600 stores closed
Innuendo is no longer in the limelight
Recalling the first Korean skin care product in his life, eight people in the ten post-90s would blurt out "Innisy Wind Chant".
When I was in college, there was an Innisfree shop in a nearby shopping mall, and the standing sign of the spokesperson Lee Min-ho was always standing at the door, taking a photo next to it, which was a rational and happy little star-chasing behavior.
Many people's first bottle of essence is a fat little green bottle; the first set of water milk is a transparent bottle of green tea series.
After graduating from work, I once passed by the previous store and found that it had long been closed, and the memories of my student days were gone.
Recently, I saw the news that Innisfree Fengyin announced that it would withdraw its stores on a large scale in the Chinese market.
After entering China in 2012, Innisfree Fengyin became very popular through two popular stars, Lee Min-ho and Lin Yun'er. At its peak, there were more than 800 stores nationwide, all over the city, with annual sales of up to 4 billion yuan.
In this store closure plan, only about 140 stores will be left, with a withdrawal rate of more than 80%.
Its parent company, Amorepacific, said it is optimizing the channels of the Innisfree brand, and will continue to adjust the number of stores in China in 2022, and focus more on its other mid-to-high-end brands and online fields.
How did the "abandoned" Innisfree wind chant go from red to over the years?
01
Celebrity standing and explosive essence
In the selection of spokespersons and store locations, Innisfree will especially capture the hearts of young people.
In 2012, China's first Innisfree Yindan brand store opened on Wujiang Road in Shanghai.
This is one of the favorite places for young people in Shanghai to visit, occupying the golden market entrance near the subway, the decoration is warm and small, and it is often crowded in the two years when it first opened.
South Korean actress Lin Yun'er, who has always been a natural and fresh image, has been the spokesperson for Innisfree since 2009, when many of her classic pictures were from advertising campaigns.
Innisfree set off a wave of "out of the circle" in China on November 25, 2015.
On this day, Innisfree opened its largest flagship store in Asia at Hongyi Plaza on Nanjing Road, because Lee Min-ho, the spokesperson for the phenomenon Korean drama "Inheritors" that has become popular throughout Asia, personally came to the store to celebrate, and crazy fans surrounded the store.
The first floor of the store sells beauty, the second floor is a café, and it has long been a popular punch card on Nanjing Road.
With this east wind of Korean dramas, In 2014, South Korea's cosmetics exports to China amounted to $598 million, and in 2015, it directly doubled to $1.088 billion, accounting for 40% of South Korea's global cosmetics exports.
That is, since then, Innisfree has begun to open stores wildly, not only in first-tier cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, but also in second- and third-tier cities, with more than 100 new stores opened every year, all selected in pedestrian streets, subway entrances and other places where young people gather in the bustling area.
As long as you see the eye-catching green wall, you know that it is Innisfree, and the erection of a humanoid idol sign at the entrance of the store to promote publicity has become its most obvious symbol.
The most memorable thing for everyone is the Innisfree skin care products that have been on fire in those years.
Priced at 100 yuan, the main refreshing and moisturizing "small green bottle" is the first bottle of essence on the dresser of many young girls.
The first lipstick I bought when shopping with my girlfriend was also because of the recommendation of the Innisfree staff, even if I came back and found that the color was not so suitable, I still put it in my makeup bag for a long time.
I still remember passing by the shop before Christmas one year, and found that the patch mask inside was discounted, which was only five or six yuan a piece, so I bought a few boxes to take back to the dormitory, and everyone took a shower together to apply the mask, which is one of the happy memories of the college era.
In an era when domestic products were not yet popular and chasing Korean makeup was still fashionable, Innisfree successfully captured a generation of young people.
02
Young people have more options
Although Innisfree has swept the Korean makeup memories of the post-90s student era, they have now entered or are about to enter the 30-year-old mark, and they will not always be loyal to the brand of the student era.
The rising post-00s have grown up on the Internet, and there are more cheap and easy-to-use domestic skin care products, and there are male love beans standing at the door to attract customers, and now they are also used by every family.
First of all, in the matter of buying skin care and cosmetics, young people are more "smart".
When it first entered China, Innisfree was focusing on "natural skin care" and targeting consumer groups for women aged 20-26.
But for young people who now attach importance to the sense of technology in skin care, "morning C and evening A" backwards, and receive beauty bloggers to plant grass every day, only eat the old Innisfree, the attraction is indeed not enough.
In addition to its mediocre moisturizing effect, it is the largest groove point of Innisfree.
Even the best-selling green tea water milk is frequently complained about after being used and has acne on the rotten face, although it is cheap but low cost-effective, resulting in a decline in word-of-mouth.
Nowadays, Innisfree fengyin does not have the progress of brand transformation, relying only on "naturalism" as the main concept, and no matter how much love beans can not spell the same type of products with greater wind.
Secondly, since 2017, the "Korean restriction order" has gradually receded the Korean Wave in China, and the impact of the epidemic has also declined with the performance of Innisfree.
At that time, a very common promotion method was to implant the same model in Korean dramas, but with the removal of a number of Korean dramas and variety shows from the domestic official platform, such opportunities were greatly reduced.
In 2019, Innisfree closed 40 loss-making stores in China, and after the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, the closure plan has accelerated significantly.
By the middle of 2021, Innisfree had closed more than 200 Stores in China, and Wujiang Road's first store in China disappeared from our sight at this time.
In 2020, Innisfree's operating income was only 348.6 billion won (about 2 billion yuan), which is less than half of the 770 billion won at its peak in 2016, and its operating profit plummeted to 700 million won (about 4.03 million yuan).
The most important thing in this era is a variety of skin care products that emphasize various effects, and smart young people will always choose the one with the best cost performance.
03
"Perfect makeup" is cold
Domestic goods take the opportunity to rise
The Korean makeup brands that were once popular and are now "declining" are not only Innisfree.
In that era of Korean dramas, cheap packaging and good-looking Korean makeup and skin care products swept the dressers of the post-80s and post-90s with this trend.
Korean celebrities emphasize perfect and hydrated makeup, which was once a popular effect among Chinese girls.
Who hasn't seen a few "Korean-style one-eyebrow" girlfriends around when they were young? Lip biting makeup and watery lip makeup that show vitality, there have also been a variety of tutorials by beauty bloggers.
But in recent years, the definition of beauty has long been not so-called perfect, and a number of Korean makeup brands have been cold in China.
At the end of August 2018, The Pose Shop, which also focuses on natural health, closed all offline stores in China and only retained the online market.
Last March, Pink Princess-style beauty brand Itti House closed all offline stores in China, leaving only counters in the collection store "Colorist".
Innisfree's "star products" have hardly changed since their opening, and they have passed for young people who like the new and hate the old.
At the same time, many domestic beauty brands seize the market at approachable prices, who would reject domestic products with lower prices and better results?
Innisfree' English name comes from the quiet islands of the lake in Irish folklore.
The poet Yeats's famous work "The lake isle of innisfree" describes the idyllic, quiet and undisturbed life of the island. Advocating the concept of environmental protection and focusing on the "naturalistic" Innisfree style is also taking its own meaning.
Although the name takes the fresh "Buddhist" route, in the increasingly competitive beauty market, Innisfree is afraid that it can no longer be "Buddhist" like its name.
Text, Editor/Pineapple Dog
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