In recent years, the aesthetic rise of the upper half of the face has gradually become one of the wind directions of the beauty economy. As an "eye lipstick", the beautiful pupil has become a beauty dark horse, and the market is very hot.
The essence of the beautiful pupil is contact lenses, but with the addition of a pigment layer, there can be different colors and pupil colors, which also just caters to the consumption needs of the young generation in pursuit of personality and appearance. This small change has exploded into a new commercial track.
According to Tsingshan Capital data, in the past five years, the compound annual growth value of China's beauty pupil industry has reached 41%, and terminal sales will exceed 20 billion yuan in 2020.
Compared with the penetration rate of more than 30% in European and American countries, the penetration rate of China's U.S. pupil market is only 7.5%, and it has at least 4 times the growth space. According to the Mob Research Institute, by 2025, the market size of China's color pupil industry will reach 50 billion yuan, which is expected to become the most important market in the world.
According to the "2021 China Beauty Pupil Contact Lens Industry Analysis Report", the number of myopia patients in mainland China will reach 700 million in 2020, of which the prevalence of myopia in the 16-24-year-old group will reach 94%. According to CBNData data, about 70% of consumers who buy contact lenses will buy beautiful pupils.
This series of data shows that the potential of China's beauty pupil market can be expected, and the growth space is huge.
If the A side of industry growth is prosperity, the B side must be barbaric.
Up to now, there are 1500 U.S. hitomi-related enterprises in the mainland, of which about 84% have been established in the past 5 years. This is still the number above the table, and under the table belongs to the U.S. pupil agents, the number of employees is difficult to count, the scale of business is more difficult to count, and the quality problem is more worrying.
Most U.S. hitomi businesses were founded in recent years. / Check
Attack on the capital markets
Flooded underground jungle
Today's beauty market, it is most appropriate to describe it as a mixture of fish and dragons.
Although no one can occupy a significant advantage in market share, but you sing I on the stage, the major brands want to make their sales and fame top.
Take Moody, a new force in the United States that was only established in 2009, as an example, and it has completed 5 rounds of financing in less than 3 years. 4iNLOOK also completed two rounds of financing in almost a month.
Moody's financing history, 5 times in the 3 years of its establishment. / Check
According to the relevant data released by the "Tmall Contact Lens Industry Population Insight White Paper", compared with the 20% repurchase rate of lipstick, the repurchase rate of Mei Hitomi is as high as 30%-50%. Supply outstrips demand, becoming the basic market pattern of this industry.
But on the other hand, because the beauty pupil is close to the eyeball, which is essentially a medical device, the manufacturer of the beautiful pupil must not only have relevant qualifications, but also have considerable research and development strength. This means that the production capacity of the beautiful pupil is very limited.
At present, the relatively mature supply chain enterprises are mainly distributed in South Korea and Taiwan, and there are few qualified foundries in Chinese mainland. This has led to a single source of new forces in the United States, it is difficult to take a differentiated route from product research and development, and they have to occupy more market share through price wars.
At present, many brands of daily disposable beauty pupils, the sales unit price on the e-commerce platform is even as low as about 10 yuan. The wholesale price is lower, and with such a low cost price, it is difficult to imagine whether its quality can be up to standard.
This is still above the countertop, and below the countertop, the water is even more muddy.
Due to the limited production capacity of regular U.S. pupils, it is far from meeting market demand, and U.S. pupil agents came into being.
According to the "Rule of Law Daily", there is a team of Mei Hitomi agents who are known as "complete three certificates", and when consumers question the qualifications of the products they sell, they all use the same screenshot of the "medical device business license" to cope. As for the nuances between products, "consumers don't have the professional ability to identify them."
Some industry insiders said that in order to promote products, hitomi generations often "eight immortals across the sea, each showing their magic", many will be under the banner of the same model of stars to sell, which is already the most basic operation. High-level operations are set up in the circle of friends, such as sending pet adoption posts to attract attention and creating "loving" personalities, so as to establish psychological identity with potential customers.
The so-called star of the same model, the production qualification is unknown, do you dare to buy?
Under the sales priority strategy, the source of goods and even the quality of goods are left behind. Hitomi generations often claim that they are imported goods, but according to senior practitioners, the so-called imported hitomis they handle are actually shipped from China.
Previously, some media exposed a small factory in Yangzhou that sold more than 1.2 million pairs of fake pupil products in more than 4 months without any qualifications. Knowing that the last shopkeeper who has been engaged in the beauty pupil industry for many years said that the cost price of domestic labeled imitations is only 2-8 yuan.
Under the rise of market dregs, the beauty pupil is only about beauty for consumers, and it is only about money for businesses, but as for its medical device attributes, no one has mentioned it, as if it is irrelevant.
Beauty is not just about beauty
It's more about medicine
Some analysts believe that China's beauty pupil terminal market has roughly experienced a "development trilogy": from medical supplies to consumer goods, from consumer goods to FMCG, from FMCG to beauty and beauty.
Today, it has clearly evolved to the stage of beauty and beauty. But beauty and beauty is only the appearance, beauty pupil is essentially a medical device, why? Because it fits closely to your eyeballs and is the most sensitive cornea, which indicator is not qualified, it may cause eye diseases and even blindness.
