, the brand user loyalty of Maybelline in China was as high as 75.31%.
So much so that the L'Oreal Group called out the slogan "Let every Chinese woman have at least one Maybelline lipstick".
By 2018, Maybelline began to cancel offline stores on a large scale.
In May 2018, a number of media reported that Maybelline had withdrawn from supermarkets and hypermarkets on a large scale. The official explanation was that the sales in these channels were mediocre, coupled with the high cost of entry fees and barcode fees, which made Maybelline unaffordable. rise.
In 2020, Maybelline once again reported the news of withdrawing from the cabinet. The official response at that time was that the withdrawal of the cabinet was a strategic transformation of offline channels.
A research report by Tianfeng Securities may reveal that Maybelline has been reducing offline channels since 2018.
The report pointed out that from 2011 to 2016, the share of cosmetics in the KA channel (comprehensive hypermarket) fell from 34.1% to 26.9%; while the channel that increased significantly was the CS channel (e-commerce and specialty stores).
According to the data of "Future Beauty", in a channel survey of department store shopping centers in 51 cities across the country, it was found that as of April 2022, the total number of cosmetic counters had decreased from 15,415 in March 2019 to 11,365, and 4,050 in four years. The counter disappeared.
Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, told reporters, "Currently, the cosmetics counter channel is actually being replaced by e-commerce, and e-commerce has become the most important channel. In this context, companies like Maybelline that used offline channels to expand their visibility need to learn to transform.”
Netizens: part of youth
According to the data, Maybelline is an old American beauty brand with a history of more than 100 years.
When the brand was established in 1917, it produced the world's first modern eye cosmetic - Maybelline New York Block Mascara; it was acquired by L'Oreal Group in 1996 and officially became a brand of L'Oreal; in 2004 it was officially renamed "Maybelline New York" , the headquarters moved from Memphis to New York.
After entering the Chinese market, Maybelline positioned mass cosmetics, which is the enlightenment of countless Chinese consumers to makeup. The slogan "Beauty comes from the heart, beauty comes from Maybelline New York" has spread all over the streets and is even called "Beauty comes from the heart, and beauty comes from Maybelline New York". The student party's first choice for cosmetics in life".
According to a report by market analysis agency CCTV Market Research, from 2015 to 2019, Maybelline has been the No. 1 brand in China's color cosmetics market.
However, as competition in the mass makeup market continues to intensify, and domestic makeup brands from Japan, South Korea and China appear one after another, Maybelline's market share has dropped from 30.9% to 23.3% year by year.
After the news that "Maybelline will close offline stores in China" came out, netizens left messages saying, "Maybelline eyeliner and makeup remover are pretty good", "Bought his mascara seventy-nine years ago", "Maybelline" It is also a part of youth" "The tears of the times~".
C
Is it possible to change the battle line once and for all?
Withdraw the cabinet offline and move Maybelline’s position online.
Maybelline used to have stellar online results.
In the 2017 Tmall Double Eleven pre-sale popularity list, Maybelline ranked first.
However, judging from the major sales lists in the past two years, Maybelline's online performance in China is also lackluster.
Maybelline ranked ninth in Tmall's top ten makeup sales on "Double 11" in 2020, followed by domestic brands Perfect Diary and Huaxizi.
In 2021, Maybelline has fallen out of the top ten makeup sales on "Double 11", with the first and second high-end brands YSL and Estee Lauder respectively.
It is understood that this is the first time Maybelline has dropped out of the top ten.
In the "618" promotion in 2022, there will be no trace of Maybelline in the top ten of Tmall Beauty.
Among the turnover of Jingdong's fragrance watercolor makeup category, Maybelline's turnover is about 5.47 million yuan, ranking after 20.
The first place Dior’s turnover was 45.64 million yuan, and the second Huaxizi’s turnover was 22.44 million yuan.
When the financial report for the first quarter of this year was released, Ye Hongmu, CEO of L'Oreal, the parent company of Maybelline, said in the financial report that "L'Oreal pursues a high-end and innovation strategy", indicating that the group is tilting towards the mid-to-high-end market.
L'Oreal Group's 2021 financial report shows that the revenue of the mass consumer goods department where Maybelline is located increased by 4.5% to 12.23 billion euros, while the luxury products department with brands such as Lancome and Helena increased by 21.3%, recording revenue of 12.35 billion euros.
Just as Maybelline is gradually closing offline independent stores, L'Oreal's luxury beauty brand Carita officially announced its entry into the Chinese market during the same period, and will open boutiques and counters in Nanjing Deji Plaza and Beijing SKP.
An investor told reporters that the current increase in upstream costs such as raw materials and production and sales has eroded the income space of affordable commodities. Using the existing brand influence and perfect system, it will expand to mid-to-high-end brands with greater income space. Conducive to stabilizing business performance and maintaining a growth foundation.
Overtaken by cheap domestic products and difficult to compete with high-end brands, Maybelline is in an embarrassing situation.
"The reason why Maybelline's No. 1 position in color cosmetics is difficult to maintain is that the entire Chinese economy is booming, and a large number of domestic brands are emerging. The beauty industry actually has a low threshold. Fierce market competition has made some old-fashioned companies in the past. It is difficult to attract users.” Jiang Han said that for Maybelline, if it wants to make outstanding achievements, it needs to consider how to highlight its market influence and constantly introduce new products.
Chengdu Business Daily-Red Star News reporter Yu Yao intern reporter Cheng Luyang
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