CBO reporter Zhang Zhao
The selection bandwidth of CS channels is getting narrower and narrower. This is a pain point, but there are also business opportunities.
On the occasion of the Beauty Promotion of the March 8th Festival, it is another two scenes - lively online and deserted offline.
On the one hand, the first day of pre-sales of head anchor Li Jiaqi reached 2.825 billion yuan, and the data far exceeded the same period. On the one hand, more and more shop owners began to give up doing large-scale sales activities on the March 8th Festival.
This not only reflects the current embarrassment faced by cosmetics stores, but also reveals the fact that the "holiday promotion" seems to be drifting away from the line. The pain point behind it is that CS channels are now difficult to attract consumers to participate in the promotion.
For traditional C S stores, it is difficult for cutting-edge brands to enter, and traditional brands cannot sell sales is becoming a stubborn disease.
01
live broadcast
"Crushing" the last straw of the line promotion
"In the past, festivals such as March 8th, National Day, and Eleventh Were all nodes of centralized consumption, and now, the promotion can never go back to the past." Wu Limin, general manager of Liaoning Liaoyang Lido Cosmetics Store, analyzed that there are three reasons for this situation, one is that the impact of the epidemic is still continuing; the second is that the channels are diversified, and the disadvantages of offline are highlighted; third, after the rise of live broadcasting, consumers enjoy preferential treatment all the time, and it is difficult to attract them into the store.
From the consumer's point of view, today, there is no longer a need to wait for a discount at a certain time, but to enjoy the offer anytime, anywhere.
"Live e-commerce is a catalyst for the disorderly expansion of brands, and although some brands are proposing online control, it has not actually had a substantial effect." Wu Limin said.
For example, many beauty brands propose to supply by channel, but often the main products with the same function, but there is a difference in packaging, if the price online is lower, consumers are still willing to buy online. At the same time, although the brand insists that there is a distinction in the price of online and offline products, the same 200 yuan shopping, online "buy one get five" and "buy one get eight free", obviously more than offline giveaways, is also an important factor to attract consumers to buy online.
"CS shops are like entering an 'dead loop.'" Some chain store owners helplessly told the "Cosmetics Finance Online" reporter that first of all, the epidemic affected the decline in passenger flow, the decline in passenger flow led to the impact on performance, and the slow growth of performance did not dare to rush to new products, and it was more difficult to attract new customers without new products. "In terms of brand policy, the inability to perform leads to a low policy tilt, and the policy reduction support leads to a decrease in store profits, a double 'dead cycle'."
Even if some stores "bite their teeth" to support the new, the speed of the new is far from keeping up with consumer demand. "Due to the drive of live broadcasting and online, the brand's popularity has become faster, usually when a product is on fire online, and when the store is introduced, another new product is on fire again." The above-mentioned store owner believes that when the store can not continue to update products that can meet the needs of consumers, it will cause two endings, young consumers are not interested in the store, and old customers will be attracted by other channels.
02
Hard to choose!
New sharp can not come in, the old brand is difficult to attract customers
At present, CS channels, it is difficult to have a brand that can be called the absolute main force of sales, many brands that started from CS channels have already begun to shift camps, and some brands account for more than 80% of the online.
"Brands change their play, and offline becomes the 'neglected' side. Some brands used to have salespeople patrolling stores, but now it's almost hard to see. Wu Limin said that some brands that try to exert their strength online, because they have not performed well, want to return to the offline, and the offline channels are not interested in these brands at this time.
Online discounts and disorderly competition have also overdrawn brand power. At the beginning of 2020, when the epidemic was the most serious, the low-cost live broadcast of a domestic brand caused many channel vendors in the industry to complain, and in the subsequent cooperation, the channel vendors would intentionally avoid such brands.
Old brands can't sell, can the emerging cutting-edge brands in recent years bring customer flow to CS stores? The answer is no.
At present, most of the new brands are mainly based on online sales, and occasionally the brands that lay out offline stores are also the preferred new retail stores, and the relatively traditional CS stores are basically not in their options.
In the downtown of a city in the northwest, the reporter saw that a chain store with a history of more than 20 years saw that there were up to 7,000 SKUs in the store, and the display was still "outdated" domestic products, and it was difficult to find products that could make young consumers have shopping impulses. The owner of the store helplessly said that he could only increase the proportion of household necessities to maintain profits, so that the store would not go out of business, and there was no other way.
Why do cutting-edge brands not favor traditional CS stores? One of the representatives of the new species of beauty retail, Xi Yan, its general manager Shi Qiwei pointed out that there may be problems behind the channel sharing and cooperation model.
As we all know, in the past, the cooperation between CS channels and brands was mostly connected through middleman agents, and brands, agents, and CS stores could get an inherent share of profits, as long as the business has been insisted on doing, everyone has money to earn.
"The new brand may not want to go through the agent, but directly give the goods to the store, but the store owner is accustomed to the traditional cooperation model, and the new brand and the traditional store have not yet found a balance between each other in terms of rationalizing profits." Shi Qiwei said.
Taking Xi ran as an example, most of the cutting-edge brands cooperated by stores are "buyout" cooperation, and the sales performance of products in the store is driven by Xi Ran's own sales and operational ideas.
03
Channel exclusive supply, direct supply
"It looks beautiful"
In fact, brands are not intent on solving the problem of cargo control in the past. Foreign brands and well-known local brands have launched products exclusively for CS channels, and have also introduced many control measures for online prices.
There are even brands that create a "front store and backyard" model with exclusive products, and launch a standardized service experience process to help stores better serve customers and promote conversion.
However, the comprehensive reporter ran the market to learn the situation, this road has achieved little effect, so far it has not been completely through.
Even the Yalijie model, which once helped many small and medium-sized stores to move towards large-scale chains, now has the same voice in the CS channel. In recent years, Yalijie has made a number of changes to the current situation of the channel, upgraded the Yalijie model version 2.0, hoping to provide new retail solutions for CS channels that are truly suitable for the transformation and upgrading of stores with new functions.
"Yalijie's products are very good, and there is no problem with the model, after all, there have been so many classic cases in the CS channel." Only live broadcasting, e-commerce and other channels have become the main battlefield of beauty retail, offline stores and then rely solely on selling goods, it is difficult to break through, must combine their own advantages, which is also the reason why many stores are currently re-operating the backyard. There are Yalijie cooperation channel providers said.
It is worth mentioning that in the face of the current situation, many CS stores do not "lie flat". In addition to creating a "front store and backyard", a number of traditional old stores have started a new store model of "beauty +" to attract consumers with a new service and product structure. Other stores are actively introducing "new, strange and special" products to divert traffic, trying to grab more young consumers.