According to Guangdong TV, in 2019, there was a Miss Wu of Dalian who wore beautiful pupils for two consecutive years, and sometimes forgot to take them when sleeping, resulting in excessive wear of the cornea, becoming "frosted glass", looking at things are paste.
There are also those who have slept and turned to the back of the eyeball to threaten the retina, and the beauty pupil fragments in the eye that need to be surgically removed. Of course, these examples are caused by improper wearing of beautiful pupils, especially when sleeping without removing them.
So is it not enough to remove the beautiful pupil in time when sleeping, and everything will be fine? Non also.
Beauty pupils, in the final analysis, are still medical devices. /Visual China
Since the beautiful pupil fits closely to the eye area, many indicators are related to eye health.
One of the most critical indicators is oxygen permeability. If the eye is the window of the mind, then the cornea is the window of the eye. The cornea is a layer of transparent tissue, and because of its transparency, there is no capillary distribution inside. In other words, the respiration of corneal cells can only be done by direct contact with air.
If the oxygen permeability of the pupil is not up to standard, it will lead to poor breathing of corneal cells, which will cause corneal lesions in the long run and induce the risk of blindness. Many hitomis tend to ignore oxygen permeability when advertising the beautiful pupils they sell, and use water content to confuse the substitution, which is actually a completely different concept.
In addition, the location of the pigment layer of the beautiful pupil is also important. If the pigment layer is on the surface of the beautiful pupil, it means that the pigment will be in direct contact with the cornea, which will bring great health risks, and the beauty pupil using the pigment wrapping technology can avoid direct contact between the pigment layer and the cornea, which will be relatively healthy.
Finally, it is necessary to pay attention to the base arc of the pupil, that is, the degree of curvature, the larger the base arc, the more flat the lens is, and it may be easy to fall off when wearing; and the smaller the base arc, the more curved the lens is, and it is easy to have a foreign body feeling when wearing.
How do you determine if the base arc of the lens is suitable for you? Of course, you still have to undergo formal medical examination to know your corneal curvature and corneal diameter.
Accept the medical examination, and then choose the appropriate parameters of the beautiful pupil to wear, is really scientific. /Visual China
It can be seen that the beauty of the pupil is not as simple as applying a lipstick, but a very professional medical device, so it requires a very strict regulatory policy.
Regulation is in place
The ball goes to the consumer side
In fact, China's regulation is not strict.
At present, the mainland has included the United States into the third class of medical devices for supervision, sellers must hold a business license, medical device business license to operate legally, if sold on the e-commerce platform, but also need the Internet drug information service qualification certificate.
The so-called third class of medical devices, which is the highest level of medical devices, refers to medical devices implanted in the human body, used to support and maintain life, have potential dangers to the human body, and must strictly control their safety and effectiveness. Also in this category are implantable pacemakers, medical MRI equipment, disposable sterile syringes, disposable infusion sets, CT equipment, etc.
Beauty is the watch, medical treatment is the inside. /Visual China
In view of the nature of mei hitomi's medical equipment, as early as 2015, the new Advertising Law has clearly stipulated that "the four types of advertisements of medical treatment, drugs, medical devices and health foods shall not use advertising spokespersons as recommendations and certificates".
This has forced Mi hitomi's sales channels to turn to social media, and in order to avoid the platform becoming a gathering place for underground gray and black production, many social media also have strict restrictions on mi hitomi advertising .
Mainstream short video platforms do not allow the U.S. hitch brand to do live broadcasting, the B station hanging link will be restricted, and the U.S. hitomi merchants of the Little Red Book need to open a white list...
On the other hand, there are also many compliance thresholds for imports. In fact, countries also have very strict restrictions on the export of U.S. pupils -
Japanese law strictly prohibits the sale of contact lenses above the monthly throw, and the reason for prohibiting the sale is simple, because long-term wear can lead to hypoxia of the cornea and even blindness. Moreover, South Korea and the United States have long realized the harm of annual throwing and will hardly sell it.
Strict regulation on a global scale should have put the U.S. pupil market on the right track. However, between the strong market, the strong consumer demand, the tight supply and the booming market, the hitomi generation broke ground and turned the U.S. pupil transaction into a private behavior, which brought great difficulty to regulation.
Illegally selling medical devices is an offence. /Screenshot of Weibo
On the one hand, social platforms should practice the main responsibility, and should promptly check and ban the pupil account that illegally sells "three noes" beauty pupil products. But on the other hand, it is better to block than to loosen, and blindly blocking is not a long-term solution.
Since the consumer demand is strong, it can also be said that the ball has reached the consumer's side, after all, their eyes should be loved. Some health loss can be reversed, such as fat can lose weight; but eye problems are not trivial, can not be short-sighted for a lifetime.
For supervision, while strongly punishing gray and black production, it can also encourage compliant manufacturers to make technological breakthroughs and make up for the production capacity gap with the light of domestic goods, which can also inhibit the barbaric growth of the hitomi generation and return the market to health.